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Canon Printer Error Message-"more than one ink installed"

July 3, 2008 by debbie T | Printers

I have a Canon Pixma MP500 all-in-one printer, and I have been receiving sporadic error messages. Either an ink is missing or “Error Number : 1681 More than one ink tank of the following color is installed. Magenta [8] Use only one ink tank per color at a time.” – both errors point to the Magenta ink tank.

It is temporarily repaired by removing the magenta ink, and seating it back into place. The printer works again, and a few days later, the error appears.

Today, it was particularly stubborn. I reseated the magenta ink tank several times, and when it wouldn’t work, I turned to google. It appears that a lot of others are having the same issue with Canon printers.

I decided to call the Canon technical support. sigh. A lot of good that did. Because the printer was almost two years old (purchased in Aug 2006), they would have to charge me $10 to troubleshoot the problem. Oh but the good news is, he wouldn’t charge me if he couldn’t fix it. Well, of course it would probably be TEMPORARILY fixed, but that wouldn’t help in the long term.

I hung up with tech support and opened the ink compartment again. This time, I reseated all the ink cartridges, and that seemed to fix it for now.

After reading some of the other problems others were having, it appears a lot were using refilled or 3rd party ink. I learned my lesson with the Epson, and will only buy official Canon ink.

I think it just may be time for a new printer. Shameful really. I guess 2 years is long enough for printers to last. sigh. Oh well, those new Kodak printers with cheap ink look tempting. I will look into them!

There are 7 comments

  1. review for this problem:
    it is caused by short circuit in carriage part. visit http://www.ij-forum.blogspot.com for canon printer troubleshooting.
    regards,

    Comment by dr.canon on July 10th, 2008

  2. I only use Canon ink, and have the same problems. It certainly does not give me an incentive to keep using very expensive Canon ink when this happens. The ink cartridge that my Canon MP500 claims it is a problem with is full of ink. In my view this is fraud. I am never ever again to buy brand ink cartridges.

    Comment by Mette on August 20th, 2008

  3. I have got the same error, except it says it every time I try to print a document. I have only used canon brand cartridges so I have no idea how this could’ve happened. I hope it gets sorted when I replace all the cartridges. Sucks to be us 😉

    Comment by Pieter on August 29th, 2008

  4. what is a 5100 error message on th MP450

    Comment by Mary on October 16th, 2008

  5. It appears my problem has fixed itself. I put in a new magenta ink cartridge, and even since then, it has been error free.

    Mary, I don’t know what that error message is. Have you tried searching on google for it?

    Comment by debbie T on October 16th, 2008

  6. I have a Canon iP4200. It will be 3 yrs in April. I began to have this problem a year ago and now it happens about every month. Usually, it happens after using for a while but now I have a brand new cartridge that won’t work. All tech support will do is send me a free cartridge of whatever color it is but in the meantime, I am unable to print anything! Unfortunately, I love Canon printers and support so I’ll probably get another Canon soon.

    Comment by Lottylee on January 19th, 2009

  7. Hey Lottylee, It’s funny, I haven’t experienced that problem in awhile. Since I changed the cartridges. Who knows! But it seems like my fix was a new cartridge, speaking of which, I need to order some from Amazon!

    Good luck with your problem!

    Comment by debbie T on January 19th, 2009