Why My Brother Printer is Not Detecting Ink?

If you had refilled a used cartridge instead of using a new Brother cartridge, your printer would not recognize it. The only solution in this case is to buy a new Brother cartridge.

However, if you’ve bought a new toner cartridge but your printer still isn’t recognizing it and giving Cannot Detect error, there’s a chance that you may not have removed the protective cover from the cartridge or your printer’s memory needs to be reset.

So the first thing to do is to check the protective strip or tape on the cartridge. It should be completely removed otherwise, your Brother printer won’t be able to recognize it.

Did you turn off your Brother printer before installing the new toner cartridge? Well, it’s not recommended.

So, here what you should do now:

1. Remove the cartridge.
2. Turn off your printer, and unplug it.
3. After 10 minutes, plug it back in and turn it On.
4. When your Brother printer starts up, install the cartridge.

If your Brother printer still fails to detect the new cartridge, reset the printer memory or the printer itself

Reset your Printer Memory

Although Brother printers can detect the ink levels in the cartridge, sometimes, they fail. When it happens, the printer thinks that the ink installed in it is empty and thus displays a Cannot Detect error message.

To fix this, you need to manually reset your Brother printer memory by following these steps:

1. First, remove the new ink cartridge from your printer, and install the old one.
2. Keep it installed for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the old ink cartridge and install the new one again.

If this was the cause of the error, then your Brother printer should recognize and detect the ink now.

If this does not work, then you might need to soft reset your printer.

Soft Reset your Brother Printer

Here’s how to soft reset your Brother printer:

1. Disconnect it from the wall outlet.
2. Now, press and hold the power button on your printer again to clear its cache.
3. Wait for 15 minutes and then plug it back in, and turn it On.

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If you are using new branded Brother cartridge and none of the above methods work, I’d recommend contacting Brother support for assistance.

Got any question about this guide? Feel free to ask me.