My Printer will not Recognise my Canon Compatible Ink Cartridges what should I do?

Sometimes when we insert a compatible or non-original ink cartridge into a Canon printer, it’s likely that the printer will detect this and give an error message to that effect. The message may be ‘non-original cartridge detected’ or non-original Canon cartridge detected’, either way it won’t let you proceed with printing.

The first thing you can do is remove the cartridge and try re-inserting it to see if the printer will recognise it, if it still not recoginise the cartridge then simply hold down the stop button (this is the button with the triangle inside a circle) for 5 seconds. This will disable the printer’s cartridge recognition facility and you should be able to print happily without any further interruption. It may be that the ink volume will not display after you have done this (although sometimes it will anyway) but that is a minor inconvenience when you weigh up the savings on the cost of the ink cartridges. If the printer says the cartridge is damaged or will still not recoginise the cartridge then remove the cartridge and gently wipe with a dry soft cloth the copper area for the cartridge (the 'chip') to remove any static that may have accumulated on it and re-insert to see if it will work.

The vast majority of the compatible Canon ink cartridges will work first time but on occasion you might have to try a bit of trouble-shooting to get it going. It’s also possible that the cartridge may be faulty so if you have tried all of the above suggestions then if you have a second cartridge then it would be time to try that. If you don’t have a second cartridge then contact your supplier to see if a replacement cartridge can be issued but make sure you make a note of the error messages that are coming up on the printer each time you insert the ink cartridges as this will help them identify what the problem is. If you are covered by a money-back guarantee then you will have no problem and you will find that the supplier will do all they can to resolve the issue for you but will refund the money to you (after the return of the faulty cartridge) if they run out of options.

All good online ink cartridge suppliers will do all they can to help and usually will resolve the situation and you will be happily printing with Canon compatible ink cartridges that didn’t cost the earth!