Officejet 5740 spurious "out of paper" warning

[itscosmo]

When  printing from iPad or Phone using AirPrint, the Airprint menu always shows the message "the printer is out of paper" whenever the OJ 5740 is selected, yet the printer is full and prints normally regardless. On Mac, the print queue always shows "Paper tray is empty", yet prints normally anyway. It has done this since the first time I ever printed on it. I did an online chat with HP support, and the rep concluded the printer was defective. I exchanged the printer at the store I purchased it from, and the second printer did exactly the same thing from the minute I plugged it in. The printer itsself never shows an out of paper warning. Removing and replacing paper does not help. In all cases, I am printing wirelessly. Please note, that the printer DOES pick up the paper and print normally; it is just falsely indicating an out of paper condition. 

[itscosmo · Accepted solution]

Ha! I figured this out on my own. HP was going to replace this printer because they concluded it was defective. However, it is working as designed! This printer has two paper trays, one for regular paper, and one for 4x6 photo paper. Since I do not print photos, I did not load the photo tray. As a result, every device notified me that the printer is out of paper. All I had to do was load the sample photo paper that comes with the printer and BAM!, no more message. I can't believe I spent an hour on the phone with HP support checking cables, re-installing drivers, reconfiguring wireless, moving the printer closer to the router, blah, blah. They don't even know their own products.

[Jeff_Power]

Thanks, this helped me solve a similar problem... I just bought a new mac with El Capitan OS, and a new HP 5740. I could also print from my iPhone and iPad, but not from my mac! I just now inserted a couple of sheets into the photo tray and... PROBLEM SOLVED!! 

Seems this is a software design issue HP needs to solve. Why should the photo tray require paper if you're not printing photos??

Thanks for this thread.

[flybaby]

I tried printing with photopaper in the photot tray but did not solve problem.  Opened the printer and removed the paperpath cover, looked around, spun the exposed wheels, put the cover back on and WALLA, it now feeds paper.  Calling customer support gets you a cut-off due to "technical difficulties"   Seems they got problems there too!  Goodby HP.

[aztexohca]

Yep.  Just happened to me.  Printing wirelessly Have had printer for several months with no issues; never loaded photo paper in tray.  Switched out paper in paper tray, turned on / off, nothing.  opened printer, no jams.  Finally read tip about turning wheels under paper cover.  Magic.  Started to print again thinking it now had paper.  

Wow....

[aztexohca]

Did you just SERIOUSLY suggest to print odd pages only, remove the excess paper and then print even pages only?   ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?   This is HPs solution to this issue???   I'm about ready to throw the **bleep** printer out the window.  I've had it for a year and only recently has it now decided that duplex is the standard.  Nothing I do in the applications or setting seems to affect this when using this with my MAC book Pro.   SERIOUSLY, KP get your act together on this issue and fix it!