HP Printer stuck on printing alignment page

[Sara0112]

My printer is stuck showing 'Printing alignment page' on the screen. The 'cancel' button will not work.

I have powered it off, unplugged it and left it unplugged for days, but when I have just switched it back on, it is still the same.

I have opened and closed the lid to check the cartridges are in correctly.

There is paper in the tray.

Can you please let me know what else I can do.

[A4Apollo]

Hi! @Sara0112, Welcome to HP forums.

I understand your printer is stuck on printing alignment page.

Don't worry I'd like to help you out.

Did you make any changes to your printer?

Have you tried checking with a different ink cartridge?

As you mentioned your printer is stuck on printing alignment page.

Try replacing the low, empty or faulty ink cartridges on your printer.

Perform a Hard reset on the printer and make sure that the printer is connected directly to the wall outlet and not to the surge protector.

With the printer turned on, disconnect the power cord from the rear of the printer and also unplug the power cord from the wall outlet.

Remove USB cable, if present.

Wait for 2-3 minutes, press and hold the power button on your printer for about 30 seconds to remove any additional charge.

Now plug back the power cable straight to a wall outlet without any surge protector or an extension cord and then plug back the power cord to the printer.

Turn on the printer and wait till warm-up period finishes and the printer is idle.

It looks like the alignment is not successful due to which your printer keeps printing alignment page when you turn it on.

You have to complete the alignment process in order to skip the alignment page printing.

Basically, the printer will initiate the printer alignment process with the help of the ink cartridges. The process allows your ink cartridges to be calibrated with the documents that you wanted to print. So, if the alignment process does not finish, then chances are there is a problem with either the black or the tri-color cartridge of your printer and not with the hardware.

The pages printed before every print job are alignment and calibration pages. They are printed before every job because the printer cannot successfully align itself. This could be caused by poor print quality or a bad sensor in the printer.
Newly installed printheads must be aligned to the printer for best print quality. For successful alignment, a sharp, clear alignment page must be printed, and that requires unused, plain white paper. Colored paper, or paper that has already been printed on, even on the other side, can cause alignment to fail.
If the paper is not loaded, the paper has printed text or images, colored, or no alignment page printed, see Step five: Retry alignment.
If unused, plain white paper is loaded, and an alignment page did print, check the alignment page. For successful alignment, the patterns on the alignment page must be sharply printed.
If the page is obviously faded or streaked, continue to the next step to clean the printheads.

Align the printer

For the best print quality, align the ink cartridges.

1. Load plain white paper in the paper tray.

2. On the printer control panel, touch the Settings icon .

3. Touch Tools, and then touch the Down Arrow  once.

4. Touch Align Printer.

   The printer prints a test page, and then prompts you to scan the page.

5. Lift the scanner lid, and then place the page on the glass according to the instructions on the alignment page.

6. Close the scanner lid, and then touch OK.

Print another Print Quality Diagnostic report, and examine the page.

• If these steps resolved the issue, you can stop troubleshooting.

Cleaning the printhead or ink cartridge often resolves alignment issues and helps resolve print quality problems at the same time. HP offers two general inkjet printhead designs: the Integrated Printhead (IPH) is integrated into the ink cartridge, and the Individual Ink Cartridges (IIC) has a printhead built into the printer.

Your printer comes with an automated tool to clean the printhead. There are several ways to access the tool, depending on your printer and the software you are using.

Run the cleaning test using one of the following methods that works for your printer and wait until the test completes.

• If your printer has a display, go to the Settings or Tools menu to find and run printhead or ink cartridge cleaning.

• In HP Print Assistant for Windows, find and run the cleaning test from the Maintain Your Printer section.

• In HP Solution Center for Windows, find and run the cleaning test from the Printer Toolbox.

• In the HP Printer Utility for Mac, find and run the cleaning test from the Information and Support panel.

If cleaning the printhead does not resolve the issue, replace the printhead.

If the issue does not persist with the old ink cartridge, replace the faulty ink cartridge on your printer.

Refer this article to further troubleshoot alignment issues with your printer.

If the solution provided worked for you, please mark accepted solution for this post.

Let me know if this helps!

Have a great day ahead! 🙂

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