HP LASERJET 4050 PRINT JOBS WON'T PRINT FROM TRAY 2

[tjnort00]

I have a HP Laserjet 4050 printer and it won't prnt from tray 2.  It prints from the manual feed tray 1.  It doesn't recognize the tray 2 when printing but it will let me know when the tray 2 is missing.  Any idea what this could be or how to fix it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Toni

[SHThompson · Accepted solution]

If you print a configuration page using Tray 1 then you can look and see what paper size and type it thinks are in tray 2.

What do you will probably see is one of those items is wrong and most likely it's misdetecting the paper size due to a failure of the board that senses the position of the fingers on the side of the tray.

I think you are probably getting a message on the display that says load plain paper in Tray 1 whenever you try to print from tray 2, if that is the case it should also allow you to hit the go button and print using whatever paper type or size it thinks is in tray 2.

[tjnort00]

Thank you SHThompson.  You pointing me to the direction of the board sensors for the paper tray, I now have it working.  While I am not sure it is fixed permanently, at least it is fixed for now.  I know what to look for if it happens again.  I moved the sensors around a bit and now it works.  So we will see.......

Thank you for your help!

[SHThompson]

Now that you've seen the little metal fingers inside the machine we will go a little further

Each of the fingers pushes on a switch on a small circuit board, and sometimes one of the switches doesn't close when the metal piece pushes against it.

Since most people only use letter paper from that tray you can remove the small circuit board and solder a jumper across the backside of the board to bypass the switch it is using to identify letter size paper.

Since that machine is an older model you can easily find the service manual on the internet but not on hp's website.

[zseller09]

Specificly on an Android Device.

1. Download the "HP Smart" App.

2. Go into the App.

3. Go to the "Print Documents" section.

4. Check off a document that you want to print (Any Document is okay this is just to get to the next step).

5. Click the Printer icon at the top of the screen.

6. Click the Three dots at the top right of the screen.

7. Settings.

8. Paper.

9. Uncheck the "Automaticly Detect Paper"  Option.

Now it should allow you to chose whichever tray you want when printing...