Suddenly service error 49 appears and won't go away

[Sean39]

We have enjoyed this printer for a few years now, and then today Service Error 49 appeared and will not go away.  I've tried all the steps suggested in the HP support pages: turning off & on, unplugging, restarting network, updating firmware, drivers, resetting system etc.  Nothing works.  Because the printer is about 5 years old, HP doesn't seem to offer any live support.  I can't even pay for support.  The chatbot 'virtual assistant' refuses to acknowlege my problems, and keeps misinterpreting my messages as 'service error 79'.  Can anyone help?  Thank you

[Repairatrooper]

At the risk of repetition, you need to determine if this is hardware or software. Disconnect all cabling and if using wireless, temporarily turn off your wireless router. Then then the printer back on and see if it comes to ready. If ir does then likely a corrupt print job is causing the error, this is very common. If the printer will not come to ready, even with all networking turned off or disconnected then you either have a corrupt firmware or other failed component. An NVRAM reset might get the device to come to ready, in which case you would want to update the firmware immediately after that.