Device is Busy trying to align/clean print heads

[bobw13]

All of a sudden I went to clean/align the print heads & cannot get passed a 'device busy' error message. I even tried rebooting with no luck. I've never seen this message before. I search the help section & could not find anything.

Hopefully you can provide some help.

Thanks, Bob

[DocCottle]

Hey @bobw13,

Welcome to the HP Support Forums! I hope you enjoy your stay here.

I see that your Officejet 6600 e-All-In-One Printer is showing a Device Busy message that you can not remove. I can help you with that.

To start, make sure the printer is plugged directly into a wall outlet and not a surge protector. Once that is done while the error message is on the display screen remove the power cord from the back of the printer for one minute. If the printer initializes and again shows you the same error message then the printer needs to be replaced. You can contact HP support by clicking on this link to discuss options based on your warranty status.

Please let me know if this resolves your issue or if you have any other questions. Otherwise, have a great day!

If this resolves your issue, then please help other users find this post by clicking on Accept as Solution on my post.

If you appreciate my help, then please let others know by clicking on the thumbs up icon below my post.

[bobw13]

Thanks for the reply & the suggestion. I can't check your suggestion because I've since got the problem corrected. I really needed to do some printing so I decided to try uninstalling & then reinstalling the software....that worked & the printer is now fine. Bob

[HPretiree2009]

I had the same issue with my HP 8600 OfficeJet Pro Plus (‘Device Busy’ while performing maintenance diagnostics).

After troubleshooting the missing cyan from the "Printer Quality Diagnostics page" on my printer and getting it cleaned I wanted to test that it was fixed. I must have powered the printer off while the print head carrier was in the access area so I could remove the print head assembly for cleaning.

When I turned the printer back on, it complained that it was improperly powered off and I cleared that error. The printer worked fine but I wanted to check the print quality by printing the "Printer Quality Diagnostics page". That's when the solid error "Device Busy" came on every time I went to print from the Maintenance area of the "HP Printer Assistant" software.

At this point I performed a normal power off of the printer, and unplugged it. I shut down the computer next.

Then I powered on the printer, waited for it to be ready, and then booted the computer. The Device Busy error was gone and the printer worked fine for both diagnostic printing and normal print jobs.

I assume there was an error condition caused by the power off while the print head was in the access area locked in the printer's memory.

Unfortunately there is no other safe way to remove the print head assembly that I know of so others may encounter this same problem.