C4480 “OUT OF PAPER”

[Meyerson]

This printer (which I just brought out of mothballs after about a decade, with fresh inkjet cartridges) absolutely refuses to acknowledge there’s paper to be printed. I’ve tried *all the solutions* (including HP’s how-to videos; hard-resets, roller cleanings, etc.) and yet the printer insists it’s “Out of Paper”—when it’s not. I’ve inspected and cleaned the rollers, everything looks good; rollers are rolling, cartridges move when printer starts, etc.

The one aberration was a small piece of plastic at the back of the printer, with decaying (slightly gooey) green plastic. (Photos of front and back attached.) But its placement suggests it wouldn’t be a factor until after the paper had begun to move in—and the paper doesn’t move a bit. 

Any help?Gooey green stuffBack of gooey green stuff

[Hawks_Eye]

Hi @Meyerson 

Welcome to the HP Support Community! We're here to help you get back up and running.

Thank you for providing clear context and excellent photos — they’re a huge help.

From what you’ve described and shown, it appears you're dealing with mechanical degradation due to the green gooey plastic—and it is very likely the root cause of the paper feed issue.

What's Going On?

The green gooey substance you're seeing is the remnant of a degraded rubber or plastic feed roller component, possibly a pickup roller bushing or pressure element. Over time (especially after long storage like 10 years), certain plastics or rubber compounds inside printers break down, especially under:

Heat cycles

Humidity

UV exposure

That green part may have once acted as a friction sleeve to help grip and feed paper into the rollers. Its absence or degradation means the printer fails to detect or grip paper — even if the rest of the rollers are intact.

 

About the Photos

The part you’re holding did come from inside the paper feed mechanism.

The gooey green area is likely supposed to apply friction or pressure to the paper as it feeds in.

Even though it’s located further back, the printer relies on that part early in the feed process — so if it's broken or too soft, the paper simply won’t engage at all.

What You Can Try

1. Test Manual Feeding

Try gently pushing a single sheet of paper into the feed rollers while the printer is trying to grab it. If it pulls in when gently assisted, it confirms a feed failure due to missing pressure or grip.

 

2. Inspect Internal Feed Path

Check if there’s a missing roller or support pad where that green part might have come from:

Shine a flashlight into the paper path from both front and back

Look for a spindle or spring mechanism with no padding, where this green piece may have been seated

If it's empty or there's exposed plastic, it likely lost its grip material

Unfortunately, the HP Photosmart C4480 is a discontinued model. HP does not offer replacement for this printer anymore.

 

Consider Retirement or Repurposing

Given the printer’s age (~10+ years), and considering:

Plastic degradation

Incompatibility with modern operating systems/drivers

No parts support

This may be a good time to consider retiring the unit. If the ink cartridges are still new, you might consider donating them or repurposing the printer for scanning only (if it still functions in that mode).

You're 100% right in suspecting the green gooey part. Even though it looks like a minor component, it plays a critical role in paper detection and feed pressure. When it degrades, the printer's paper pickup mechanism fails, and software will interpret it as “Out of Paper.”

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Take care, and have an amazing day!

Regards, 

Hawks_Eye

[Meyerson]

Thanks. A helpful, if profoundly disappointing, explanation.

Hard to believe a company like HP would design a printer with such a failure-prone part.

Also hard to believe it wouldn’t stock replacements for such parts, even years later.

Terrible waste to abandon both the printer and the ink.

I wonder if anyone has come up with a simple hack (maybe with a 3-D printer?) to make this thing work again.