Printer will not take paper / carriage jam error message

[zaia8]

This is not so much a question as it is an answer so that others with this problem will be able to find a quick (and cheap) way of fixing a perfectly fine printer.  We purchased our officejet pro 6978 back in February 2019 but it was honestly rarely used.  We kept it clean but we've only had to buy new ink for the printer this week because we started using the printer.  That tells you how often the printer was used.  The original ink that came with the printer lasted two years.  Obviously the warranty and expired and due to the pandemic, we just recently started using the printer.  We were greatly disappointed to find that the printer stopped grabbing the paper.  We tried following instructions given by hp articles to fix it but when we did a "reset" and the printer turned back on we received a "carriage jam" error on the screen that would not go away.

The carriage had no issues going back and forth, no paper was stuck (because it wasn't grabbing the paper to print beforehand), and no amount of "resets" cleared the message.  After hours of research online and a strong desire to not patronize a company whose product failed on us when we finally started using it, we came across a YouTube video (in spanish) that pictured a broken plastic gear.  We prepared to take the printer out, but when we moved the carriage we noticed a little plastic gear sitting there.   Since we had a different printer, our gear was apparently located in a different place than the video depicted (glad we didn't have to take the printer apart).  We took the gear out and yes it was broken.  So, we put some gorilla glue on it with a thumbtack making sure to remove excess glue from the recesses of the gear and the side of the gear so that it can slide back on the rod and catch the gear that's inside the printer.  After letting the plastic piece cure, we put the gear back, turned the printer on, and after about a 5 minute printer maintenance message with some load scary noises the printer worked!!! it prints, it grabs the paper, no error message, no nothing.  I hope this post is able to assist someone who has the same issue.  This is how the printer looked when we looked inside.see the plastic gear? it was just sitting there like that, off the rod.the gear slid back on the rod, back in place, doesn't move, and now the printer works again.after some glue, a thumbtack, and time and the gear seems solid enough to place back in the printer.I picked up the gear and noticed it had a crack in it