How to reset an Epson printer and clear an ink or non-genuine cartridge error the power cycle, the non-genuine warning you can dismiss, and the one error a reset will not fix

An Epson that suddenly refuses a cartridge or throws an error code is usually not broken. It is either failing to read a chip cleanly, warning you about non-Epson ink it will still print with, or telling you a maintenance counter has filled up. Each of those has a different fix, and doing the wrong one wastes time. This guide sorts the common Epson ink messages into the ones a simple reset clears, the ones you dismiss and keep printing, and the one code that means the hardware needs attention.

The short version: Turn the printer off with its own power button first so the print head parks, then unplug it for 60 seconds and power back on. That single step clears most stuck cartridge and ink-recognition errors. A non-genuine cartridge warning is not a block: press OK, choose Yes to continue, and the printer keeps working. The message that a reset will not cure is ink pad end of service life (shown as E-11 or E-12 on screen models), which is a maintenance counter, and the code 0x97, which is a hardware fault. One caution before you start resetting. Epson's own guides for its cartridge models say that non-Epson cartridges which worked before a firmware update may not continue to work after one, so if your compatible failed within a day or two of the printer updating itself, no reset will bring it back and the cartridge is not the fault. Any other timing, and it is almost always a seating, chip or counter issue that the steps below will clear. EcoTank owners can skip the worry: Epson excludes EcoTank from that restriction.

Do this first: the correct Epson power cycle

A clean power cycle clears the printer's temporary memory, which is where most transient cartridge and sensor errors sit. Order matters, because pulling the plug while the head is parked mid-move can leave it uncapped and drying.

Press the power button to turn the printer off normally. Wait for the carriage to settle and the panel to go dark, which is the head parking itself.
Unplug the power cord from the printer or the wall and leave it out for at least 60 seconds so the internal memory fully clears.
Plug it back in and power on. Let the startup routine finish before you send a job.

Print a test page. If the error is gone you are done. If it comes back, note the exact wording or the error code on the panel and match it to the section below. On Epson machines the wording tells you almost everything: a warning about the cartridge being non-genuine is different from one saying the cartridge cannot be recognised, and both are different from an ink pad or service message.

Work out which Epson message you actually have

Four messages get lumped together as an Epson ink error, and they do not share a fix.

Non-genuine cartridge or a warning that the ink may not perform at its best. This is a notice, not a lockout. You dismiss it and keep printing.
Cannot recognise the ink cartridge, or a prompt to reinstall it. This is a seating or contact fault, and it is what reseating and cleaning fixes.
Ink low, then later replace ink cartridge. These are ink-level messages. Low means keep going, empty means the printer stops until you swap the cartridge.
Ink pad end of service life, service required, or the codes E-11 and E-12. This is the waste ink counter, not the cartridge, and it needs a counter reset or a maintenance box, covered further down.

The code 0x97 sits outside all of these. It is a hardware fault, and no cartridge trick clears it.

The non-genuine warning: dismiss it and keep printing

When you fit a compatible or remanufactured cartridge, Epson often shows a message that the ink is not genuine and may affect quality or the warranty. It looks alarming, but on Epson's current home and small-office models it does not stop you printing. The prompt itself gives you the way past it.

Press OK to acknowledge the first screen.
When asked whether you want to continue using this cartridge, choose Yes (some panels word it as continue or accept).
Press OK again if prompted, and the printer returns to ready.

On some models you hold a button such as the ink or stop button for about five seconds to confirm the choice. If the same pop-up keeps interrupting you from the computer, open the printer driver on Windows, go to the Maintenance or Utility tab, open the extended or speed settings, and turn off the Epson Status Monitor so the reminder stops. That changes nothing on the printer itself. It only silences the desktop nag. For the wider question of whether Epson blocks third-party ink at all, see does Epson block third-party ink and the firmware-DRM tracker.

Cartridge not recognised: reseat and clean the contacts

If the panel says it cannot recognise the cartridge or asks you to reinstall it, the chip is not making a clean connection. Epson's own reseat procedure is the fix, and it works the same whether the cartridge is genuine or compatible.

Open the cartridge cover and let the carriage move to the replacement position. Power the printer off first if it will not move.
Remove only the cartridge flagged in the message. Check that the yellow protective tape over the outlet and chip has been fully removed, which is the single most common cause on a brand-new cartridge.
Wipe the small gold or copper chip with a dry, lint-free cloth. Do not touch it with your fingers and do not use anything wet or metal.
Look into the empty slot for stray ink or debris on the printer's contact pins, and clear it gently.
Push the cartridge back in firmly until it clicks, close the cover, and let the printer check it.

If one specific colour is named, reseat that one first. If the alert then jumps to a different colour, two cartridges may have been swapped into the wrong slots. When a slot still fails to read a second known-good cartridge, the carriage contact or the cartridge chip is faulty rather than dirty. Epson notes that its printers are designed for genuine Epson cartridges and that other brands may not always be read, so a bargain cartridge with a poor clone chip can fail here even when it is seated perfectly. To find the exact code your model expects, check the printer's page on this site, for example the Expression XP-7100 or the WorkForce WF-2750.

Ink low and ink out: how far you can push it

Epson cartridge printers give you two stages of warning, and they mean different things.

Ink low is an estimate, not a stop. There is usable ink left and you can keep printing. The panel may not say which cartridge is low, so watch the on-screen levels.
Replace ink cartridge appears when a cartridge reads empty, and at that point the printer stops until you fit a new one. This protects the print head, which relies on ink flowing through it to stay cool and clear.

Because the level is estimated from a chip count rather than measured, a refilled or reset cartridge can read empty while still holding ink, or read full when nearly dry. If you trust a compatible cartridge has ink but the printer will not move past a replace prompt, reseating it or power cycling sometimes lets the count re-read. Running a cartridge genuinely dry and then printing anyway is the one habit worth avoiding, because pulling air through the nozzles is what dries and clogs a head. There is more on that in preventing a clogged print head.

Ink pad end of service life (E-11 and E-12): the waste counter

This is the Epson message people most often mistake for a dead printer. Every Epson inkjet has a waste ink pad, an absorbent sponge or a removable box that catches the surplus ink from initial charging, head cleaning and borderless printing. The firmware keeps an estimated count of how much ink it has sent there. When that count crosses a preset threshold, the printer stops and reports ink pad end of service life, service required, or on screen models E-11 or E-12. On simple LED models it shows as two lights blinking together.

The important thing to understand is that the counter and the physical pad are two separate things. A reset only sets the software counter back to zero. It does not remove any ink from the pad. Epson sets the threshold early with a safety margin, so the first time you see this the pad is usually only part full, and resetting to keep printing is generally safe for a while. Keep resetting indefinitely and the real sponge eventually overflows onto the base and the mainboard, which is a much bigger repair.

On newer WorkForce and EcoTank models the pad is a replaceable maintenance box (part numbers such as C9344, C9345 or T04D1). Slide the old one out, fit a new one, and on most models the counter clears itself. Some boxes carry a locked chip and must be replaced rather than reset.
On older models with a fixed internal pad, Epson provides a one-time ink pad reset utility for some machines so you can print while you arrange service. When the error returns quickly, or you see ink smudging the back of pages or pooling inside, the pad itself needs cleaning or replacing, not another reset.

Third-party reset tools exist for the fixed-pad models, but many cracked versions carry malware, so if you go that route use a reputable licensed tool and treat the reset as a stopgap, not a cure.

Error 0x97 and hard faults: when a reset will not help

Error 0x97 is not an ink problem at all. It is a hardware fault code that means the printer's controller detected something wrong, usually a failed mainboard driver chip, a shorted print head, a contaminated head cable, or a jammed wiper and purge assembly. It commonly appears on WorkForce models like the WF-3620, WF-3640 and WF-7710, and on the Expression XP-830, often after a power surge or a long spell of disuse that let ink dry inside.

Unlike a cartridge warning, 0x97 locks the machine and swapping cartridges does nothing. The one thing worth trying at home is a full power drain: turn the printer off, unplug it for a few minutes, remove the cartridges, hold the power button for about a minute to discharge residual power, then reconnect everything and switch on. If a nozzle check then prints cleanly, you may be back in business. If 0x97 returns, the fault is inside the head or the board, and the economics usually favour replacing the printer rather than paying for a board-level repair.

EcoTank owners: a different set of rules

EcoTank and other refillable tank printers do not use chipped cartridges, so the non-genuine and cannot-recognise messages above mostly do not apply to them. What they do share is the waste ink pad counter, so an EcoTank can still show E-11 or E-12 and need a maintenance box or a counter reset exactly as described above.

The errors specific to tank printers tend to be about ink flow rather than recognition. If a colour prints faint or missing after the tank ran low, air has entered the line and the head needs a fill charge or a cleaning cycle rather than a reset. Because the print head is permanent on these models, letting it sit unused is the main risk, since a clogged EcoTank head is harder to recover than a cartridge you can simply replace. If you are weighing a tank printer against a cartridge one in the first place, the running-cost maths is in ink tank vs cartridge, is refillable worth it, and clog prevention is covered in the dried ink guide.

Is this a firmware lock? The honest answer

People arriving here after an HP horror story often assume Epson is doing the same thing. On its current home and small-office range, it is not. Epson's printers show a warning about non-Epson ink and then let you carry on, which is a world away from HP's Dynamic Security refusing to print at all. Every Epson model in our catalogue is marked open in the firmware-DRM tracker for that reason.

The one honest caveat is that Epson states its printers are designed for genuine Epson cartridges, and it has issued firmware in the past that made some WorkForce models fussier about certain clone chips, which is why an occasional user reports a compatible cartridge that worked before a firmware update and not after. That is a chip-compatibility tightening rather than a deliberate print-blocking lock, and buying a cartridge from a supplier with a good current chip is usually enough to avoid it. The full brand-by-brand picture is in does Epson block third-party ink, and the cost side of choosing genuine versus compatible is in OEM vs compatible vs remanufactured.

Common questions

How do I reset my Epson printer?

For most ink and cartridge errors, turn the printer off with its power button so the head parks, unplug it for at least 60 seconds, then plug it back in and power on. That clears the temporary memory and resolves the majority of stuck cartridge and recognition errors. It does not reset the waste ink pad counter, which is a separate maintenance reset.

How do I get my Epson to accept a non-genuine cartridge?

Install the cartridge, then work through the on-screen prompt: press OK, choose Yes or Continue when it asks whether to keep using this cartridge, and press OK again. The printer then prints normally. On some models you hold the ink or stop button for about five seconds to confirm. To stop the reminder popping up on your computer, turn off the Epson Status Monitor in the driver's Maintenance settings.

What does ink pad end of service life mean on an Epson?

It means the waste ink counter has reached its limit. Every Epson inkjet collects surplus ink from cleaning and charging in an absorbent pad or a maintenance box, and the firmware stops printing when its estimated count fills up. On newer models you replace the maintenance box; on older ones you reset the counter, ideally as a stopgap while you have the physical pad serviced, because a reset does not empty the pad.

Does an Epson error 0x97 mean my printer is dead?

Not always, but 0x97 is a hardware fault rather than an ink problem, so cartridge swaps will not fix it. Try a full power drain: unplug for a few minutes, remove the cartridges, hold the power button for about a minute, then reconnect and switch on. If the error returns, the print head or mainboard has failed and replacing the printer is usually cheaper than repair.

Does Epson block third-party ink like HP does?

No. Epson warns you that a cartridge is non-genuine and then lets you keep printing, unlike HP Dynamic Security which can refuse non-HP ink outright. The only caveat is that Epson has occasionally tightened which clone chips its firmware reads, so a cartridge from a supplier with an up-to-date chip is the safe choice. Every Epson model in our tracker is listed as open.

Keep reading

Does Epson block third-party ink? the honest brand policy, and the one firmware caveat.
Printer firmware-DRM tracker our sourced list of which printers can block third-party ink.
Preventing a clogged print head why running dry damages Epson heads, and how to avoid it.
OEM vs compatible vs remanufactured the real cost and quality difference between cartridge types.
What the cartridge chip actually does telling a chip read failure apart from a rejection.
It will not print black and only a colour is empty telling an expended cartridge apart from a cartridge the printer will not accept.
Waste ink pads and maintenance boxes the consumable behind E-11 and E-12, and what the other three brands do about it.

Sources

Epson Support, Replacement Cartridge Not Recognized, official reseat procedure and the genuine-Epson-cartridge note. epson.custhelp.com
Epson Support, Replacement Cartridge Not Recognized, reseat steps for a newly installed cartridge showing an ink error. epson.custhelp.com
LD Products Help Center, how to clear a non-genuine message on your Epson printer (press OK, select Yes to continue). support.ldproducts.com
CompAndSave Support, bypassing an Epson cartridge warning, and how ink low versus replace ink cartridge behave. support.compandsave.com
Star Toner, Epson error 0x97 explained as a mainboard or print head hardware fault, not a low-ink warning. star-toner.com
VNIT, what the Epson ink pad end of service life message means, and why a counter reset does not empty the physical pad. vnit.com.vn

Last updated 13 September 2026. This guide is general information, not a repair warranty. Printer menus and HP's model lists change, so confirm the exact steps for your model on the manufacturer's support site before you make changes.