Quizland

I have a Canon MX490 printer.

It's getting old.

Today I got a message error 5100 rendering the printer dead in the water.

Scanning the internet I got a fix which I tried.

There is a clear ribbon in the printer which determines the position of the cartridges.
The fix is to clean this ribbon because it may be smudged.
I used rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs to clean it as suggested.
The swab showed a greenish black deposit coming off.
The fix worked.  This comes from the cartridge cleaning process.
I was ready to throw this printer out so that was a cheap fix because error code 5100 is a fatal error.
(https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Desktop-Inkjet-Printers/The-Error-5100-correct-fix-that-no-one-knows/td-p/237095)

(https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Desktop-Inkjet-Printers/The-Error-5100-correct-fix-that-no-one-knows/td-p/237095)