Here is a common hardware problem faced by people who use Brother Printer Error A6. You might have received that very common ‘Error A6’ many times while printing that important word document for a meeting. To recall, it’s the error message that you see on the LCD screen of your inkjet printer that reads: “Unable To Clean: Brother Machine Error A6”.
Troubleshooting Steps Explaining How to Fix Brother Printer Error A6
Error A6 usually occurs when the ink absorber pad of the printer is full and needs to be replaced. The Ink Absorber pad is a sponge pad inside the printer that soaks up excess ink that accumulates during the printing process. You can find the ink absorber pad at the bottom of the printer.
Wondering if the ink absorber of your printer is really full and needs to be replaced? All you need to do is print a test sheet and look out for excess ink on your print out. If your printed sheets are full of ink discharges, then it’s time to replace the absorber. Go ahead and contact Brother Printer for tech support in this regard.
However, if the printouts that you have taken appear to be fine with pointed text, then the ink absorber is not full. And your printer may be facing a software issue. Sometimes, the printer software gives the Error A6 before the ink sponge is full because it fails to calculate the saturation of the ink sponge. The saturation level of the sponge in the printer is calculated by the purge counter that keeps track of the number of cleans and cycles of print that the Brother printer has performed.
Now, let’s try these quick and easy troubleshooting steps detailing how to fix Brother Printer Error A6. Before we start, it is important to check if your Brother Printer device is under warranty or not. If yes, please contact Brother Support and if not, follow the below steps:
- Unplug the power cord of the printer.
- Press the Menu button (Start button) for 10 seconds.
- While holding the button, plug in the power cord back in.
- Press the button until you see a ‘Maintenance’ option on the printer screen.
Now, we will reset the purge counter. But before you do that, it’s important to know what type of Brother Printer you own. There are two different models of Brother Printers – one comes with a number keypad and the other comes without a numeric keypad. Check your printer type and continue with the following steps:
- For printers with a number keypad, type 80 to open the options. You are required to use the arrow keys to scroll through the options and search for Purge followed by a number, say ‘Enter 2783’. Set the number next to the Purge to 0 (zero). Press Exit to go back to the ‘Maintenance’ menu. To exit, enter 99 and reboot the printer.
- For printers without number keypad, use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the number. For example, navigate to 0 and press Set. Now again, scroll through the options and search for Purge with a number count next to it. Use the OK button to enter the numbers 2,7,8,3 to set the purge counter to 00000.
So, next time you face the same issue, fix Brother Printer Error A6 on your reliable Brother Printer by simply altering the printer settings.