Error Code : Fk3 Required Maintenance

Sharp MX3501N stuck offline during maintenance warning We have two Sharp MX3501N printers and they've been great for us. One of them had a "Needs maintenance, code FK3" pop up yesterday, so I called in for service. It's a routine change of the fuser web kit, whatever that is. I know if helps keeps things clean, so without it the prints can get spotty. Anyway, the tech came out and found that he'd need to order a part. He said the printer would work in the meantime, but for some reason it was registering as offline on our print server and the clients. It seemed to print directly from a Linux app we use though, which seemed odd. I did some digging and found the answer. In Windows, the Sharp driver will force the printer into offline mode if it detects a maintenance warning, regardless of what it is. This is because SNMP is enabled on the printer port by default. It is simple to disable. What you need to do is go into your Printers & Faxes, right-click your Sharp printer, then select Properties. From there, go to the Ports tab, select the Port that is active for your printer, then click on Configure Port. Towards the bottom you will see a box that is checked and reads "SNMP Status Enabled". Uncheck that box, then click OK a few times to get back to your Printers & Faxes window. Check to see if the Sharp printer is back to the "Ready" state, and if so, anything stuck in the queue should be printing too. I'm assuming this carries over into other Sharp printers, but I can verify that it worked with the MX3501N printer that we were having issues with. I also found that this only seemed to affect Sharp printers using the default IP port settings. The Sharp-specific ports didn't have any SNMP options available, so using a Sharp port is a better option anyway. However, I just ran into a problem where the printer was registering as offline using the Sharp ports. To fix it, I changed the port to a generic TCP/IP port using that same IP address, and everything printed out right away.

 Good luck!

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