Getting an Kyocera Printer Out of an Error State

"Error state" isn't a Kyocera fault code. It's Windows telling you it asked your printer for a status update and didn't get a normal reply back. That can mean a real hardware problem, like a jam or an open cover, or it can mean nothing is wrong at all and the connection between your PC and the printer just got confused. The good news is that most of the time, this is a five-minute fix you can do yourself, without opening the printer up or calling for service. Work through the causes and solutions below in order, since they're arranged from quickest to check to most involved.

Causes

A Kyocera printer typically shows as "in error state" for one of these reasons:

• A physical issue on the printer itself – a paper jam, an open cover or tray, an empty paper tray, or a toner or waste toner box that isn't seated correctly
• A broken connection – a loose or faulty USB cable, a dropped Wi-Fi connection, or a network printer whose IP address has changed since it was set up
• A stuck print job – one failed job sitting in the queue, blocking every job sent after it
• A driver problem – a Kyocera driver that's outdated, corrupted, or was never fully installed
• A misreported status on network printers – the printer's SNMP status monitoring flags a fault that doesn't actually exist, which is more common than most people expect

Solutions

Solution 1 – Check the printer itself first

Before touching your PC, look at the printer. Open every cover and check for jammed paper, confirm the paper tray isn't empty, and make sure the toner cartridge and waste toner box are pushed all the way in. Kyocera printers usually show a plain-language message on the operation panel, like "Add toner" or a paper jam diagram, when one of these is the cause. Clear whatever it's showing, close the covers fully, and see if the error status updates on your PC on its own.

Solution 2 – Confirm the connection

If the printer looks fine, the problem is likely the connection. For a USB printer, unplug the cable at both ends and reconnect it, or swap it for a different cable if you have one. For a Wi-Fi or network printer, check that it still shows connected on its own display, then open the printer's Properties > Ports tab on your PC and confirm the IP address listed there matches the one the printer is currently using. A mismatch here is one of the most common reasons a networked Kyocera printer shows as unreachable.

Solution 3 – Clear the stuck print queue

1. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners (or Control Panel > Devices and Printers on older versions of Windows).
2. Click your Kyocera printer, then select Open print queue.
3. Cancel every job listed, even ones that look like they already finished.
4. Send a small test print. If it goes through, the error was a stuck job, not the printer.

Solution 4 – Restart the Print Spooler service

A jammed print job can sometimes get stuck in Windows itself, not just the visible queue. Clearing it fully takes one extra step:

1. Press Windows key + R, type services.msc, and press Enter.
2. Find Print Spooler in the list, right-click it, and choose Stop.
3. Open File Explorer and go to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS, then delete every file inside that folder.
4. Go back to services.msc, right-click Print Spooler again, and choose Start.
5. Restart your PC and check whether the printer shows as ready.

Solution 5 – Reinstall the Kyocera driver

If the error keeps coming back, the driver itself may be the problem. Remove the Kyocera printer from Printers & scanners, restart your PC, then download the current driver directly from Kyocera's official support site for your exact model, rather than a third-party download site. Third-party driver sites are a common source of outdated or altered files that cause exactly this kind of recurring error. Install the driver fresh and reconnect the printer.

Solution 6 – Turn off SNMP status monitoring (network printers only)

This one is easy to miss, but it fixes a surprising number of "phantom" error states on networked printers. Windows uses a protocol called SNMP to poll your printer for status updates like ink levels, and on some networks that polling itself times out and gets misread as an error.

1. Open Printer Properties > Ports, select the port your printer uses, and click Configure Port.
2. Uncheck SNMP Status Enabled.
3. Click OK and check the printer's status again.

You'll lose the automatic toner-level readout on your PC, but for many users, this permanently clears a recurring false error state.