HP C7180 PHOTOSMART All-in-ONE continually says clear paper jam then press OK. There is no paper jam and I cannot get printer to work. Suggestions please. Shirley

No you have indeed paper there which you have not seen. It's probably on the right of your cartridges.

Without any paper in the machine I would try powering off and powering on. Lifting the scanner lid will clear so the carrige goes back to the correct side of the printer. Even rebooting the printer and loading the software will sometimes cause the carriage to go back to where it was supposed to be.

- Press and hold the “*” key.
B. - Press the “#” key and release both keys.
Display should say “Enter Special Key Combo”
C. - Press and release in sequence the “1”, “2” and “3” buttons.
1. Press and release the right arrow button until the display says “System Configuration Menu”. (on C8100 use Touch Screen)
2. Press and release the “OK” button.
3. Display should say “Hardware failure status”. If not there already, Arrow Key over to “Hardware failure status”,
4. Press and release the “OK” button.
5. Display should say “Hardware failure status: Clear. Press OK to clear”.
6. Press and release the “OK” Button. Message changes to “Hardware failure status Cleared. Press Cancel to continue”.
7. Press and release the “CANCEL” button as many times as necessary, so that, either the “Welcome to Photosmart Express” screen appears, or, the “Ink System Failure” screen appears. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO PRINT AT THIS STAGE.
8. Using the Power Button, turn the unit OFF and unplug the power cable from back of the printer and wall outlet.
9. Wait 30 seconds for the power to get discharged and then plug the power cable into the wall outlet first and then into the back of the printer
10. Turn the unit on. The printer may display message “USE POWER BUTTON TO SHUTDOWN THE PRINTER” followed by “PRESS OK TO CONTINUE”. Press OK.
11. If the printer has already initialized, then go to the next step. If not, the printer will start the “ONE TIME INK INITIALIZATION PROCESS”. Allow this process to complete and do not interrupt. Once the initialization process is complete, the printer will print out a Diagnostic Page.
12. To verify printer functionality print a SELF TEST PAGE. If SELF TEST prints, then printer is ready for use or Software Installation.
13. If the error is still there, or reoccurs replace the unit.

if you said that you have cleared it of any paper then its time to have your printer check by a printer technician, a small piece of paper still stuck in there will cause the printer to sya these, check it again maybe you missed a spot, if you are sure you cleared it up real good then take your printer to a repair man to avoid any furthere more damage to the printer

: unit can not be recovered or is almost certain to fail again

You could try clearing the jam and then removing power from the printer altogether to re-initialize the printer. However, if that fails either the printer diagnostics chip has gone awry or you have a virus.

Still gotta be some paper in there. Be brave and pull it apart

Try opening the rear of the printer. There should be a pull out plastic piece you can remove to clear paper jams. When you can get to the paper, don't pull too fast or you might tear the paper and leave some inside that will be even harder to remove.

I cleared the paper jam but i am still getting a paper jam message. I checked thoroughly and dont see any pieces of paper anywhere. I press ok and still get paper jam message. I turned the priner off and on serveral times and that did not work. Same message. I am feeling very frustrated. Its been a week today. Help!

I was able to run run a piece of photo paper through a couple of times and printer now seems to be working again. The theory was that running a heavy piece of paper through might help clear little piece of paper that was not visible. The photo paper is less likely to tear if it gets jammed too.