How to clear a paper jam from laser printer HL2040

The lights continually flashing indicate a paper jam or the printer being out of ink. Check/clear any paper jam and verify the ink cartidge is set correctly.

Open the paper cassete and check if you have load paper in it.The second thing you can do is to open your printer front cover, remove the drum unit and check for paper jam inside the printer.

check that the front and back cover are completely closed.
check for a paper jam in the back as well.

if you still dont see anything, you probably have a small piece of paper jammed in the sensor area somewhere in the printer,

There are actually some certain meaning on the red light and green light showing different information to user. The summaries are:
1) Green On, Red Off = Printer Ready.
2) Green Fast-Flashing, Red Fast-Flashing = Printer warm up.
3) Green Fast-Flashing, Red Off = Printer off-line.
4) Green Slow-Flashing, Red Off = Processing Data.
5) Green Off, Red On = Cover Opened, Toner Empty or Developer Unit / Drum unit missing.
6) Green Off, Red Fast-Flashing = Paper Jam or waiting for jam reset.
7) Green Off, Red Slow-Flashing = Paper Empty or Paper tray is not inserted.
8) Green Off, Red Off = Printer power is off.
9) Green Very-Slow-Flashing, Red Off = Printer in sleep mode.
10) Green (any condition above), Red Slow-Flashing = Toner low or paper empty.

So what is your printer condition? Better know what is going on your printer so can solve the problem

YBC (/\)

Often the paper jam light will stay on when the *back* paper jam door is not cleared.

Open up the back of your printer. There is a 2nd door behind this door that you can pull open. If there is a paper in this section, pull it out and it should clear your red light.

When clearing paper jams, clear the front first, and then if the red light is still on, you need to check the back hidden door for another piece of paper.

I had this problem and couldn't figure out until I opened the front, pulled out the toner cartridge and found a paper jam.  Removed it and now I have the green light.

Make sure to clean all the rollers you can see and make sure to check the paper sensor, and clean all rollers and paper paths with some Isopropyl Alcohol (AKA rubbing alcohol)

let me see i think when you clean the jam you maybe damage the sensor arm or the arm stuck check the sensor carefully also check the front cover switch

Did you see http://www.fixya.com/support/r310860-lights_indicate
The Paper LED is flashing.
Meaning of LED Indication

Front cover is open:
Close the front cover of the printer.

Back cover is open:
Close the back cover of the printer.

Paper jam:
Clear the paper jam. To see paper jams and how to clear them, click here. If the printer does not start printing, press the Go button.

No paper fed manual feed slot:
Put the paper back in the manual feed slot.

Memory full:
The printer memory is full and the printer cannot print full pages of a document. To solve this problem, click here.

Print overrun:
A print overrun occurred and the printer cannot print full pages of a document. To solve this problem, click here.

Clean drum unit:
The corona wire needs to be cleaned. To see how to clean the corona wire, click here.

try to check if there is a little paper inside