I recently had issues printing with my very reliable Brother mono laser printer HL-1110 that I got from marketplace for $10. Changed the cartridge since and working perfectly for years until recently.
It seems technology has caught up now and a firmware update prevents knock off cartridges from working anymore. I wonder what others are using now or if there is a fix to this.
LPT: Never update the firmware if old cheap tech is working fine.
Same thing happened to me last month. My aftermarket cartridge was over a year old and pretty much bricked the printer after I decided to update the FW. There was a tool to downgrade FW but the word on the interwebs is that Brother won't let you do that any longer.
Get a new aftermarket cartridge with an updated chip(sometimes this is mentioned in the product description) and don't ever update FW or block internet access to the printer if your router allows this so the printer would not alert you again about new FW being available.
You can also buy these newer chip implants on Aliexpress but considering how cheap a new toner is I don't recommend going down that path.
Did you check the drum unit and the toner unit, what's the reading?
The error says replace cartridge, which I know is still a lot before it gets replaced. Do you jave one and still working?
I have hl-2142 as backup printer and hl-l2305w as my main. They both uses cheap toners and drums.
I've got a HL-1110 myself and was just thinking of buying a generic toner cartridge on Ebay as my existing one is printing with very little ink. Haven't received any firmware update notifications yet… Maybe another option is to buy toner bottles and refill the cartridge yourself. Then reset the toner count to make the printer think you've just inserted a new one.
I got my 1110 for $30 from a clearance in 2018 or 19, still printing with the toner which came with that :D
I feel the pain.
I purchased a Brother colour MFC printer for a remote office. Lovely prints. Scans. Photocopies. All great. A clone toner set for ~$150. Also worked perfectly.
Then…. there was a firmware update. (I don't know if this was on the printer itself, independent of user input, or it was prompted by a user.)
Suddenly, the clone toners would not work. Tried another brand who claimed they'd work. Didn't work.
So now the office has a perfectly functional, low mileage $350 printer effectively a doorstop, as genuine toner replacement costs $600. (And I refuse to be extorted into paying 2 x the cost of the printer for its toner.)
So, I bought a Kyocera replacement printer (also $350), with clone toners (also $150). So far… so good… Only problem: the Kyocera is almost the size of a fridge, and is as heavy as a plasma TV.
I have to take it back. I replaced the toner and back to working perfectly. I jumped into conclusions when I should have just followed the error message. My $10 printer yet lived for another day. Sorry for taking space here :P
Thus you just change toner after years of not? that's pretty good :)
3 years to be exact!
Mines still printing with a knockoff. Was using it earlier today