Dell 5310n doesn't print to default tray

We have a Dell 5310n in the office and everyone can use it. When people print to it, it selects a tray to print for and print to it. But one person has this problem: when he prints, the printer always beeps twice, and on the little screen it says "Load Manual Feeder with Plain Paper" and he needs to press continue to print. So it won't print until he clicks a button on the printer, which shouldn't happen. I checked his settings. The printer is set as default. On his computer, the default printer tray is set as 1 (just like for everyone else), the paper size is correctly selected everywhere. On the printer, tray 1 is default. Yet the person cannot get it to print automatically every time. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

I tried switching the user to a different printer (this one a Dell 5210n) and still the same thing happened!

 

Some printers allow delayed printing - it won't print until you say 'go' - when you're at the printer ready to get your stuff (useful if you're printing something confidential, for example, and you need to be there when it comes out). Maybe look around for a setting like that.

 

Is this setting on the user's computer or on the printer? Because if it's on the printer, there's something fishy since everyone else can print without having to go press Continue. Also, I switched the user to a different default printer and the same thing happened.

 

It's on the user's computer - to allow the user to decide not to print until s/he gets to the printer. So the user sets up the print, but selects this delay option, then goes to the printer and tells it to Print Now.

 

That doesn't seem like it's the problem though, because it doesn't say Print on the printer, instead it says "Load Manual Feeder with Plain Paper" which is kind of an error message. Delayed printing seems like an intentional thing, while the error I'm getting seems to be because of an unintentional problem.

 

I see your point.
Back to the drawing board.
I have seen this printer message, where it gets the idea that you want to load paper manually (although I think that applied to all users). We have had it occur after A3 paper was loaded manually - then it didn't want to go back to normal. I think I have fixed it by restarting the printer, or maybe by opening all the paper jam doors, etc, then closing them again. Or both. It's a while ago, so hard to remember.
Another option would be to reinstall the printer for that user.

 

Now that you've reminded me of that printer message, a couple of other possibilities come to mind (OK, while I was in the shower, if you must know (always good for thinking) - going to bed... 1:25 am here)...
check in the print properties that: the paper feed option is set to Automatic, not to manual; and
that the paper size in print properties is not something that isn't available in the printer; eg, if the printer only has A4 paper in it, check that the print size is set to A4 in properties.
Also check that the document being printed is set to A4 size (eg, in a Word document, go to Page Setup, Paper tab).

 

I went into the printer settings on the user's computer, and selected Use Printer Settings for the paper size, etc. It seems to be working now. Before I chose the settings myself like the paper size, tray, but now I let the printer choose.

We'll see how it works from now on, but thanks very much for your help!

 

My pleasure.
Good to hear it's working.

 

After he logged off, it's back to how it was. I'll try to change those settings from his computer's administrator account, and if that doesn't work, I'll reinstall his printers. Hopefully one of those solves it, but I'll keep this thread updated if it doesn't.

 

Scratch that, it only didn't work in Outlook and I changed a setting there. Looks like it works again.

 

Excellent. Thanks for the updates.