Epson Stylus 3880 - Communication Error

[ErraMessage]

My Epson Stylus 3880 is refusing to print. When I try I get a persistent error message "Communication Error." I have tried the following:

Checked the power cables. The ready light is on.
Checked Ethernet cables and all are secure.
I've restarted both my PC and the printer.

I've searched for drivers but I can't seem to find the correct one to download.

I know that this is a common problem but any ideas to try would be great.

 

[George Parker]

Getting a frustrating 'Communication Error' on my Epson Stylus 3880. Tried different cables and drivers, but no luck so far. Any advice from fellow users would be appreciated!

 

[ErraMessage]

Just my thoughts.....

I have solved the "Communications Error" message on my Epson 3880 in that I can now print. However, I'm not quite sure how! Here's what I did (and didn't do) but I don't know which action was the key one.

I participated in a "chat" session with the Epson customer help team. The advice was much as I had already tried so I don't think that they provided the breakthrough.
I didn't delete the drivers and re-install. My personal experience of this in the past has been that it seldom solves a problem. It's best to generally keep all drivers up to date, which is what I do.
The display on the printer said that the maintenance cartridge was full so I renewed this.
I did some printer head cleaning and replaced an almost depleted ink.
I realized (embarrassingly) that I was loading paper incorrectly. For the automatic feed, it has to be loaded on the right hand side of the input area and the guide slid up to it from the left hand side.
Oddly, I still get the communications error message but I can readily print. I found that it was a mistake to click "stop" in the message, which if ignored eventually turns to "OK".

I hope that this is helpful.