Why Isn't My Screen Printing Machine Printing? 4 Scenarios & Fixes I Learned the Hard Way

2026-05-18· Jane Smith

When your screen printing machine stops printing—or prints garbage—the immediate panic is real. I've had that gut-drop feeling more times than I'd like to admit. The same goes for when a Videojet inkjet printer suddenly skips rows or a Toshiba printer just flashes an error and refuses to cooperate. The first few times, I wasted hours (and sometimes hundreds of dollars) trying random fixes.

Honestly, the worst part wasn't the cost. It was the embarrassment of telling the client, 'Uh, we're having a technical issue.'

I've learned there isn't one single answer to 'why isn't my printer printing.' The cause depends on your setup. This article breaks down the four most common scenarios I've personally dealt with—each with its own fix. (Should mention: this covers silk screen, DTG, and industrial inkjet like Videojet or Toshiba.)

Scenario 1: The Screen Printing Machine Prints Blank or Extremely Faint

This is the classic silk screen printing failure. The substrate goes through, but there's barely any ink on it, or none at all.

The first mistake I made: I checked the ink first. I assumed the ink was too thick or the container was empty. That wasn't it, at least in my case. I wasted a whole afternoon mixing and remixing, to no effect.

The actual fix, which I finally figured out after a particularly painful Friday in September 2022:

Check the off-contact. If your screen is sitting flat on the shirt or substrate, the ink can't release properly. You need a 1/16 to 1/8 inch gap. On a $3,200 order for a local sports team, I had the off-contact set to zero. Every single shirt looked like a ghost. I had to reprint 144 shirts. That error cost $890 in redo time plus a 1-week delay. Reference: Standard print resolution for screen print requires proper off-contact to achieve consistent color density (300 DPI equivalent for textile).
Flood bar pressure. The flood bar should just barely skim the screen. If it's pushing down too hard, it can force the ink through the mesh prematurely, leaving nothing for the print stroke. This is super common on older manual press setups.
Squeegee angle and pressure. A 45-degree angle is the starting point. If the blade is too sharp or the pressure too light, the ink won't be pushed through. I've seen beginners push so lightly the squeegee just skates over the top.

If I remember correctly, the standard advice is 'check the ink' first. That's wrong for this scenario. It's almost always mechanics before materials.

Scenario 2: The Videojet Inkjet Printer Skips Lines or Prints Smears

Switching gears to industrial inkjet. The Videojet is a workhorse, but when it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. The trigger event for me was a batch of 500 boxes in March 2023. The date codes were illegible on about 120 of them.

I didn't fully understand the value of daily cleaning until that incident. The Videojet printer manual says to clean the printhead at the start of every shift. We skipped it three days in a row because we were 'too busy.' The result was a $450 redo plus a lost client who switched to a competitor for the next order.

Here's the fix checklist I now enforce:

Printhead cleaning. Dried ink on the nozzle plate is the number one cause of skipping. Use the approved solvent and a lint-free wipe. Do not use compressed air—it drives debris into the nozzle.
Check the viscosity. If the ink is too thick (cold environment) or too thin (contaminated), the drops will be the wrong size. The Videojet system should self-check this, but I've seen it fail. I want to say we had a bad batch of ink from a new supplier in Q4 2024, and the machine didn't flag it until we manually tested.
Inspect the make-up fluid system. If the make-up (thinner) is low, the ink will thicken during long runs. On a 1,500-piece run, we hit this at piece 900. The last 600 pieces were all different shades.

The vendor who lists all fees upfront—even if the total looks higher—usually costs less in the end. In this case, the cheap ink we bought from a third party cost us a ton of time.

Scenario 3: Toshiba Printer Shows 'Paper Jam' or 'Error' with No Jam Visible

Toshiba printer errors are notorious for being misleading. The screen says 'paper jam' but you open every panel and find nothing. This happened on a Friday at 4:30 PM, naturally.

Everyone told me to check the sensors first. I didn't listen. I spent 20 minutes looking for a phantom piece of paper. What actually happened: a tiny piece of a label had peeled off and covered a sensor behind the fuser unit. The sensor thought there was paper there, so it halted the print cycle.

The fix:

Clean ALL sensors. Not just the ones you can see easily. Use compressed air (carefully) or a soft brush. For a Toshiba e-STUDIO model in a production environment, this is a monthly maintenance task. I learned this in 2021; things may have evolved, but sensor contamination is still a top cause.
Check the waste toner bottle. On some Toshiba models, a full waste toner bottle will trigger a generic 'service error' message. I saw this on an older e-STUDIO 4511. The display just said 'Service Call 2-001.' That code means 'almost anything,' but the actual cause was the full bottle.
Firmware glitch. A power cycle fixes about 30% of Toshiba errors. Unplug for 60 seconds. The upside was 5 minutes of downtime. The risk was it not working. I kept asking myself: is calling a technician worth potentially $200? The standard advice is to call for service immediately. That's not always the right move. Try the hard reset first.

Scenario 4: Silk Screen Printing Machine Leaves Ghost Images or Hazing

Ghost images are those faint outlines of a previous print that show up on the next item. This is costly on short runs.

Why it happens and how to stop it:

Poor screen degreasing. Before reclaiming screens, you need to properly degrease. I once ordered 500 pieces with a ghost image on every one. Checked it myself, approved it, processed it. We caught the error when the client called. $800 wasted, credibility damaged, lesson learned: always do a test print after reclaiming a screen. (Reference: Industry standard color tolerance is Delta E < 2 for brand-critical colors. A ghost image pushes that beyond 4.)
Incorrect mesh tension. If the screen is too loose, it stretches during printing and snaps back, causing a double image. Use a tensiometer. If the reading is below 20 Newtons per square centimeter, the screen is too loose for fine detail.

I only believed the degreasing advice after ignoring it and eating that $800 mistake. Now I'm obsessive about it.

How to Figure Out Which Scenario You're In

Here's a quick decision tree I use now when the phone rings with a 'printer not printing' issue.

Step 1: Identify the machine type.

Is it a flatbed screen press? Go to Scenario 1 or 3.
Is it a roll-to-roll inkjet like a Videojet? Go to Scenario 2.
Is it a laser or LED printer like a Toshiba? Go to Scenario 3.
Is it a rotary silk screen? Probably Scenario 4.

Step 2: Look at the output.

Blank substrate? Check off-contact and flood bar (Scenario 1).
Skipped lines or smears? Printhead cleaning and viscosity (Scenario 2).
Error code and no obvious jam? Sensors and waste toner (Scenario 3).
Ghost image on the next print? Screen reclaiming or tension (Scenario 4).

Step 3: Check the last change.

Did you switch ink brands? Did the temperature drop in the shop? Did a new operator run the machine? The answer is usually in the last thing you changed. (Should mention: we once spent 3 hours troubleshooting a Videojet before realizing the night crew had switched the make-up fluid to the wrong drum.)

Calculated the worst case: complete redo at $3,500. Best case: saves $800. The expected value said go for it—but the downside felt catastrophic. So I don't skip the basics anymore.