Support Printers All-In-Ones ET Series Epson ET-5850U for ReadyPrint

I'm having trouble sending or receiving faxes. What should I do?

  • If you cannot send or receive faxes, try these solutions:

    • Use Check Fax Connection on the control panel (Settings > General Settings > Fax Settings > Check Fax Connection) to run the automatic fax connection check. Try the solutions suggested in the report.
    • If you are faxing from a computer, use the Epson FAX Utility to send your fax.
    • Make sure the recipient's fax machine is turned on and working.
    • Make sure paper is loaded correctly in your product.
    • Make sure you have set up your header information and have not blocked your caller ID. Otherwise, your faxes might be rejected by the recipient's fax machine.
    • If user restriction has been enabled, you may need to enter a user name and password. Contact your administrator for assistance.
    • If you did not connect a telephone to your product, set the Receive Mode setting to Auto so you can receive faxes automatically.
    • Check that the cable connecting your telephone wall jack to your product's LINE port is secure.
    • Print a fax connection report using your product control panel or fax software to help diagnose the problem.
    • Verify that the telephone wall jack works by connecting a phone to it and testing it.
    • If there is no dial tone and you connected the product to a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) phone line or Terminal Adapter, change the Line Type setting to PBX. If you still cannot send a fax, turn off the product's dial tone detection setting. (Turning off the dial tone setting may cause the product to drop the first digit of a fax number.)
    • If you connected your product to a DSL phone line, you must connect a DSL filter to the phone jack to enable faxing over the line. Contact your DSL provider for the necessary filter.
    • If you are connected to a DSL phone line, connect the product directly to a telephone wall jack and send a fax. If it works, the problem may be caused by the DSL filter. Contact your DSL provider.
    • If your telephone line has static, turn off your product's error correction mode fax communication setting and try faxing again.
    • Try lowering your product's fax speed setting.
    • If a communication error occurs, change the Fax Speed setting to Slow(9,600bps) on the control panel.
    • Make sure the error correction mode (ECM) setting is turned on if you are trying to send or receive a color fax.
    • If your telephone line uses call waiting and you have trouble receiving faxes, turn off call waiting to prevent disruption of incoming faxes.
    • If you have subscribed to a call forwarding service, the product may not be able to receive faxes. Contact your service provider for assistance.
    • If the recipient fax machine does not answer your call within 50 seconds after the product has finished dialing, add pauses after the fax number to send the fax.
    • Check your inbox and delete faxes after reading or printing them. If the inbox is full, the product cannot receive faxes.
    • When sending faxes using the subaddress feature, ask the recipient if their fax machine can receive faxes using this feature. Check that the subaddress and password are correct, and that they match with the recipient subaddress and password. Check this when receiving faxes as well.
    • Check if the sender's fax number is registered to the Rejection Number List
    • If you enabled Rejection Fax options, check if the sender is blocked, did not set up header information, or is not registered in your contacts list, as necessary.
    • If you have not connected a telephone to the printer, set the Receive Mode setting to Auto on the control panel.
    • If you are receiving faxes using the Epson FAX Utility, check that your product is registered as a fax product in your operating system:

      Windows: Make sure the product appears in Devices and Printers, Printer, or Printers and Other Hardware. If the product does not appear, uninstall and re-install the Epson FAX Utility.

      Mac: Select System Preferences > Printers & Scanners (or Print & Scan or Print & Fax) and make sure your product appears. If your product does not appear, click + and add your product. If the product does appear, double-click it and make sure it is not paused.

    Note: Do not turn the product off while it is receiving a fax. Otherwise, the fax transmission will be lost.

    Note: If your product is connected to a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone line, keep in mind that fax machines are designed to work over analog phone lines. Epson cannot guarantee that fax transmission will work when using VoIP.

    If your phone line includes voice mail answering services, calls or faxes may be inadvertently received by your voice mail service.

    Related tasks
    Connecting a Telephone or Answering Machine
    Using the Fax Setup Wizard
    Selecting the Line Type
    Selecting Advanced Fax Settings
    Receiving Faxes Automatically
    Printing Fax Reports
    Related information
    Loading Paper
Published:  Jul 23, 2020 Was this helpful?​ Thank you for the feedback!
Was this helpful?​
Please tell us why this was not helpful.​