The short version
- 01Press the printer's OK button to continue printing, which Canon explicitly permits.
- 02Treat this as a countdown rather than a nuisance message to dismiss forever.
- 03Contact Canon service to ask what replacing the absorber would cost.
- 04Check the warranty now, while the printer is still working.
- 05Plan for a replacement if the printer is old and the repair is not economic.
- 06Print in longer sessions to slow how fast the absorber fills.
Raw message
Support Code 1700 — Ink absorber is almost full.
Likely causes
- The ink absorber approaching capacity after accumulated cleaning cycles.
- Normal wear on a printer that has done a lot of work, rather than a fault.
- Frequent short print sessions, each potentially triggering a cleaning cycle.
- A printer nearing the end of its serviceable life.
The warning before the stop
Canon's manual gives the cause as the ink absorber being almost full, and the action as pressing the printer's OK button to continue printing and contacting your nearest Canon service centre to request a repair. Both halves matter, and most people only act on the first.
The printer is still fully usable. Nothing has failed, no print quality has changed, and pressing OK genuinely does let you carry on. This is a notice rather than a fault.
What it is telling you is that the absorber — the pad that catches waste ink from head cleaning — is running out of room. When it fills completely the printer reports 5B00 and stops printing altogether, and at that point you have no choice about when to deal with it.
What to do with the time it gives you
The useful response is to find out now what the outcome will cost. Ask Canon or an authorised service centre what replacing the absorber involves for your model, and check whether the printer is still inside its one-year warranty. Both are much easier conversations while the printer still works.
If the printer is old and the repair is not worth it, this is your notice to plan a replacement on your own schedule rather than on the day a deadline collides with a printer that has stopped. That is the whole value of the warning.
In the meantime, printing in longer sessions rather than many short ones slows the fill rate, because many printers run a cleaning cycle on power-on and after idle periods. It will not stop 5B00 arriving, but it can push it out.
Sources and review notes
Checked on . Canon's cause and action come from its online manual error code page for 1700, taken from the TS3700 series manual, with the consequence of ignoring it taken from its 5B00 page. The advice about how to use the warning period is editorial. Codes are published per model; check the manual for your own printer. Glitchary is independent of Canon.