To use v3600, you need a USB cable, a Windows XP/7 VM (because Canon hasn’t updated the tool since 2014), and the faith of a sysadmin. Launch it. Select “Clear Waste Ink Counter.” Click “Main.” One second later — the printer springs back to life, purring as if it never died.
The official fix? Replace the printer. Or pay a certified tech more than the printer cost.
And that key, for thousands of Canon printers, is a 3 MB executable from a time when Windows Vista was new and repair was still a right, not a ransom.