If you’ve made it to this page, it’s probably because you’re ready to a) throw your Cricut machine out the window, b) set your Cricut machine on fire, c) pulverize your Cricut machine into a thousand pieces using the biggest sledgehammer known to man, or d) all of the above.
I hear you. I feel you. Trust me, I KNOW.
About two weeks ago when my Cricut Design Space auto-installed the latest 6.2.100 software update, I, too, found myself overcome with crafter’s rage. What once was a fully (semi) functioning die-cut machine suddenly became a totally (un)glorified $229 paperweight. The Cricut print and cut feature was cutting obscenely inaccurately from what it was programmed to do. At one point I couldn’t even upload new images into Design Space without getting slapped in the face with error messages galore.
No recalibration, restart, reinstallation or suggestion from angsty Facebook group threads was seeming to do the trick. But – after a week-long battle of trial & error, troubleshooting & a bottle or two of wine…I finally cracked the code. And want to hopefully help you do the same!
Now, if you’re a veteran Cricut troubleshooter, then you know one of the most annoying things is that it seems all Cricuts operate differently from one another. So while I can’t *guarantee* these steps will work for everyone, statistically speaking, it should for some!
Before we get into it, let me just note that I have a Cricut Explore Air 2 & was working on a MacBook Pro with the macOS Big Sur 11.1 installed. I also have the Cricut & laptop physically connected using the included USB cable, so can’t personally speak for troubleshooting using the Design Space iPhone or iPad apps (although I’ve heard making that switch worked well for some people!).
INITIALLY DOUBLE-CHECK…
First off, you want to double-check that:
+ your material is placed on the cutting mat as straight on the grid lines as possible
+ the mat is pushed all the way against the left bracket/tab when being loaded
+ the mat isn’t bumping up against anything as it rolls up & down inside of the Cricut
At risk of sounding like that tech support operator you want to strangle every damn time, you also want to try signing out & back into your Design Space account, as well as fully quitting & reopening the Design Space program, if you haven’t done that already.
(Just in case it could – though unlikely – be *that* simple)
RECALIBRATE
After that, one of the next tricks you can try is recalibrating your Cricut machine. However, when doing so, make sure you’re printing the calibration sheet:
+ on the printer you plan to use the most (if you have more than one)
+ from the specific paper tray you plan to use the most
+ on the exact type of paper you plan to use the most
That way, the calibration sheet is as identical to your projects as possible, in order to (theoretically) best retain the calibrated cutting accuracy.
I’m not sure if using the same type of paper is 100% necessary, but since inaccurate cuts could potentially be an issue of how the paper feeds into the printer – it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?
CHECK THE PAPER FEEDING
And speaking of how the printer feeds, also be sure to check that the adjustable knobs inside your print tray are set to the correct size of paper. If the paper isn’t correctly feeding into the printer to begin with, it’s possible the image could be printing off center & obviously…we don’t want that.
CHECK THE SCALING
When sending your print & cut design to your printer, make sure to turn on the “use system dialogue” feature. Once that pop-up appears, check & see that your printer isn’t set to scale the image (make it bigger or smaller by a certain percentage). That setting should be located under the “paper handling” section, or something similar.
RESETTING THE FIRMWARE
Word on the street was that a lot of the post-update cutting issues ultimately had something to do with the firmware – AKA: the software installed within the Cricut that tells it how to run.
If you click the three horizontal lines in the top left corner of the Design Space window, you should see an “update firmware” option on the pop-up menu. At first whenever I clicked it, it told me that my machine’s firmware was up to date, but ~supposedly~ a glitch in the latest Design Space update causes it to say the firmware is up to date when, in reality, it’s not. So what made the biggest difference for me was performing what’s called a “forced firmware update”.
It might sound scary, but honestly, it’s pretty simple! I used these instructions someone posted on a Reddit thread after receiving them directly from a Cricut representative, & just like that…it worked! The print & cut feature was back in action.
Celebration! Joy! Elation! At least…until the next morning when I tried it again only to find it cutting even WORSE than before. UGH.
Which lead me to break down & finally call the Cricut support team myself.
CANVAS STYLE (!!!) & ONE LAST HACK
Refilled with the aforementioned crafter’s rage, I called the Cricut hotline expecting to wait for an hour, at least. But to my pleasant surprise, I got ahold of someone right away! Detailing the extensive string of troubleshooting & research I had done up to this point, I asked what else could I possibly try to get this thing back up to working order. And after telling me I should come work for Cricut after doing “so well” with the trial & error (hahaha), the guy asked me to check my Design Space settings & make sure the “canvas style” was set to “new” instead of “classic”.
…
CLASSIC. In the very beginning of this journey I changed it to “classic” per a random tip I read in a Cricut Facebook group & totally forgot about it. But low & behold, after making that fateful switch back to “new”…it worked! And continued to work the next day! And the next!
So there it is. How I turned my Cricut Explore Air 2 from paper weight back to a (semi-)functioning device I can (somewhat) rely on. One other last-minute trick I discovered was if you close the top lid of the machine while it runs, that seems to allow the sensors/light to better “read” the lines & produce a more accurate cut. Who knew?
Of course, we *are* still talking about the Cricut, so even its “accurate” cuts aren’t always 100%. But oh well, such is life, I guess.
If you’ve discovered any other helpful hints & hacks, please, by all means, feel free to share! I know Cricut vs Silhouette is one of the *~*hOtTeSt*~* rivalries since the vamp v. wolf days, but regardless of what team you’re on, let’s band together & get these cutters back to working for us, not against.
xxAA
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Thank you so much.