Manual sheet feed and CRP

I’ve been using the manual (rear) sheet feed on my R1900 to avoid the violence of the paper feed roller in the regular (top) sheet feeder. It’s working well enough most of the time, but it’s not working for Canson Rag Photographique. I can feed it in, but when it moves the paper back and forth to locate the leading edge just before the printing is supposed to start, the paper light starts flashing and I have to eject the paper. I’ve tried various ways of pushing and inserting the page, but all to no avail.

The odd thing is that if I insert the page upside down and print a white square like the GO image (i.e. no ink is used and nothing is actually printed) then the sheet of CRP feeds in and through the printer fine. But it won’t the correct way up. So something about the texture of one of the two sides is causing it to appear skewed or to slip in the rollers or not locate the edge, or something.

Has anyone got any ideas on how to get CRP to feed into the rear slot? I know it’s supposed to be tricky, but it only appears to be an issue with CRP (310g/m2).

Sorry, I’ve never had to use the manual paper feed with our R1900, but it’s strange that it works with the paper upside down…

Yes, it’s weird. It must be either the sensor for the paper edge, or something to do with the traction on this particular surface. I get the same problem printing with and without a lead sheet (which I mostly use to avoid microbanding). Give this and the upside-down behaviour, I assume it’s something to do with poor traction preventing the sensor locating the edge, or perhaps reading a paper skew. It nearly always happens with CRP and hardly ever happens with other papers. I’ve given up and gone back to the top sheet feeder for CRP.