Why Won't My Garage Door Close?
Usually it is the safety beams, but a door that reverses, stops short or will not seat can also be a force setting, a tired cable or a drifted travel limit. How to tell them apart, what is safe to try, and when to stop and call.
Quick Answer
A garage door that won't close but still opens is most often being stopped by its safety sensors: the two photo-eyes near the floor have been knocked out of line, a lens has a film on it, or something is breaking the beam. On a west-facing Perth garage the low afternoon sun can blind the receiver, so the door refuses to close until the glare passes. If the sensors are clean, aligned and showing steady lights, the door is usually reversing because the opener's force sensitivity is being tripped by a stiff or unbalanced door, a hardened bottom seal or an uneven slab, or because the travel limit drifted after a power cut. A frayed cable or a tired spring gives the same symptom and is not a DIY job. We work out which it is on the spot, across all of Perth, same day, with no call-out fee.
Common Causes
Safety sensors out of line or blocked
The two photo-eyes near the floor must see each other before the opener will close. A bumped bracket, a bin pushed against one, or low afternoon sun on a west-facing garage hitting the receiver all break the beam, and the door either refuses to move or drops a little and reverses with the light flashing. Our guide to cleaning and re-aligning the safety beams covers that fix step by step.
Salt film or dust on the lenses
A lens does not need to look dirty to fail. Salt haze from the sea breeze in Scarborough or Fremantle, red dust after a hot northerly, or a spider's web across the eye scatters enough of the beam that the receiver reads it as blocked, even with both units perfectly aligned.
Auto-reverse tripped by resistance
Every opener watches how hard it is pushing. If the bottom of the door meets an uneven slab edge, a bottom seal that has gone hard or bunched up, or a gust catching a wide sectional panel mid-travel, the force sensor reads it as a person under the door and sends it back up. Aligned sensors and a door that still reverses usually means this.
Cable or spring out of balance
When a spring loses tension or a lift cable starts to fray, the door becomes heavier on one side and drags in the tracks. The opener feels the extra load and either trips the safety reverse or stops short of the floor. Leave the cables and springs alone; this is garage door cable repair work, done under tension with the right tools.
Travel limit drifted after a power cut
The opener counts its way to a set closed position. After a power outage, a reset or, on some models, a flat backup battery, that setting can drift, so the door stops a few centimetres short or presses too hard on the floor and reverses. Re-setting limits is quick, but an opener that keeps losing them has a control board or drive on the way out, which is opener repair rather than adjustment.
Something in the door's path
Not every obstruction is obvious. A broom handle leaning inside the track, the edge of a wheelie bin just inside the opening, a rolled-up mat at the threshold or a stone kicked into the bottom guide will stop the door or trip the beam, and a pushbike wheel parked at the threshold does it more often than you would think.
What You Can Check Safely
Safe to check yourself
- Wipe both sensor lenses with a soft, dry cloth, then try the door again; a film you cannot see is still enough to stop it.
- Make sure nothing breaks the beam between the two sensors, including your own shadow, a bin, or direct sun pouring onto the receiver late in the afternoon.
- Check both sensors sit level and face each other, with their indicator lights steady rather than flashing or out.
- Clear the floor track, guides and threshold of anything at all, including leaves, a mat or a stone in the bottom guide.
- Press the wall button instead of the remote; if the door closes from the wall, the fault is the remote or its battery, not the door.
Do not attempt
- Do not bend or force a sensor bracket to line the eyes up. Loosen the fixing, re-seat the sensor and tighten it again; a pried bracket springs back out of line within days.
- Do not disable, tape over or bypass the safety sensors to force the door shut. Running the door with them disabled removes the anti-crush protection the door relies on and removes the anti-crush protection that stops it closing on a child, a pet or a car.
- Do not turn up the opener's force or change its limits without your model's documented procedure. Set too high, the safety reverse stops protecting people and pets, and the door can drive its bottom panel into the floor.
When to Call a Technician
Call a technician straight away if any of the following apply:
- The door reverses every single time even though the beam is clear and both sensors are aligned and steady.
- One sensor light will not come on at all, even after cleaning and re-seating it.
- The door closes fully and then reopens on its own a moment later.
- A cable looks frayed or slack, or a spring has a visible gap or looks stretched.
- The fault started straight after a storm, a knock to the door, or a DIY change to the tracks or settings.
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A garage door that will not close leaves the car, the tools and often the internal door to the house open to the street. We run 24/7 across Perth, come out the same day, and there is no call-out fee; the common sensor, limit and cable faults are fixed in the one visit from parts on the van.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start with the safety sensors, because they cause most of these calls. If the door opens fine but will not close from the remote or the wall button, and the opener light flashes or clicks when you try, the two photo-eyes near the floor are not seeing each other: one has been knocked, a lens is dirty, something is sitting in the beam, or the afternoon sun is flooding the receiver. If the sensors check out, the next suspects are the opener's force setting being tripped by a door that has become stiff or unbalanced, a travel limit that drifted after a power cut, or an object in the track. Work down the safe checks above in order; if the door still will not close, the cause is mechanical and worth a look from us.
That is the auto-reverse doing its job, just for the wrong reason. Every opener measures how much effort the door takes to move, and if the number jumps mid-travel it assumes something is under the door and sends it back up. A door that reverses at the same spot each time is usually meeting resistance there: a roller catching a dent in the track, a hinge that has seized, a section of track that has been knocked in, or, near the floor, a hardened bottom seal or a high point in the slab. A door that reverses at random points and rises heavily by hand is more likely out of balance from a tired spring or a fraying cable, which is a technician's job.
Because the sensors are only the first gate. Once they agree the path is clear, the opener still has to move the door within the force it has been set for, and to reach the closed position it has stored. A door that has stiffened up over winter, a dry track full of grit, a spring that has lost tension or a cable stretching on one drum all make the door heavier than the opener expects, so it stops or reverses with the beam clear. A drifted limit does something similar: the opener thinks the floor is lower than it is, presses hard, and backs off. Both are fixable, but they need someone to check the balance and the settings together rather than guessing at the sensors again.
Without power the opener cannot move the door at all, so the door is not faulty; it is waiting. Most openers have a manual release, usually a red cord or a lever on the trolley, that disconnects the door from the drive so you can move it by hand. Before you pull it, make sure the door is either fully open or fully closed and that nobody is standing under it, because a door with a weak spring can drop once it is free. Then lower it by hand from the inside, keeping your fingers clear of the panel joints, and lock it if it has a manual lock. If the door feels very heavy, sticks, or slams down, stop and leave it where it is; that is a spring or balance problem that needs a technician, not more force. Check your opener's manual for the release and re-engage steps for your model.
It depends on which of the causes above it turns out to be, so we price the job before we start rather than guess over the phone. A sensor that only needs cleaning, re-seating or a new bracket sits at the bottom, a replacement sensor pair or a limit and force reset a little above it, and cable, spring or control-board work above that, with the size and type of the door and whether it is an after-hours call shaping the labour. The quote is free, there is no call-out fee, and because the vans carry the common parts most of these jobs are finished in the one visit. If it is the beams, our garage door sensor repair service covers what that visit involves.
That is the opener telling you the safety sensors have failed their check. Many openers allow a constant-pressure close from the wall button when the beam is broken, on the theory that someone standing at the button can see the door, but they will not close from the remote in that state. It is a useful clue rather than a fix. Clean and re-align the sensors, check the wiring where it runs along the track for a staple or a mower nick, and look for one eye whose light is out. If the sensors are healthy and the door still needs the button held, the receiver or the board is at fault. Do not treat hold-to-close as a permanent workaround; it is the same as running the door without its anti-crush protection.
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