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Is your Kenmore oven door locked and you can’t get it open? We are here to help…
Modern ovens can lock their doors automatically, especially when opening them is too dangerous. Typically, that happens after a self-cleaning cycle when the inside gets extremely hot. But how do you reset blinking Oven Door Locked lights on Kenmore ovens?
You can reset the Oven Door Locked lights on Kenmore ovens by letting them cool if they’re extremely hot inside. Alternatively, you can also press and hold the Lock button for 3 seconds to stop the light. If the light blinks due to a glitch, power-cycling the unit should reset it. Lastly, replace the temperature sensor or main control board if they’re the root cause.
By reading through this guide, you’ll discover the reasons that the light is blinking on your Kenmore oven. Better yet, you’ll find many options at your disposal to reset the blinking Oven Door Locked lights.
How Do You Reset Blinking Kenmore Oven Door Locked Lights?
As you’ll see below, there are several ways to reset the Oven Door Locked light that’s blinking on your appliance. Most of them are related to the oven’s regular functioning.
However, there are some scenarios where a component has failed, requiring further troubleshooting and repairs.
Here are the different ways that you can reset the blinking Oven Door Locked lights on Kenmore ovens:
1. Press The Stop Button
First and foremost, you should try pressing and holding the Stop button on the oven control panel. In most cases, doing so for 3 seconds is enough to unlock your oven door and stop the light from blinking.
If that doesn’t work, be sure to look directly underneath the Stop button. You’ll find information printed to let you know how long you should press and hold the button to unlock the oven door and reset the Oven Door Locked light.
Suppose that doesn’t work. In that case, you’ll want to use one of the other methods listed below.
Read: KENMORE Oven Is Not Heating? How To Fix It?
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2. Power Cycle The Oven
Modern ovens depend on lots of electronic components to function correctly. Unfortunately, those components are prone to suffering from glitches or other short-term errors. These errors happen at random, so they’re not predictable. Despite being annoying, these glitches aren’t harmful to you or the oven.
Suppose you suspect that the Oven Door Locked light is blinking on your oven because the appliance suffers from a glitch. In that case, you can reset the unit by performing a power cycle.
Power cycling means disconnecting your oven from its power source for a brief period. Putting it on standby isn’t enough, so you must remove its plug from the wall socket. For hard-wired ovens, you must shut off the circuit breaker that protects the circuit powering the unit.
Doing so for a minute or two will be enough to reset the entire oven. Any retained electrical power in the oven will dissipate naturally during that time. That will result in the oven’s memory clearing itself, along with any minor errors that are present.
After you’ve let a few minutes pass, you can power the oven and turn it on like usual. You’ll find that the Oven Locked light should clear if it were caused by a glitch.
Read: Kenmore Oven Shows F10 Error Code And Beeps. How To Fix?
3. Allow The Oven To Cool Down
There are some scenarios when the Oven Door Locked lights continue blinking, and the oven will refuse to unlock its door. For example, that’ll happen if you recently put the oven on a self-cleaning cycle (which involves extreme heat) and the appliance is still dangerously hot inside.
In this case, the oven keeps its door locked for safety reasons. That’s done to protect you from opening the door and getting injured by all the scalding hot air rushing out towards your face.
Simply put, the appliance is flashing the Oven Door Locked light and doesn’t unlock its door because it is designed to do so for your safety.
If this is the scenario you find yourself in, then there’s only one way to reset the blinking light: to allow the oven to cool down. Then, the light will stop blinking, and the door will unlock automatically once the oven reaches a safe temperature.
In most cases, an oven requires 1-2 additional hours to cool down after a self-cleaning cycle completes. The precise timing will differ for your model, so it’s best to give the oven as much time as it needs.
Read: Why Oven Not Cooking Evenly?
4. Troubleshoot For Faulty Temperature Sensor
As you saw above, the oven will blink its Oven Door Locked light continuously if you try to open it while it’s still too hot inside. Unfortunately, that can still happen even if the oven has already cooled down.
Here, the most likely problem is the temperature sensor, which no longer functions correctly.
A faulty temperature sensor will mistakenly sense that the oven is at dangerous temperatures inside. Then, it’ll trigger the oven to keep its door locked and blink the Oven Door Locked light indefinitely because it continues thinking that the oven is still too hot.
You can only solve this problem by shutting the oven off and replacing the temperature sensor inside.
That process will involve removing and disconnecting the sensor from the oven’s wiring. Then, you must purchase a compatible replacement and install it in the oven’s cavity.
Once you have a functioning temperature sensor, your oven will no longer blink its Oven Door Locked light unless it gets too hot inside.
Read: Oven Cooling Fan Noise. What Causes And How To Fix It?
5. Diagnose The Main Control Board
Suppose you’ve tried all the other solutions above, yet it doesn’t solve the problem. The Oven Door Locked light blinks even though everything is fine and the oven isn’t hot inside.
In that case, the only other possibility is that the main control board has become defective.
Remember: the main control board is a printed circuit board (PCB) which acts as the oven’s brain. Its components coordinate the functioning of all oven components, including its controls and display.
So, when one or more parts of the control board fail, you’ll experience some kind of erratic behavior coming from your oven.
In this case, the unusual behavior is the Oven Door Locked light blinking even though there is no logical reason why it would do so. That may or may not happen alongside another common symptom of the door staying locked even when it shouldn’t.
You can inspect the control board closely to look for any damage signs. For instance, you might find burn marks or notice burn smells. However, some of those components can fail without showing signs, so the board might not look damaged.
Whatever the case is, you’ll have to replace that board with a new one. Be sure to take note of the wiring connected to it, as you’ll have to reconnect them to the new board in the same configuration.
Final Thoughts
When troubleshooting the Oven Door Locked light flashing on your oven, you should first understand why that light might blink. Typically, the oven is too hot and dangerous to open, especially after a self-cleaning cycle.
Besides that, the door might be locked manually. In that case, you can also unlock it manually by pressing and holding the lock button. However, a faulty temperature sensor and defective main control board can also cause the light to blink unnecessarily. In those cases, you’ll need to replace the affected part to reset the blinking light.
