Garage door troubleshooting

Your garage door won't close.

A door that will not close is a different problem from one that will not open, and it is usually a smaller one. On the way down the opener is deliberately cautious: it is watching a pair of sensors and a force limit, and it would rather leave the door open than close it on something. Most "won't close" calls are that caution being triggered by something harmless.

Below is how to tell a sensor problem from a limit problem from a door that is physically binding, which of those you can safely sort out yourself, and the couple of things that genuinely need someone with the right tools.

Written by the crew at Ferguson's Garage Doors, Roanoke, VA Class A licensed, owner-operated Updated August 2026

Before you touch anything

Start with the sensors. It is the sensors more often than not.

Everything in the safe column is fair game with the opener plugged in. The other column is where a small problem becomes an injury or a bigger bill.

Safe to check yourself

Look at the two small sensors near the floor on either side of the doorway. Each has a light. Both should be solid; one dark or blinking means they are not aligned.
Wipe the lenses. Dust, cobwebs, and a splash from the pressure washer are enough to break the beam.
Check nothing is in the beam path: a rake, a bike tire, a box, a trash can lid. It only takes a corner.
Look for a sensor that has been knocked. They live at shin height and get kicked. Gently nudge it until its light goes solid.
Watch where the door stops. All the way at the floor then reversing is a limit issue. Part way down and stopping is a bind. Reversing immediately from the top is nearly always sensors.
Try closing with the wall button held down the whole way. If it closes, the sensors are the whole problem.

Leave these alone

Turning up the down force

The force dial is a safety limit. Turning it up to make the door push through means the door will also push through a bumper, a pet, or a child. Find the bind instead.
Bypassing the photo-eyes for good

Taping the sensors together facing each other makes the door close, and it also makes it close on anything. It is not a fix, and it voids the safety the opener was built around.
The springs and cables

A door that binds on the way down is sometimes a tired spring or a slipped cable. Neither is a homeowner adjustment. Both are under tension whether the door is up or down.
The emergency release with the door open

If the door is stuck open and you pull the red cord to close it by hand, and a spring is weak or a cable has slipped, the door comes down faster than you can control it. Lower it with a second person, or leave it and call.

Narrowing it down

Five things it usually is

Roughly in order of how often we see them. The first two you can usually fix yourself in a few minutes.

Photo-eyes out of alignment, dirty, or in the sun

The safety sensors send an invisible beam across the doorway a few inches off the floor. If it is broken, the door will not close from a remote and the opener light flashes. Misalignment from a kick, dust or a cobweb on the lens, a low sun angle hitting the receiver in the late afternoon, or a wire chewed by a mouse.

How you know: The door reverses right away or refuses to start down, the opener light blinks, and one sensor light is off or flickering. Holding the wall button closes it.

The down limit or force is off

The opener has to know where the floor is. If the limit is set past it, the door hits the slab, keeps pushing, hits its force threshold, and reverses. If the limit is short, it stops an inch above the floor and leaves a gap. New weather seal, a settled slab, and drifting adjustments all cause it.

How you know: The door goes all the way to the floor and then reverses, or stops just short of the floor and stays there. No flashing sensor lights.

The door is binding on the way down

A roller that has climbed out of the track, a bent hinge, a track that got knocked, or a spring that has lost tension so the door hangs crooked. The opener feels the resistance and reverses to protect itself.

How you know: The door stops or reverses at the same height every time, sometimes with a grinding or popping sound at that spot. Look along the tracks at that height.

Remote, keypad, or the wall console lock

The door will not close from a particular remote but will from the wall. Battery, lost pairing, or the lock button on the console. If nothing on the console works either, the console wiring or the board.

How you know: The wall button works and the remote does not. Or every remote quit at once and the console lock light is lit.

A logic board or travel module that has failed

After a storm surge, or on an older unit, the board can lose its limits or stop responding to the down command entirely. Often the opener light flashes a diagnostic code that tells us exactly what it is.

How you know: None of the above applies, the sensors are solid, and the door behaves erratically: opens fine, refuses to close, or resets its limits on its own.

Why it happens here

Local reasons a Roanoke door stops closing

Most of this is universal. Some of it is the Valley.

Low sun through open garages

Garages that face west across the Valley, and there are a lot of them along the ridges in Cave Spring and South Roanoke, get direct late-afternoon sun straight into the receiving photo-eye. The door works all day and refuses to close at six o'clock. Swapping which side the receiver is on, or a sun shield, sorts it.
Ice and settled slabs

Freeze-thaw cycles heave and settle garage slabs, and a slab that has dropped a quarter inch means the down limit is now short of the floor. Ice on the slab in January has the opposite effect: the door meets it early and reverses.
Mice in detached garages

Older detached garages in Wasena, Grandin, and out in the county are winter shelter for mice, and the sensor wire running along the wall at floor level is exactly what they chew. One nibble and the beam is gone.
Pressure washing season

Every spring we get a run of sensor calls right after driveways get washed. Water gets behind the lens or shifts the bracket a hair. Usually a wipe and a nudge, but people call thinking the opener has died.

What the visit looks like

What we do when a door won't close

Ask what it does

Reverses at the top, at the floor, or part way. Whether the light flashes. Whether the wall button closes it. That usually names the cause on the phone, and often we can talk you through it without a visit.

Sensors first, then the door

Alignment, lens, wiring, and voltage on the photo-eyes. Then the opener comes off and the door is run by hand to feel for a bind anywhere in its travel.

Fix the cause

Realign or replace sensors, repair chewed wiring, replace the roller or hinge that is binding, or reset limits and force to the door as it now moves. Springs and cables if the door is hanging crooked.

Test the safety reverse properly

A two-by-four flat on the floor under the door. It has to reverse on contact. If it does not, the force is wrong or the door is binding, and we do not leave until it does.

What it costs

What moves the price on a won't-close call

A good share of these are a phone call and a wiped lens, and we will tell you so rather than roll a truck. When it does need a visit, this is what changes the number.

Get a quote on your door

Free, no obligation, straight answers

Sensor, adjustment, or door repair

Realigning sensors and resetting limits is the low end. Replacing sensors or chewed wiring is next. A door that binds because of a roller, hinge, or tired spring is a door repair, priced as one.

Whether the door was forced

A door that was pushed through the bind by cranking the force, or closed by hand against a jam, tends to arrive with a bent track or a stripped opener gear on top of the original problem.

Opener age and parts

Sensors and remotes are inexpensive and mostly universal. A logic board for a fifteen-year-old opener may not be, and sometimes a new opener is the honest recommendation.

Timing and distance

A door stuck open is a security problem, so we treat these as same-day where we can. After-hours and long-distance calls carry a trip component that we tell you about on the phone.

What people ask when the door won't close

Have a question that isn't here? Call (540) 293-0197 and you'll get a straight answer.

The door starts down, stops, and goes back up. The light flashes. What is that?

That is the safety reverse doing its job, or thinking it needs to. The opener believes something is in the doorway. Nine times out of ten it is the photo-eyes near the floor: one has been kicked out of line, is dirty, or has a cobweb across it, or the sun is hitting the lens at the wrong angle. Look at the little lights on both sensors. Both should be solid. If one is off or blinking, they are not seeing each other.

It closes fine if I hold the wall button down. Why?

Holding the wall button overrides the photo-eyes, so if that works the sensors are the whole problem. It is a useful workaround for tonight, not a fix: while you hold the button the door will close on anything in its path. Realign or clean the sensors, and if that does not bring both lights solid, the wiring or a sensor itself has failed.

The door closes all the way and then pops back open.

The down limit is set past the floor, so the door reaches the slab, keeps pushing, hits its force threshold, and reverses. It shows up after a new bottom seal, a settled slab, or a limit adjustment that drifted. On most openers it is a small adjustment of the down travel. It can also be a door that binds in the last few inches because of a bent track or a tired spring, so it is worth watching closely where it stops.

It stops part way down and hums.

Something is physically stopping the door. Look for a roller out of the track, a bent hinge, an object in the track, or in winter, ice. Do not keep pressing the button and do not turn up the force. A door that stops in the same spot every time is binding there, and finding out why is a five-minute look for us.

Can I leave it open overnight?

If you have to, disconnect the opener from power so a stray remote press does not close it on something. But an open garage in Roanoke overnight is an open invitation, and it is why we treat won't-close calls as same-day where we can. If the sensors are the problem, holding the wall button down will usually get it closed for the night; just make sure the doorway is clear while you do.

It will not close from the remote but will from the wall button.

The remote or its receiver, or the lock feature on the wall console. Change the battery, check the console for a lit lock light, then re-pair the remote. If several remotes all quit at once and the battery is fine, the receiver board is more likely, and that is a quick bench test for us.

Still stuck open?

Call and tell us where it stops and whether the light flashes. If it is a wiped lens, we will say so on the phone. If it needs a visit, you get a firm quote first.

(540) 293-0197 Request a quote