The short answer
On the HS family, a cabinet that has stopped making ice usually comes down to freezer not cold enough to finish a cycle. The quickest way to place it is to measure the freezer with a thermometer, not by feel. Three of the four causes below are owner-checkable in minutes; the last is where a service call starts.
What you observe
- Ice tastes or smells of the freezer — Old ice absorbs odour, and slow production means ice sits in the bin far longer than it should.
- Water pools under the bin or freezes on the freezer floor — A fill that overshoots, or a tray that is not seating, leaves water where ice should be and then freezes it in place.
- Production is slow rather than stopped — A maker that keeps up in winter and falls behind in summer is being limited by the freezer temperature, not by the maker.
- NEAR MISS: no ice and the freezer is not properly cold — Fix the cooling first: nothing on this page will work while the freezer cannot hold temperature, and the cooling page covers it.
Causes, most likely first
- Freezer not cold enough to finish a cycle — An ice maker does not have its own cooling: it borrows the freezer, and a compartment that is a few degrees warm makes ice slowly, then in hollow cubes, then not at all.
- No water reaching the maker — Where the cabinet is plumbed, the supply chain is long and every link fails the same way: a valve left part closed after a move, a kinked line behind the cabinet, a filter never changed.
- Fill tube or tray frozen — It is common on cabinets where the freezer is very cold and the fill volume is small, which describes most of the models this page covers.
- Inlet valve weak or filter blocked — A valve that no longer opens fully gives a short fill, which is why hollow and undersized cubes so often come with a maker that is otherwise cycling correctly.
- Body: Two rows in the list differ only by a trailing letter, which in this family marks paired cabinets intended to stand side by side, so a fault reported on one of a pair is worth checking on both. That order is the brand-generic order for this symptom, because nothing in how this line is built moves any of these causes past another.
Check in this order, and why
- Measure the freezer with a thermometer, not by feel — A freezer holds food safely at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 18 degrees Celsius, or below. Above that the maker will struggle whatever else is right.
- Establish first whether this unit is plumbed or filled by hand — On a manual cabinet there is no supply fault to find.
- Look at the fill tube where it enters the tray — A finger of ice at the tube mouth, or a tray with a frozen crust across it, is the whole answer.
- Body: The order follows the ranking above rather than the layout of the cabinet: each check either confirms the cause above it or removes it, and they are arranged so that the free checks come before anything that needs the unit moved or a panel off. Access is the same across the models in the table, so the order holds for all of them.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the cabinet or switch off its breaker before reaching into an ice maker mechanism. The harvest motor turns on a timer and does not announce itself, and the ejector arm has enough torque to trap a finger against the tray.
Models in the HS family
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| HS-262CN(UR-BD202-DQ)-F | appliance-basics:refrigerator:hs |
| HS-262CN(UR-BD202-DQ)-R | appliance-basics:refrigerator:hs |
| HS259CNW | appliance-basics:refrigerator:hs |
| HS772FWENW | appliance-basics:refrigerator:hs |
When to call a technician
Call when the freezer measures properly cold, the supply is proven, the fill tube is clear and the arm is free, and the maker still will not produce. That combination points at the module or the valve, both of which need the mechanism out and a meter on live terminals.
Nearest pages of this class
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
