The short answer
An ice maker that has stopped is far more often a water-supply or a temperature problem than a broken ice maker. On a compact cabinet the ranking below starts with the supply side because that is where the fault usually is and because it costs nothing to check.
What you observe
- The ice maker cycles but drops nothing — The harvest is running dry, which again points upstream at the fill.
- The tray is empty and stays empty — Nothing is arriving, which points at the supply side rather than the mechanism.
- NEAR MISS: cubes fused into one block in the bin — That is melt and refreeze from a door left ajar or a warm spell, not an ice-maker fault.
Causes, most likely first on this cabinet
- The freezer section is not cold enough — Ice production stops when the compartment cannot reach its set point. Ranked first on Danby One Plug: a compact cabinet has little of everything - little thermal mass, a shallow condenser, a small drain and almost no clearance - so the first thing to go wrong is nearly always whatever its installation is asking too much of, and a combination unit drawing through one cord and one outlet changes what a fault means before anything mechanical is considered.
- The shutoff arm or switch is in the off position — A wire arm knocked up by a bag of ice, or a switch left off after cleaning, stops the whole system silently. Ranked second: it sits here because it produces the same complaint as the cause above it and takes longer to confirm.
- The fill tube has frozen — A slow drip freezes the tube solid, and once it is blocked every subsequent cycle runs dry. Ranked third: it ranks here because it is common enough to be worth checking, but only once the free checks above are clean.
- The ice maker module itself — The motor, the thermostat or the harvest mechanism inside the assembly. Ranked last: it is last because on an appliance this size the major components outlive everything around them, and replacing one often costs more than the appliance is worth.
Check in this order, and why
- Check whether the freezer itself is up to temperature — Soft ice cream and a slow-freezing tray of water tell you this is a cooling fault and not an ice fault.
- Look at the shutoff arm or the control switch — Arm down, or switch on, is the position that allows production.
- Look at the fill tube where it enters the ice maker — A visible plug of ice there confirms it, and clearing it without fixing the restriction only buys you a few days.
What an owner can safely check
- Put a tray of water in the freezer section and check it after a few hours — A tray that has not frozen solid tells you to read the cooling page instead of this one.
About 30 min
- Set the shutoff arm down or switch the ice maker on and wait — Give it several hours before judging, because a cold start takes a full cycle or two to produce the first tray.
About 5 min
- STOP HERE if the next step needs a meter on live terminals or a panel off — That is where an owner check ends and a service call begins.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the cabinet or switch off its breaker before reaching behind the rear panel or removing the ice maker cover, and leave it off while your hands are inside: a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off and a harvest arm can move under power. Turn the water supply off before you disturb any fitting, and do not use a metal tool or a heat gun to clear ice from inside the cabinet.
When to call a technician
Call once the supply side, the filter and the freezer temperature have all been ruled out, because what is left is inside the assembly. Call sooner if you find water where it should not be, if the fill tube refreezes within days of being cleared, or if the freezer section itself is not holding temperature.
Nearest pages of this class
What this page does not cover
This page covers the Danby One Plug refrigerator as a class, not one model or production run. Any family- or model-specific page for your unit takes precedence over it. Not here: the filter part number, the ice maker assembly number and the fill timing for your specific cabinet, all of which are model-specific.
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
