The short answer
A Maytag cooktop showing F22 has flagged the communication link. The table below carries the manufacturer wording for it, and the ranked causes under that put the likely ones first. If a restart brings it back and a cycle completes, it is usable meanwhile.
The documented code and its meaning
Reference| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| F22 | There is an internal communication error on the touch control module . |
What you actually observe
- The display is blank or partly lit while the cooktop will not respond — One half of the pair is awake and the other is not.
- The fault comes and goes with no pattern you can see — An intermittent link is a wiring symptom far more often than a board symptom.
- The code appears within seconds of switching on — A link that fails at start-up fails before anything is loaded.
- NEAR MISS — one specific key does nothing and the rest work — That is an interface fault, not a lost link.
Causes, most likely first on this cooktop
- A connector only part seated at one end of the link — Both ends look perfect from the front; a plug one pin out of alignment still reports as a lost link.
- A broken conductor inside the harness that joins the two boards — Flexing where the harness crosses a hinge or a panel edge breaks a single strand at a time, which is why the fault comes and goes first.
- One of the two boards no longer answering — The code describes the conversation, not the speaker, so either board can be the one that fell silent.
- A supply fault that leaves one board unpowered — If the far board has no supply it cannot answer, and the near board reports the silence as a lost link.
Check in this order, and why
- Power down fully and restart before opening anything — A link restored by a cold start was interrupted rather than broken.
- Note whether the display lights at all — A dark panel and a lit panel that reports the fault point at different halves of the link.
- Get both connectors reseated before condemning either board — Reseating both connectors is the fix in a large share of these calls and costs nothing in parts.
- Replace boards one at a time, never as a pair — Changing both hides which one was at fault and doubles the bill.
What an owner can safely check
- Take the power off at the breaker for at least a minute — Both boards must lose their standby supply together; switching the appliance off at its own control does not do that.
About 3 min
- Restore power and watch the first seconds of start-up — Whether the panel lights before the code appears tells a technician which end woke up.
About 3 min
- Write down what the panel shows at each stage — A short sequence of observations is worth more than a general description on the phone.
Tools: pen and paperAbout 5 min
Before anything is opened
Safety
Isolate first. Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel, because a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. There is usually no cord to unplug on a cooktop, which makes the breaker the only way to isolate it. Residual heat in the glass outlasts the display by a long way. Leave every safety switch wired as it was found. Each one interrupts power somewhere the design needs it interrupted.
When this stops being an owner job
Book the visit as soon as a cold start has failed to restore the link. After that the next move is behind a panel, and the top has to come out of the counter before any component below it is accessible. Bring the call forward if you smell burning, find scorching near the control area, or the breaker trips as the appliance starts.
Nearest error-code pages
What this page does not cover
This is the platform-level reading of F22: it holds for the Maytag cooktop families that share that control generation. It stops short of older platforms that display the same characters for a different condition, and it carries no family-specific detail at all — no wiring colours, no pin numbers, no torque figures, no part numbers. Those belong on the page for the family concerned. Where such a page exists it outranks this one, and the code index below is where it is listed.
Other Maytag cooktop codes
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