Garage door won't open: what to check first

A garage door that won’t open usually has one of a handful of causes. A few are things you can check yourself in a couple of minutes. The others involve springs and cables under high tension, and those belong to a technician.

Start with the safe checks

Work through these in order. Don’t touch the springs, cables, or the brackets at the bottom corners of the door.

1. Power. Is the opener’s light on? Is it plugged in? Garage outlets are often GFCI-protected, and a tripped GFCI (maybe on an outlet elsewhere in the garage) cuts power to the opener.
2. The lock or vacation button. Most wall consoles have a lock button that disables remotes. If the wall button works but remotes don’t, check it.
3. Remote battery. Try a fresh one. If one remote works and another doesn’t, it’s the remote.
4. The manual lock. Some doors have a slide lock or a handle lock on the inside. If it’s engaged, the opener can’t lift the door.
5. Ice. In a Connecticut winter, meltwater refreezes under the bottom seal. If the opener strains on a cold morning, stop pressing the button, unplug the opener, and free the seal along the floor with a plastic scraper or ice melt.

If the door won’t close (or goes back up)

A door that starts down and reverses is almost always reacting to its photo eyes, the two small sensors mounted near the floor on either side of the door. Federal rule 16 CFR Part 1211 has required this kind of entrapment protection on openers made since January 1, 1993, with photo eyes mounted 4 to 6 inches above the floor.

• Wipe both lenses clean.
• Make sure nothing is in the beam (bins, bikes, leaves, snow).
• Check that both indicator lights are steady. A blinking or dark light usually means the sensors are out of line; gently realign the bracket until it’s steady.

Never tape over, disconnect, or bypass the photo eyes. If the door still reverses with the sensors clean and aligned, the opener’s force or travel settings may need adjusting by a technician. See opener repair.

Signs it’s a spring or cable problem

Stop checking and call if you notice any of these:

• You heard a loud bang from the garage, before or when the door stopped working. That’s the classic sign of a broken spring.
• The opener hums or clicks but the door doesn’t move, or lifts a few inches and stops.
• There’s a gap in a spring above the door, or a spring is hanging loose along a side track.
• A cable is loose or dangling, or one side of the door is lower than the other.
• The door is crooked or out of its tracks. See what to do when a door comes off track.

In any of these cases: unplug the opener, leave the door where it is, and keep everyone out from under it. A door with a broken spring is far heavier than it feels when it’s working, and it can drop.

Getting the car out

If your car is trapped behind a door with a broken spring, don’t try to lift the door by hand or force it with the opener. Call a garage door company and explain that the car is trapped; it often moves you up the schedule. If it’s after hours, ask about the after-hours fee before anyone comes out.

What it will cost

HomeAdvisor’s June 2026 data puts opener repair at $124 to $370 and spring replacement at $150 to $350, with Connecticut quotes usually in the upper half. Our Connecticut cost guide has the full breakdown.