My garage door light blinks when trying to close it with the remote or wall buttons. The LED lights on the sensors are on which I believe indicates they are aligned. Even with the garage door disengaged, the opened moves only moves a few inches before the opener lights flash and it backs up to the fully open position. Any idea what the cause could be?

HI whitingj and welcome, work the door manually and see if a weight issue. Door should be light as a feather opened to chest high. Good luck

parttime, thank you for the quick response.

Yes my door is light as a feather. I've been manually opening/closing the door with it disengaged from the opener to get vehicles in/out. The lights still blink with the door disengaged.

Post the make and model of the opener. When you say the "lights still blink" are you referring to the green and red lights on the sensors?

parttime, my opener is a Liftmaster Professional formula 1. The lights I'm referring to are the main bulbs on the opener itself, not the sensor lights. The sensor lights remain illuminated, one orange, the other green.

whitingj, if your sure the door is working smoothly when you raised and lowered manually, you can adjust the down pressure setting about an 1/8 turn and see how that works.

Now the lights blinking could be a loose bulb over even the power plug, or the sensors misaligned.

So what I tried was releasing the door from the opener, manually closing it, and leaving the opener in the open position this way there is no pressure from the door on the opener. I then get the blinking lights on the opener which I understood to be an indication that something was jamming or the sensors aren't aligned.

I have had the sensor's misaligned several times, but the orange and green LED's have never been illuminated when misaligned before. Is it possible they are illuminated and misaligned... or is there maybe something jamming on the belt/opener itself?

Thx again for your help!

If you have an lock button on the wired control panel, check to insure that the opener is not electronically locked.

Whiting, check like harold said. And the sensors can show dimly and be out of align. So re-check that.

Also post a model number if you can .

My opener is a Chamberlin LIftmaster, model 2280R.

I moved the sensors back and forth and was able to get it to work again for a short time. I noticed that the door was jittery while opening and it soon locked up again (opener lights flashed and it would only move a short distance). I then sprayed all moving parts on the door with Lithium grease.

It has now worked many times in a row! Thank everyone for your help!

I'm glad it's working and glad for the update.


Count how many times the lights flash, 10 times indicates a sensor beam problem, maybe misaligned or dirty lens on the sensor. Good luck