---
title: "Ice maker not making ice"
description: "LG ice maker not making ice — the most common call on this badge after cooling itself, and the one where the useful question is not about the ice maker"
url: "https://lgmiami.support/symptoms/ice-maker-not-making-ice/"
date_modified: "2026-09-05"
Appliance type: "Ice makers, Refrigerators"
---


# LG ice maker not making ice

### The one question that splits this in half

Run the water dispenser. If water comes out normally, the supply, the valve and the filter are all fine, and the problem is inside the ice compartment: the fill tube, the mechanism, or the cold reaching it. If water is slow or absent as well, everything upstream is suspect and the ice maker is probably innocent. That takes ten seconds and it decides which half of the page below applies to you.

### What it usually means, by the kind of LG appliance

LG sells one appliance in several forms — five shapes of washer, three kinds of dryer, four fuels of range — and the same behavior points at different things on each of them. A built-in side-by-side and an integrated column are not the same service situation, and a dual-fuel range and an induction range fail in different halves.

- **French door with in-door ice** — The ice maker is in the door and cold has to be carried to it, which is why LG gives it a fan of its own and a code of its own. A door left ajar starves it.
- **Side-by-side** — The ice maker sits in the freezer compartment with the cold, so a no-ice call here is more often water or mechanism than air.
- **Craft Ice models** — A second, slower unit that makes round ice. It can stop while the main tray carries on, and that is not a failure of the whole system.

### Where the ice maker actually is

LG does not sell an undercounter ice machine in this country — its only ice-maker products are the automatic ice maker kits fitted inside a refrigerator. So an ice call on this badge is a refrigerator call, and it is answered with the refrigerator’s diagnostics: IF for the fan that carries cold to the compartment, IS for the sensor that decides the cubes are frozen, It for the motor that harvests them.

### Why so many of these are not the ice maker

Between the mains and the tray there is a saddle valve or a compression fitting, a filter cartridge, a tank in some models, an inlet valve, and a length of small-bore tube that ends inside a compartment kept below freezing. Every one of those can stop the water, and none of them is the ice maker. The tube is the one this climate picks on: it ends in the cold, it carries water intermittently, and it grows a plug of ice at the mouth that no code will ever report.

A fill tube frozen at the mouth

The small tube that delivers water to the tray. It ices over and blocks the fill without ever showing a code.

Air in the line after a filter change

A new cartridge puts air in the line and the machine will not fill on it. Runs itself clear.

The ice maker's own motor

It on the display. The tray fills, the cubes freeze, and nothing is pushed into the bucket.

Cold not reaching the compartment

IF is the ice maker fan and IS is its sensor. On in-door ice makers this is the usual cause.

The ice maker switched off

An arm lifted or a button pressed. Worth ruling out and it costs nothing.

Run the water dispenser first

It is the single most informative thing you can do and it takes ten seconds.

Check the ice maker is actually on

Either a wire arm that has been lifted, or a setting on the panel, depending on the model.

Take the bucket out and look in with a torch

A tray full of ice with an empty bucket is a mechanism problem. An empty dry tray is a water problem.

Warm the fill tube with a cloth

Ten minutes with a warm damp cloth on the tube at the back of the compartment. If ice appears the next day, that was it.

The bucket is empty and everything else looks fine

What it usually means

Water working and ice not moves the whole question inside the compartment

IF, IS and It are published — fan, sensor and motor

A fill tube frozen at the mouth is common here and free to clear

The one question that splits this in half

Run the water dispenser. If water comes out normally, the supply, the valve and the filter are all fine, and the problem is inside the ice compartment: the fill tube, the mechanism, or the cold reaching it. If water is slow or absent as well, everything upstream is suspect and the ice maker is probably innocent. That takes ten seconds and it decides which half of the page below applies to you.

What it usually means, by the kind of LG appliance

LG sells one appliance in several forms — five shapes of washer, three kinds of dryer, four fuels of range — and the same behavior points at different things on each of them. A built-in side-by-side and an integrated column are not the same service situation, and a dual-fuel range and an induction range fail in different halves.

French door with in-door ice — The ice maker is in the door and cold has to be carried to it, which is why LG gives it a fan of its own and a code of its own. A door left ajar starves it.

Side-by-side — The ice maker sits in the freezer compartment with the cold, so a no-ice call here is more often water or mechanism than air.

Craft Ice models — A second, slower unit that makes round ice. It can stop while the main tray carries on, and that is not a failure of the whole system.

Where the ice maker actually is

LG does not sell an undercounter ice machine in this country — its only ice-maker products are the automatic ice maker kits fitted inside a refrigerator. So an ice call on this badge is a refrigerator call, and it is answered with the refrigerator’s diagnostics: IF for the fan that carries cold to the compartment, IS for the sensor that decides the cubes are frozen, It for the motor that harvests them.

Why so many of these are not the ice maker

Between the mains and the tray there is a saddle valve or a compression fitting, a filter cartridge, a tank in some models, an inlet valve, and a length of small-bore tube that ends inside a compartment kept below freezing. Every one of those can stop the water, and none of them is the ice maker. The tube is the one this climate picks on: it ends in the cold, it carries water intermittently, and it grows a plug of ice at the mouth that no code will ever report.

### It made ice and stopped after I changed the filter.

Very common and usually not a repair. A new cartridge puts air into the line, and the machine will not fill a tray it cannot fill cleanly. Run four or five liters through the water dispenser until it stops spitting, check the cartridge is seated to the stop, and give it twenty-four hours.

### How much ice should it actually make?

Less than most people expect. A typical in-door ice maker produces on the order of two to three pounds a day, and a household that entertains can empty that faster than it refills without anything being wrong. If the bucket is never full but it is always making some, that may be a capacity question rather than a repair.

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**[Read full article: Ice maker not making ice](https://lgmiami.support/symptoms/ice-maker-not-making-ice/)**