---
title: "Your DishDrawer Is Flashing and There Is No Number. The Pattern Is the Code"
description: "Fisher paykel dishwasher lights flashing: how to read the pattern on a DishDrawer, the difference between an A and an F condition, and what to do first."
url: "https://fisherpaykelmiami.support/blog/dishdrawer-lights-flashing/"
date_modified: "2026-08-26"
Category: "Common Problems"
---


# Your DishDrawer Is Flashing and There Is No Number. The Pattern Is the Code

## Fisher Paykel dishwasher lights flashing: there is no number to find

People spend a long time looking for a display on a DishDrawer, and there is not one. It is not hidden behind a flap and it is not a menu you can reach by holding two buttons. The machine reports through the lights on its control strip, and that pattern **is** the code.

There is a reason for it that has nothing to do with cost-cutting. Twenty-two of this maker's fifty-one dishwashing machines are integrated, which means the front is your own cabinetry. A numeric display would be behind a wooden panel and useless. So the reporting happens on the strip along the top edge, which is the only part of the machine you can see when the drawer is closed.

## Reading the pattern

Two families, and telling them apart takes one look:

- **wash modifier lights flashing *with* the lock light** — an **F** condition;- **wash modifier lights flashing *alone*** — an **A** condition.

In both cases, one or more of the **program lights** stays lit alongside, and which ones are lit identifies the specific number behind the family.

That single distinction is worth more than anything else on this page, because it separates *you can probably deal with this* from *this needs a technician*.

:::

Photograph the panel before you switch the machine off. Not after. The pattern disappears the moment power is cycled, and with it the only evidence the machine produced. Ten seconds with a phone camera is the most useful thing you can do on this entire page.

## The A conditions — the ones with published steps

These have meanings the maker prints, and most of them have an owner-side action:

| Code | What it means | What you can do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A1 | Water supply — the drawer did not fill | Check the water is turned on, clear the code, resume |
| A3 | The drawer cannot drain | Filter and filter plate, then the drain hose at the sink |
| A6 | The spray arm has loosened or come off | Open the drawer, refit the arm so it turns freely |
| A7 | Excess foam — auto recovery has started | Let the recovery program finish, then use less detergent |
| A09 | The sanitize cycle did not reach temperature | Check the supply was not turned off, run it again |
| A11 | The element has overheated on soil build-up | Clean the element, the rack, the arm and the filter |

The published way to clear any of them is the same: **press once to stop the beeping, press again to clear the code, press to resume the program** — after you have dealt with the cause. Clearing first and investigating later simply brings the code back and throws away the evidence.

## The F conditions — and the two that are not repairs

The F family covers the machinery: the rotor, the lid motor, the heating element, the drying fan, the fill valve, and the two controllers a drawer has. Most of them are a technician's job, which is what the maker prints.

Two are not, and they are worth trying before anybody is called:

**F1 — flood detected or excess foaming.** The maker's own instruction: turn the power off at the supply, leave the machine overnight, then run a cycle with **no detergent at all**. If the condition clears, use no more than a teaspoon in future. Only if water is actually visible on the floor does this become a service call — and then it becomes an urgent one, with the water and the power turned off.

**F2 — the rotor.** Debris around the rotor stops the wash system. It very often comes out by hand.

Between them, those two account for a real share of the F codes people book visits for.

A DishDrawer with a genuine F condition can also refuse to open, because the lid mechanism has not returned to its rest position. Do not pull on it — switch the machine off and on at the wall first and give it a moment.

## The drop-door machines speak a different language

If your Fisher & Paykel dishwasher has a door rather than drawers, none of the above applies to it. Those eleven machines use an **E and F** vocabulary with a published meaning for each number — E1 or F1 for a door alarm, E5 for no water, E6 for a flood switch, F30 to F90 for flooding, flow, electronics and data errors.

This is the reason every code page on this site names the machine in its title. On this maker the same number genuinely means different things on different appliances, and a table that only knew the number would send half its readers to the wrong answer.

## What to send us

Three things, and they take a minute:

- **A photograph of the flashing panel**, before it is switched off.- **Which drawer**, on a double — and whether the other one is behaving.- **What happened just before**: a boil of foam, a cycle interrupted, a power cut, or nothing at all.

With those three, a diagnosis starts narrow instead of starting at the beginning. Without them, the visit is longer and you pay for the difference.

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