Error code
Refrigerator showing a power outage alert
What it means
Several brands latch an alert after the power has been interrupted, to tell you that the appliance warmed while you were not watching. It is information about the food, not about the appliance. The useful question is not how to clear it — that is a button press — but how long the power was out and what was in the freezer.
What to do now
- Judge the food before clearing the alert. Some models show the highest temperature reached while the power was off.
- Food above 40°F for more than two hours is unsafe; a full freezer holds roughly 48 hours with the door kept shut.
- Clear the alert once you have read it.
- If the appliance does not come back to temperature afterwards, that is a separate fault and a real one.
What not to do
Do not clear it before reading it. The one piece of information it carries is gone as soon as you do.
A code is a lead, not a verdict
The same characters mean different things on different brands, and sometimes on different generations of the same brand. Two things make a code worth acting on: the exact characters, and the model number they came from. Without the second, the first is a guess.
Write the code down before you reset anything, photograph the display rather than transcribing it, and note whether the appliance is still cooling while it shows. That last answer decides whether this waits for a scheduled visit or not.
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