GE Oven & Range Error Codes List: Every Code Explained

Every GE oven & range error code we could verify against GE's own documentation — what it means, what usually causes it, and the first fix to try — in one table. Codes differ between model series, so treat your model's tech sheet as the final word.

How to read and retrieve error codes on GE oven & ranges

GE electronic range controls store fault codes (the F-code family) that often display only briefly or in a service mode; many GE boards show the last fault when a specific pad combination is pressed (detailed in the service manual for the control). The F-code chart is also printed on the tech sheet stored with the range (often in an envelope near the storage drawer or behind the rear panel).

The complete GE oven & range error code list

How to reset / clear error codes on GE oven & ranges

GE range F-codes clear with a power reset: trip the breaker for about 5 minutes, restore power, and run a bake test. Codes that return during the start-up self-check (GE boards test the sensor circuit and keypad within seconds of power-up) point at an active component fault, not a stored glitch.

How to diagnose any GE oven & range code

Work the problem in this order: (1) record the code exactly — ranges often show the code only briefly or store it, so write it down before resetting the breaker; (2) note the context: did it appear during preheat, mid-bake, broil, or during/after a self-clean cycle — oven codes split into temperature-sensing, latch/lock, and control families, and self-clean heat is the stress that exposes most of them; (3) let the oven cool fully before judging a latch or sensor fault, because several codes are thermal states, not failures, until the temperature falls; (4) run the external checks: breaker fully reset (both poles on a double breaker), the oven sensor probe visibly intact and not touching the cavity wall, the door closing and latching evenly; (5) test the temperature sensor before the control board — sensors drift and fail far more often than boards, and an oven that consistently runs hot or cold with no code is describing the same component. Do not run self-clean again on an oven that coded during one until the cause is found.

GE range codes are numbered by the system they watch

GE range fault codes group themselves: the low F codes (F0, F1) report the control and its keypad, the temperature family (F2, F3, F4) reports the oven sensor circuit reading too high, open or shorted, the F7 family reports stuck or shorted keypad keys, and the lock family (F9 and the extended F96/F97 on newer controls) reports the door lock circuit. Reading the family first narrows the diagnosis before any testing: a temperature-family code on an oven that also cooks unevenly is a sensor story, while the same code on an oven that cooks true is a connection or control story.

Self-clean is the stress test that exposes oven faults

A striking share of GE range codes first appear during or just after a self-clean cycle, because self-clean drives the cavity far hotter than any baking does and heat is what marginal parts cannot survive: sensor connections drift, lock switches that report honestly when cold start lying when hot, and keypads with moisture in them short. An oven that codes only around self-clean is not haunted — it is giving you a thermal diagnosis. Note the timing when you describe the fault, and do not run self-clean again until the cause is found, especially on any lock-family code.

The most searched GE oven & range codes, in detail

F2 — Oven temperature too high

F2 is GE's classic oven overheat code: during a bake cycle the sensed temperature ran beyond the allowed limit above the set point. Two families of cause: the oven genuinely overheated (a relay stuck on, an element fault) or the temperature sensor is lying high (drifted sensor reading hundreds of degrees that aren't there). The sensor is testable in minutes with a meter, which is why it's the first stop. F2 rewards a particular habit of mind: never ask 'what part causes F2?' before asking 'is the oven actually hot?' GE's definition — temperature past a preset threshold — describes what the control concluded, not what physically happened, and the control only knows what the sensor circuit tells it. Every F2 therefore lives in one of two houses: the genuinely hot oven, where a relay has welded or an element has shorted and the code is a fire-guard doing its job, or the honestly warm oven with a lying thermometer, where drift and connector resistance have forged the evidence. The two houses share a display and nothing else — their risks, parts and urgency are opposites — and the twenty-minute thermometer bake that separates them is the cheapest diagnostic in the whole oven catalogue.

Most likely cause: Temperature sensor drift/failure — A sensor reading high makes the control see overheating that isn't happening — the commonest F2 story when the oven doesn't feel abnormally hot.

First check: Was the oven actually blazing hot, or normally warm? Your hand near the vent (carefully) and the food's state tell you which family you're in.

If it keeps coming back: F2 returning with a new sensor and a cycling-normal element suggests the board's sensor input is drifting — or the sensor connector is heat-damaged (check it before the board). An F2 that returns after a sensor replacement deserves suspicion in a specific direction: the connector. Owners replace the probe because it is the named part, but if the old fault lived in the plug — resistance that climbs with heat — the new sensor inherits the same wiring and the same code within a few hot cycles. The returning-F2 log that helps is thermal: does it return only in self-clean, only above a certain set point, or at any temperature at all? Heat-only returns are connection behaviour; any-temperature returns after a proven sensor circuit point at the board's sensor input. Either way, the second diagnosis should re-meter the circuit at both ends rather than reaching for a second sensor.

F20 — GE's official fault list groups F2 and F20 in a single row: 'For an unknown reason, the oven temperature has exceeded a preset threshold.' GE publishes no preset temperature for this code and names no part for it.

F20 is a temperature event, not a sensor verdict. Read GE's wording literally: the control is reporting that the oven temperature went past a preset threshold, and GE itself says the reason is unknown — the list pointedly does not say the sensor failed, and it does not split F20 from F2. The temperature information behind the report comes from the oven sensor working with the electronic control (on TrueTemp models GE describes a platinum-tipped oven sensor that monitors and maintains the oven temperature together with the control), so an F20 leaves two families of explanation open: the oven genuinely overheated, or the control was told it overheated by temperature information that was wrong. An earlier version of this entry described F20 as an extended sensor-circuit code and quoted a room-temperature sensor resistance value; neither the sensor-circuit definition nor any resistance value appears in GE's published list, so both have been removed. Two words of GE's sentence do more work than the rest: 'preset' and 'unknown'. 'Preset' means the threshold is GE's, fixed in the control — it is not the temperature you set, and crossing it is a protection event, not a cooking result. 'Unknown' is GE declining to speculate, and it is worth noticing how unusual that is in this list: for most other rows GE names a part or a circuit in a single sentence. For F2/F20 it names an event and admits the cause is open. Owners therefore meet two kinds of bad information about this code: pages that quote a precise threshold temperature (GE publishes none — not for bake, not for self-clean), and pages that convert F20 straight into 'replace the sensor' (GE reserves that sentence for F3 and F4). This page stays inside GE's sentence and works the event: what was the oven doing, was the heat real, and what does the pattern of return say. That is less satisfying than a part number, and it is also how the code is honestly diagnosed.

Most likely cause: A genuine over-temperature event — The cavity really did pass the threshold — the pattern to suspect when the oven felt abnormally hot, food burned far faster than the setting explains, or a heating element could be seen glowing when it should have been cycling off. Self-clean, the hottest cycle an oven runs, is the other classic setting for a genuine threshold crossing.

First check: Breaker first, once: GE advises turning the range or wall oven off at the circuit breaker until it is serviced, and notes that shutting the breaker or fuse off for a minute or two will sometimes clear a fault code. An F20 that returns on the next heating attempt is not cleared — it is confirmed.

If it keeps coming back: F20 that returns at the same point in the same kind of cycle is a fault reproducing on cue: returning only at high temperatures or in self-clean points at the heat-stressed members (sensor, its connection, a control output that sticks when hot); returning from a cold start points at a hard fault in the temperature-reporting chain. Log the cavity, function, set temperature and minutes-to-code for the technician — that pattern halves the diagnosis. Read an F20's returns as a narrowing funnel. Returns only at the highest temperatures, with long gaps between them, describe a member of the temperature chain that is marginal when heat-soaked — sensor, connection or control output — and each return will tend to arrive sooner and at lower temperatures as the member degrades. Returns at ordinary baking temperatures, or from a cold start, describe a hard fault that has finished degrading. Either pattern is service information; what neither pattern justifies is another season of breaker resets, because GE's own guidance for a fault code that does not reset is service, with the oven off at the breaker meanwhile.

F3 — GE's official fault list defines F3 in one sentence: 'This code usually means that the oven sensor needs to be replaced.' F4 carries the identical GE definition; GE's public list does not split F3 and F4 into open vs shorted.

GE groups its sensor codes by the part, not by the electrical failure mode: F2/F20 = the oven temperature has exceeded a preset threshold; F3 and F4 = the oven sensor usually needs to be replaced. The sensor is the control's only thermometer — on TrueTemp models GE describes a platinum-tipped oven sensor that monitors and maintains the oven temperature together with the electronic control — so when the control stops trusting it, heating stops. An earlier version of this entry called F3 an 'open sensor circuit' and quoted a room-temperature resistance value; neither is GE's wording, and no GE-owned source found for this page publishes a sensor resistance, so both have been removed. GE's one-sentence definition frustrates owners, but it deserves to be taken seriously. GE publishes no failure-mode story for F3 because, from the control's point of view, there is only one fact: the temperature information it cooks by has stopped being trustworthy, and the part that supplies it is the oven sensor. GE says the same of F4, and gives F2/F20 the opposite framing — a temperature event (the oven exceeded a preset threshold) rather than a sensor event. That split is the real map: F2 asks 'did the oven truly overheat, and why?', while F3 asks 'the thermometer is condemned; replace it, and only go deeper if a new one does not restore trust'. This page follows GE's map exactly, which is also why it prints no resistance figure: GE publishes none for owners.

Most likely cause: Oven temperature sensor failed — GE's named answer for F3 — the sensor itself is the part GE says usually needs to be replaced.

First check: Breaker first: GE advises turning the range or wall oven off at the circuit breaker until it is serviced, and notes that shutting the breaker or fuse off for a minute or two will sometimes clear a fault code. A code that returns on the next bake attempt is not cleared — it is confirmed.

If it keeps coming back: F3 returning after a sensor change means the fault was not (only) the sensor: connection or harness next, then the control's sensor input — service diagnosis rather than a second sensor bought on hope. An F3 that returns after a sensor replacement has a short, ordered list of explanations, and the timing separates them. Returning immediately, from a cold start, on a correctly fitted sensor points past the sensor to its connection, its harness, or the control's input. Returning only deep into long, hot cycles suggests a connection that fails with heat, which a cold inspection will pass every time; report that timing explicitly, because it changes what a technician tests. What a returning F3 almost never justifies is a second sensor bought on hope: GE's definition justified the first one, and the circuit is where the second diagnosis belongs.

F34 — A temperature-sensor-circuit display reported on newer GE ovens in the extended code format. GE's published consumer fault list defines the underlying sensor fault (its F3/F4 row: the oven sensor usually needs to be replaced) but carries no F34 row

GE's newer oven controls report some faults in an extended format, and F34 belongs to the temperature-sensor circuit territory. One caution first: the open-versus-shorted split often quoted for this family (F3 = open sensor, F4 = shorted sensor) does not appear in GE's published list — GE defines F3 and F4 identically, as the oven sensor usually needing replacement — and GE's consumer list publishes no F34 row, so this entry follows the sensor-circuit diagnosis without pretending GE has published a suffix-specific definition. The physics hasn't changed: the control watches the sensor's resistance to know the cavity temperature, the reading has fallen outside the window it trusts, and heating is shut down because an oven that cannot measure its temperature must not be allowed to make heat. Treat F34 exactly as a sensor-circuit diagnosis, not as a mysterious new disease.

Most likely cause: Sensor resistance out of window — The probe in the cavity (upper rear wall on most GE ovens) has drifted, opened or shorted with heat ageing — sensors live a hard life at self-clean temperatures.

First check: Smell and look first: if the code appeared right after a self-clean cycle, heat damage at the connector is the prime suspect (self-clean is when marginal connectors die).

If it keeps coming back: An F34 that returns only during high-heat or self-clean cycles is a connector opening as it expands with heat — replace the connector/sensor lead section rather than the sensor again. A code that returns within days on a proven sensor circuit is the board's sensor input failing.

F350 — Upper cooling fan circuit fault, or an obstruction in the cooling fan

GE's own fault-code list defines F350 plainly: there is a problem in the upper cooling fan circuit, or something is obstructing the cooling fan. The cooling fan is the fan that pulls air across the control and electronics area (and around the cavity on many built-in and self-clean models) to keep the electronics from cooking themselves. The control watches that circuit; when the fan does not run, runs out of its expected range, or its circuit reads open or shorted, the control sets F350 and will typically refuse heating cycles until the fan story is resolved. The code belongs to the extended three-digit F3xx format GE's newest controls use, and it is a fan code — not a temperature-sensor code, despite sitting numerically near the F3 sensor family. F350 rewards being read as GE wrote it: 'an issue with the upper cooling fan circuit or an obstruction in the cooling fan'. Note the two branches GE itself offers — the circuit, or something physically in the fan's way — because they split the owner's work cleanly. The obstruction branch is the only branch an owner can fully clear from outside the appliance, and GE lists it because it genuinely happens: the cooling fan moves air across the electronics bay and around the cavity shell, and its intake and exhaust paths pass exactly the places kitchens store things and foil migrates. The circuit branch — motor, connector, harness, the control's output to them — is diagnosed by behaviour: whether the fan runs at all, whether it runs when cold and stops when hot, and whether the code is present from power-on or only earned after hard use. Keep those two branches separate and F350 is one of GE's more honest codes; merge them and owners end up buying fan motors for blocked vents.

Most likely cause: An obstruction in the cooling fan — Foil, a displaced piece of insulation, a pan stored against a vent, or debris drawn into the fan housing can stall the fan or slow it below what the control expects — GE lists obstruction first for a reason.

First check: Note the debut: during or after self-clean, during a long high bake, or at power-on? Cooling-fan faults overwhelmingly debut around the hottest cycles.

If it keeps coming back: F350 that returns only around self-clean or very long bakes is the heat pattern — a connector expanding open when hot, or a motor that fails as it heat-soaks. F350 present from a cold power-on is a hard fault: obstruction, open motor, or open circuit. Log which pattern yours shows before the technician visit; it halves the diagnosis. F350's return pattern is unusually legible. Returning only around self-clean or very long bakes is the heat file: a connector expanding open, a motor failing as it heat-soaks, or an air path that copes until the fan's hardest duty. Returning from a cold power-on is the hard file: obstruction, open motor, open circuit. Returning within days of an obstruction being cleared suggests the obstruction's source is still feeding the fan — grease load upstream, or something stored that migrates back. Log which file yours belongs to before the service call; on this code the pattern is worth real money, because it decides whether the technician's first hour goes to a vent, a connector or a motor.

F7 — Keypanel problem

F7 is GE's keypanel code, the touch panel you set the oven with. The control watches the panel continuously, and when it reads a key as pressed, stuck or shorted when no one is touching it — or a key circuit it cannot interpret at all — it sets F7 and typically beeps, ignores honest presses, or acts as if a phantom finger is working the panel. GE places F7 in a family: F0, F1 and F6 carry the identical keypanel definition, while the oven's electronic control itself reports under different codes (F5, F8, FF), and F7 followed by another character (F7X) is a separate, internal-component code in GE's list. That family map is the diagnosis in miniature: F7 accuses the panel first, the board only after a proven panel, and it is textually a different fault from F9's door lock circuit — panel versus lock, the two systems owners most often confuse because both can make an oven beep and refuse to run. F7 makes more sense once you see the keypanel as the oven's only witness to your intentions. Every command the control ever receives arrives as a membrane key closing, so a panel that invents presses — one key worn closed, moisture bridging two traces — gives the control a user who never stops typing nonsense. F7 is the control refusing to obey that user: it faults, beeps its objections, and waits for the input stream to become sane again. That is why the symptoms feel haunted (lights, beeps, a display that wakes at night) and why the cure is so rarely electronic cleverness: you are not fixing the oven's brain, you are replacing its lying keyboard, after proving the lie is not just water or a loose ribbon telling it.

Most likely cause: A key stuck or shorted in the panel membrane — The membrane switches under the touch surface wear with use, and a high-use key (Start, Cancel, a favourite number) can fail closed — the control then sees a permanent press and reports F7, often with repeated beeping.

First check: Note the panel's behaviour precisely: continuous beeping, one key that does nothing, keys that fire neighbours, or a panel that works until the oven heats? The pattern separates a shorted key (immediate, constant) from moisture (follows steam or cleaning) from a heat-failing ribbon (arrives with temperature).

If it keeps coming back: F7 that returns weeks after a dry-out, always after stovetop cooking, is a panel whose membrane is breaking down under steam and heat rather than a one-off wetting — each episode will come sooner. F7 that migrates between keys, or arrives with other panel weirdness, is the membrane failing as a sheet: replace the panel once rather than nursing it through a season of resets. F7's returns have a geography and a calendar, and both are worth noticing. Geographically, a fault that starts on one key and spreads to its neighbours over months is a membrane delaminating outward from its most-used point — it will not stabilise. On the calendar, F7 that returns every winter of heavy soup-making, or after every holiday of all-day stovetop work, is steam finding a panel whose seals have aged; each season's episode will last longer than the last. In both cases the dry-outs and resets that 'worked' were renting time from a panel in decline, and the economical moment to replace it is when the pattern is proven — not when it finally fails closed in the middle of cooking something that matters.

Less common and model-specific codes

Search data shows owners also meet these codes on GE oven & ranges: E2, E3, E6, F200, F353, F7E6, F7E7, F802, H25, Range. They are not part of the core code list GE publishes for most models — several are series-specific, abbreviated display readings, or codes carried over from a sister platform — so we do not publish meanings for them rather than guess. Treat them by symptom: note what the machine was doing when the code appeared (filling, draining, heating, spinning), run one full power cycle (5 minutes off), and if the code returns, match the symptom to the closest documented family in the table above and check the tech sheet stored inside your machine for the model-specific definition.

Deep-dive guides for the most searched codes

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Facts on this page were checked against manufacturer documentation: products.geappliances.com · www.geappliances.com · www.manualshelf.com