LG Dryer Error Codes List: Every Code Explained

Every LG dryer error code we could verify against LG'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 LG dryers

LG dryers have an installation/test mode (used at install to verify venting and, on gas models, the gas connection) and a service test mode that steps through motor, heater, steam and sensor checks while showing stored codes (the tE family and others). The entry sequence is model-specific and printed in the service manual; running the install test after any vent work is the fastest way to confirm a Flow Sense fix.

The complete LG dryer error code list

How to reset / clear error codes on LG dryers

LG dryer codes clear with a power cycle: unplug for about 5 minutes, hold the Power button for a few seconds while unplugged on some models, restore power and run a test load. Flow Sense bars and codes like D80 are computed fresh from airflow measurements each cycle, so they only 'reset' by fixing the airflow — a power cycle alone cannot clear a genuine restriction.

How to diagnose any LG dryer code

Work the problem in this order: (1) record the code exactly, including whether it appears at start-up or mid-cycle — a code at start-up usually reports a failed self-check (sensor, door, motor circuit), while a mid-cycle code reports a process that drifted (airflow, temperature, load sensing); (2) for airflow codes, inspect the whole vent path before anything else: lint screen (wash it — dryer-sheet film blocks air invisibly), transition duct, wall cap and the full run for crushed or lint-packed sections; (3) for heat codes, confirm the drum turns and air moves — heat without airflow and airflow without heat are different fault trees; (4) clear the code and run a timed dry with a small load of wet towels while you monitor: does it heat, does the exhaust blow strong outside, does the code return at the same point; (5) test the monitored component (thermistor, moisture sensor, motor circuit) only after the path and the load are proven good. On gas dryers, anything past the external vent path is a technician's job.

The Flow Sense airflow codes on LG dryers

Three LG dryer codes do not report a broken part at all — they report how much of the exhaust airflow is blocked, measured by the Flow Sense system. They are the most common LG dryer codes of all, and their "fix" is the vent path, not a component:

If D90 returns soon after a clean: Fast recurrence after a proper clean means lint is bypassing the filter (torn filter/housing gap) or the run itself is unsuitable (too long/too many elbows) and needs re-routing. When D90 comes back, read the interval before repeating the clean. A return after many months on a long or bendy run is the run's geometry collecting its usual toll, and LG's answer at that point is rerouting, not just re-cleaning. A return within weeks points somewhere else: a hood that re-mats or re-nests with the seasons, a filter whose fabric-softener film keeps adding restriction the duct clean never touched, or lint bypassing a torn filter into the ductwork. And a D90 that survives a professionally cleaned, verified-clear vent with strong outside airflow stops being a vent story at all — LG's Flow Sense guidance ends that branch by sending persistent warnings, after duct replacement and cleaning, to LG service, which is where the machine's own sensing and blower hardware get examined.

If D95 returns soon after a clean: D95 recurring quickly after cleaning means the run is fundamentally inadequate (too long, too many elbows, sagging flex) — re-route or shorten it, or lint will win every time. A D95 that returns is sorting itself into one of three stories, and the timing tells you which. Returning within days almost always means the original event was positional — a transition duct crushed when the dryer went back, a joint that separated inside the run — because lint cannot rebuild a 95 percent blockage in a week. Returning within a season on a long, bendy or foil-lined run is the run itself winning again, and LG's standing advice of shortening, straightening or replacing the duct is the durable fix. Returning immediately after a documented clean-and-replace, with weak outside airflow on an empty test cycle, is the blower branch LG names — at that point further vent work is wasted money and the machine needs LG service.

Deep dive: What Flow Sense means · D80 error code guide.

The most searched LG dryer codes, in detail

CL — Child Lock is ON

CL on an LG dryer means Child Lock is active: buttons are disabled so settings can't be changed mid-cycle by small hands. It is a status, not a fault — and on LG laundry it is confused with LE constantly (on dryers there is no LE motor code in the washer's sense, which doubles the confusion). The detail that saves most owners a second search is that the button you hold is not the same button on every LG dryer, and LG's own documents prove it three ways. The help library's instruction is deliberately generic — press and hold the key labelled Child Lock for 3 seconds — because the label moves. On models like the DLEX3370W there is a dedicated Child Lock button: press and hold it for 3 seconds, the Child Lock icon shows in the display, and all controls are disabled except the Power button. On the DLE2350R generation there is no button with that name at all: Child Lock is a secondary function, marked with an asterisk, living on the Wrinkle Care button — press and hold Wrinkle Care for 3 seconds to activate or deactivate it. A third manual family puts the asterisked Child Lock on the Easy Iron button instead. The asterisk is the system: across LG's dryer manuals, option buttons carry a primary function in large print and a secondary function marked with an asterisk underneath, and the secondary function is always reached by the press-and-hold rather than the tap. So the universal instruction is not a button name but a reading skill — find the words Child Lock printed anywhere on your panel, in whatever size, next to whatever primary function, and hold that button for a full 3 seconds. Two behaviours from the manuals complete the picture. First, the lock outlives the cycle: once set, Child Lock remains active until it is manually deactivated, it lasts after the end of the cycle, and it must be turned off before another cycle will run — which is why CL so often greets owners at the start of laundry day rather than during the load that set it. Second, the lock is a panel state, not a cycle state: it can be set while the dryer is operating, precisely to keep cycle settings from being changed mid-cycle, and the cycle underneath it continues untouched. Nothing about CL — on a vented dryer, a heat pump dryer from the same LG range, or a ThinQ-connected model showing the same panel — indicates anything about the drying system itself; the help library files it among the display readings, between the Wrinkle Care explanation and the perfectly normal cooling/drying light.

Most likely cause: Child Lock activated — Deliberately, or by a long press on the marked button pair.

First check: Look for the lock icon; test a button — beep without response confirms the lock.

If it keeps coming back: Self-re-engaging CL suggests a sticking panel button. CL that returns repeatedly in a household that never sets it deliberately is a panel being held, not a lock malfunctioning: the suspects are a cloth stored draped over the console, items stacked against the buttons, or a loading posture that leans a hand on the panel for seconds at a time. Change the physical habit and the code stops. CL that returns with the panel untouched and no press possible — appearing on a fresh power-up in an empty laundry room — has left the feature's documented behaviour; that pattern, with its dates, is the service visit's subject, framed as a control-panel question rather than a lock question.

D80 — Flow Sense: exhaust airflow is about 80% blocked

LG's Flow Sense system measures the dryer's exhaust restriction. D80 means roughly 80% blocked: the dryer still runs, but drying times stretch, energy use climbs, and lint-heat builds where it shouldn't. D80 is the early warning of the family — D90 and D95 are its louder siblings, and D95 stops the dryer. All three are vent-system codes, not dryer-part codes: the house vent run is the patient.

Most likely cause: Lint build-up in the vent run — The leading cause — especially long runs, runs with many elbows, and foil-flex hose that traps lint in its ridges.

First check: Water test the lint filter: run water through it — if water pools instead of passing, softener film is choking it (scrub with hot soapy water and a brush).

If it keeps coming back: If D80 returns within weeks of a thorough vent clean, lint is accumulating abnormally fast — check for a torn lint filter letting lint bypass into the duct, and confirm the exterior hood isn't re-blocking (nests/snow are seasonal repeat offenders).

D90 — Flow Sense: exhaust about 90% blocked

D90 means LG's Flow Sense measures the exhaust at roughly 90% restricted. Drying will be noticeably poor by now — long cycles, clothes still damp — and heat that should leave with the exhaust is staying in the dryer. This is the 'clean the vent this week' stage: the next step in the family (D95) stops cycles, and sustained running against a near-blocked vent is a genuine lint-fire risk factor. D90 repays being read as a position on a dial rather than as a breakdown. LG built Flow Sense to grade the exhaust continuously, and the grades below D90 behave differently from it: at the lower levels the manuals allow the dryer to keep working with longer drying times while you arrange cleaning, whereas the d90/d95 display carries LG's explicit instruction not to use the dryer at all until the exhaust has been cleaned or repaired. That change of instruction — not the ten-point difference in the number — is what D90 really announces. The dryer has crossed from 'inefficient' into the zone LG classifies as dangerous, where the same hot air that should be carrying moisture out of the house is instead lingering around lint at elevated temperatures. Reading D90 that way also explains why no reset exists for it: you cannot acknowledge your way out of a measurement, you can only change the thing being measured.

Most likely cause: Advanced lint blockage in the vent run — The usual cause at 90%.

First check: Outside airflow test while running — at D90 the exterior flow is a whisper.

If it keeps coming back: Fast recurrence after a proper clean means lint is bypassing the filter (torn filter/housing gap) or the run itself is unsuitable (too long/too many elbows) and needs re-routing. When D90 comes back, read the interval before repeating the clean. A return after many months on a long or bendy run is the run's geometry collecting its usual toll, and LG's answer at that point is rerouting, not just re-cleaning. A return within weeks points somewhere else: a hood that re-mats or re-nests with the seasons, a filter whose fabric-softener film keeps adding restriction the duct clean never touched, or lint bypassing a torn filter into the ductwork. And a D90 that survives a professionally cleaned, verified-clear vent with strong outside airflow stops being a vent story at all — LG's Flow Sense guidance ends that branch by sending persistent warnings, after duct replacement and cleaning, to LG service, which is where the machine's own sensing and blower hardware get examined.

D95 — Flow Sense: exhaust about 95% blocked

D95 is the Flow Sense end-state: the exhaust is effectively blocked (~95%), so the LG dryer cuts heat/cycle to protect itself and your house. Owners typically meet it as 'dryer stops mid-cycle, clothes hot and damp, D95 on the display'. The vent system — run, hose, hood, and the dryer's internal duct — is blocked somewhere, and no reset will clear D95 until air can move again. D95 is best understood as the end of a negotiation the dryer has been having with your house for months. Flow Sense graded the exhaust at lower levels while drying merely got slower, and LG's design intent at the top grade changes character: the Canadian guidance describes sensors detecting the restriction and the control proceeding to corrective measures — shutting down — because continued operation at high heat against a sealed vent scorches clothing and threatens the lint accumulated in the duct itself. Nothing inside the dryer has 'broken' in the ordinary sense when D95 appears; the machine has run out of safe ways to dry. That is also why the honest fix list for D95 is entirely outside the appliance — filter, hose, duct, hood — with the single documented exception of a blower that can no longer move air, which LG only entertains after the exhaust has been proven clear.

Most likely cause: Completely lint-blocked vent run — The classic: years of build-up, often at an elbow or the hood.

First check: Do not keep restarting it — confirm airflow first: disconnect the transition hose (electric dryer; brief supervised test) and run: if D95 disappears venting into the room, the house vent is the blockage; if it persists, the restriction is inside the dryer.

If it keeps coming back: D95 recurring quickly after cleaning means the run is fundamentally inadequate (too long, too many elbows, sagging flex) — re-route or shorten it, or lint will win every time. A D95 that returns is sorting itself into one of three stories, and the timing tells you which. Returning within days almost always means the original event was positional — a transition duct crushed when the dryer went back, a joint that separated inside the run — because lint cannot rebuild a 95 percent blockage in a week. Returning within a season on a long, bendy or foil-lined run is the run itself winning again, and LG's standing advice of shortening, straightening or replacing the duct is the durable fix. Returning immediately after a documented clean-and-replace, with weak outside airflow on an empty test cycle, is the blower branch LG names — at that point further vent work is wasted money and the machine needs LG service.

H5 — Not an LG dryer error code. H5 appears in none of the LG dryer sources checked for this page

Start with what LG publishes, because the dryer code list is short enough to hold in one view. The LG US help library's dryer code list runs to fifteen sections: the Flow Sense family (d75, d80, d90, d95), nP and PS for power, dE for the door, E13 for hybrid condensing models, F0 for a missing lint filter, HS for the humidity sensor, PF for power failure, tE1/tE3 and tE2 for the thermistor, and the non-fault displays (Clean Filter reminder, Wrinkle Care, CL for Child Lock, the cooling/drying light, Add for the steam feeder) — closing with how to reset the control panel. H5 is not among them. The owner manuals agree: the DLE8400BE manual's error table lists tE1 (rendered 'tE1 or tEz' — the panel's segment display is why the second code can look like letters) and Hs, both answered with 'turn off the appliance and call for service'; the WKEX200HWA manual lists the same pair plus the power codes and gAS; the DLE3180W manual lists tE1 through tE7 and PS. Three LG documents, three code lists, no H5 in any of them. What those documents do contain is the code H5 is standing in for. HS is LG's humidity sensor report: the help library states that an HS code indicates an error with the humidity sensor, that it will cause the dryer to run for two and a half hours (which may seem as though the dryer is not drying), and that the owner's remedy is to clean the sensors on the inside of the dryer, located below the lint filter, with a damp rag or paper towel and allow the sensors to fully dry before attempting another cycle — with a repair service if HS persists. The manuals state the same fault more tersely: humidity sensor failure, turn off the appliance and call for service. Read together, the two LG sources describe one fault at two depths: a sensor the owner may clean once, and a service case if cleaning does not clear it. Notice how much of the folklore around 'H5' is really HS wearing a mis-read badge: on a segmented display the letter S and the digit 5 are built from nearly the same strokes, and a photograph of the display — not a memory of it — is what separates a humidity-sensor clean from a hunt for a code that does not exist. The tEz rendering in LG's own manual table makes the same point from inside LG's documentation: LG itself prints the code two ways because the panel cannot draw a clean 2. Displays approximate; manuals arbitrate.

Most likely cause: HS, mis-read as H5 (the documented default) — LG's humidity-sensor code is HS, and on the dryer's segmented display an S is a 5 waiting to be misread — the same display family that leads LG's own manual to print a thermistor code as both tE2 and tEz. A dryer that 'shows H5' and then runs for hours while seeming not to dry is matching HS's documented behaviour exactly.

First check: Photograph the display, lit, before touching a control. Zoom the photograph: is the second character the letter S or the digit 5? That one character decides whether you are cleaning a humidity sensor or chasing an undocumented string.

If it keeps coming back: HS that returns soon after a proper clean and dry has left the documented owner remedy behind; report the interval (every load, or only some cycles) when you book, because intermittency is the diagnostic content. An 'H5' that never photographs as anything but H5, on a dryer whose manual lists only HS, belongs in the same service conversation — as a display or control question, with the photograph as the evidence.

LE1 — Not an LG dryer error code in LG's published documentation. LE1 appears in none of the LG dryer sources checked for this page

The honest starting point is the shape of LG's published dryer list, because LE1's absence from it is total rather than technical. The help library's dryer code list covers airflow (d75, d80, d90, d95), power (nP, PS, PF), the door (dE), a drain code for hybrid condensing models (E13), the lint filter (F0), the humidity sensor (HS), the thermistor family (tE1, tE3, tE2) and the non-fault displays (Clean Filter, Wrinkle Care, CL, the cooling/drying light, Add) — and then stops. There is no motor section, no LE and no LE1. The owner manuals tell the same story in their own tables: DLE8400BE lists tE1/tEz and Hs; WKEX200HWA — the WashTower manual, covering a dryer stacked directly on an LG washer — lists tE1/tEz, Hs, the power codes and gAS for its dryer side; DLE3180W lists tE1 through tE7 and PS. If LG dryers reported a motor code, the WashTower manual is where washer and dryer vocabularies would meet, and even there the dryer table carries no LE-family entry. Where LE genuinely lives in LG's documentation is the washer range: LE is the LG washer motor error, with LG washer guidance built around a control reset and the load the motor was asked to move (verified for this site's LG washer LE page in Batch 12). That is almost certainly the well LE1 is drawn from — a real LG laundry code, one appliance to the left, wearing a suffix. The suffix itself deserves a sentence, because it is doing quiet work in the search phrase: LG washer door codes really do come in numbered variants (dE, dE1, dE2), so 'LE1' sounds like plausible LG grammar. But plausibility is not publication, and in the dryer tables the numbered-variant habit belongs to the thermistor family instead — tE1, tE2, tE3 up to tE7 — which produces this page's most practical suggestion: on a segmented display, a lowercase t read in a hurry is an L with the top imagined, and tE1 is a documented dryer code with a documented route (the help library routes tE1/tE3 through the same factory reset it prints for PF, with service if the code persists after it). One trace should be recorded for completeness, labelled as what it is: reproductions of LG service tables for washer-dryer combination units circulating on third-party manual sites carry a 'restricted motor' line displaying LE1. That is service material for a combination appliance, not the owner documentation of a standalone dryer, and it could not be confirmed in two LG sources — so it earns a mention here as the likely origin of the phrase, not a meaning this page asserts for your dryer.

Most likely cause: tE1, mis-read (the documented neighbour) — tE1 is LG's dryer thermistor code, printed in the manuals as 'tE1 or tEz' precisely because the segment display renders characters approximately. A display caught at an angle, in bright light, or from memory an hour later turns tE1 into LE1 with one imagined stroke. The behaviour arbitrates: tE1 is a temperature-sensing report, and LG's route for it is a factory reset, then service if it persists.

First check: Photograph the display before resetting anything. Read the first character against the photograph, not from memory: t or L is the whole diagnosis, and codes in this family differ by exactly that stroke.

If it keeps coming back: A one-off LE1 that a photograph cannot reproduce and a reset clears permanently was most likely a mis-read or a latched display — file the photograph and forget it. An LE1 that returns on a schedule, always at the same cycle stage, is reporting something repeatable even if LG's owner charts do not name it; that pattern, with dates and stages, is exactly what the service visit needs and what repeated resetting destroys.

Less common and model-specific codes

Search data shows owners also meet these codes on LG dryers: BE1, BE2, CE, D60, DE1, DRY, Dryer, E07, E1, E2, E4, E5, EE, EE1, EE2, EE3, F1, FE, FE1, HC, HE, IE, L18, LE, MP, ND, P5, TE, TE4, U02, U05, U5, UE. They are not part of the core code list LG 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

Related guides

Facts on this page were checked against manufacturer documentation: www.lg.com · www.lg.com · www.lg.com