Automatic Litterbox Central

So - here's kind of a history of my Catgenie.

I got it and loved it.. then there were some problems tearing up my cats poo. I helped test the new impellers, and things were again good for a while.

Then I started getting problems again - about half of the time, it would get to the end of the cycle and the bowl would be full - it would 'usually' recognize there was a problem and 3 beep at me, indicating a clog.

After much futzing around with it, I finally decided to just start manually scooping the poo. My cats have too much hair or something (one of them tends to eat toilet paper and that sure doesn't help).

So - after deciding to go the manual method, things were good again for a while. Cats didn't seem to mind me stretching it out a bit either, which saves me cleaning cycles, etc..

So - now we're at the point where I never run the CG without first cleaning out it's bowl of solids.

However, for about 2 months now, there's a 90% chance it will end the cycle with the 3 error code beep. It will be completely done with the cycle. It will be completely dry. There is no clog. There is no water left in the bowl.

But it beeps the 3 beeps. If I unplug it and plug it back in, the error code is usually gone (1 time I think it 'continued' like it was on the 2nd wash cycle still)

Has anyone else ran into this? I keep meaning to call Catgenie but I just haven't gotten around to it. I did do a search on here, but only found a few people with the 3 beep issue, and usually it was because they WERE getting clogs..

Thanks.

I think your intuition is right. If you are certain there are no clogs and you've taken the thing apart and cleaned it, call CG and see what they have to say.

I also started brushing my cats with the "Furminator" to help them out in terms of each cat being their own best source of natural fiber.

Yes- I'm having the same problem
I have programed the litterbox to run only when I am home so that I know there are NO poops
and same as you described- no water- runs the whole cycle (most times- I think?) sometimes seems
short to me and stills smells of pee.....and then completly dries. Then I get the 3 beeps from Hell
Oh and yes- cleaned it so many times- flushed it out - water runs out just fine.....hoses and all....
So I am calling the company in the next couple of days- when I get home in time.
I unfortunatly work late- and of course you have to be home to run thier diagnostics.....but call them!!!
They are VERY helpful and even if you have to leave a message- they will call you back quite quickly!

They did for me last time I had a clog problem- which was solved by the way!
Good luck!
Amber

Just to ask the obvious...do you know that the genie's going through all of it's cycles in the meantime? I kept getting a 3-beep error, and it turned out that the bowl wasn't filling with water. I would hear it "draining" and drying from the other room so didn't realize for a while what was wrong until I sat and watched it. Tried cleaning the water sensor and that helped for a day or so, but changing it to the spare they supply is what ended up doing the trick.

Oh yeah...fwiw, I'm a long-time manual scooper of the turds. Small price to pay to avoid most of the common problems.

Good luck - hope you get this one solved...

I talked to the help line - night before last - and as always- they were great!
Even though I clean the water sensor all the time - I didn't take it out of the clips So when I did that......
what a suprise to find a very white film on the very bottom of it - which doesn't show against
the cat genie- so it looked clean!!! and yes- thier advice....if the cleaning didn't work -use the spare on the
bottom of the box...but the cleaning has worked - It has now been 3 cleaning cycles and no beeps.
The 1 beep error (cartridge) error which was I was also getting at the same time (when I wasn't getting the 3 beeps)....
was told to clean the pin inside the processing unit (where the cartridge slides in) and I cleaned the two areas on the
litter box where the solution comes in and no more cartridge beeps error either so ......Life is great !
Hope this helps!

@eekawolf is correct. You really only get two types of errors with this unit unless you're special. First is that you're out of cleaner and need to replace the cartridge. The other is that you need to pull out the water sensor and clean it.

The simply way to presume it's a water sensor error is by noticing if your catgenie runs fine after you reset (unplug) it and then only starts acting up about half way into the cleaning cycle. Thats because the catgenie doesn't start needing water until later in the cycle, which is when it realizes that it can't read whether there's already water in there or not. The sensor essentially tells the catgenie not to pump more water into the bowl for fear of it overflowing - this is a good thing. And since the water sensor spends it's entire life in mucky water, it gets cloudy awfully quickly. Sometimes i have to clean my water sensor every couple of weeks.

But guess what, cleaning the sensor takes less time than opening and replacing a cleaning cartridge. Once you make it a habit to make cleaning this sensor the first troubleshooting you do whenever you get an oddball error, cleaning it is like a piece of cake - it's just a plastic see-through wishbone. Pull it out of it's housing (lift up the motor housing - it's under there, snapped into the base) and run it under water. I also use a paper towel just to rub off all the residue.

Anyhow, it's not like catgenie has a pre-start diagnostic mode, other than checking for cleaning solution level. Because if it did, you'd know the moment you plugged it in what the problem is. But trust me - odds are that your problem is just a dirty water Ensor, especially if it's been a long time or ever since you've cleaned it. And if you've removed it entirely and cleaned it and still have errors, you're special