Do-It-Yourself Story

It was a water supply issue. Not enough water, so pump couldn't generate enough pressure to spin the blades, etc. There WAS water getting into the machine, just not enough. To confirm the diagnosis, I just poured some water from a kitchen pan into the machine, then it was enough to make everything work, blades spin, etc. I could see the water going into the machine when the inlet valve engaged (door open, but manually engaging the door interlock switch), but it wasn't much flow. It turns out these machines just open the valve for a set amount of time, and assume the level of water that should flow in that time. So if the flow is low, it tries to go onto the next step even though there is not enough water yet. There is float, but its only for overflow. in case there is too much water in that set time, it can empty some of it out. So my water inlet valve was clogged. A new one solved the problem.