When SWMBO and I were leaving home this AM (Late for where we were going as usual.) I pulled the car out of the garage and pushed the button on the door opener remote in the car.
We watched the door closing smoothly, but about rive inches from full down it reversed direction and went back up. Another try produced the same results.
We had about 8 inches of wet snow here in Red Sox Nation yesterday, so I jumped out of the car and went looking for some snow or ice that the door might be striking near the ground and reversing in response to "overload."
I couldn't find spot like that. I tried adding my strength to the opener's as the door was coming down by pushing downwards on the outside door handle. No luck, the opener still reversed close to fully closed.
I finally went inside the garage and watched the door as it was descending. And there it was, a dead tree leaf stuck to the bottom edge of the door and extending inwards enough to interrupt the photoelectric safety beam and trigger the opener's reversing.
Pulled that dead leaf off and Bob's your uncle, all's well again.
I've only had photoelectric safeties on the garage doors for a couple of months as that's when I replaced the two 30 year old Craftsman openers which were given up their ghosts with brand new Craftsman openers which came with photoelectric safety stuff I added when changing out the openers.
That photoelectric stuff wasn't around when I installed the original openers, so I never really had any experience with it and didn't think of it at first as being the cause of the door reversing near fully closed. I know better now.
Jeff