Deadbolt sticks & cannot manually open from inside

Update: Following this post, Eufy sent me a replacement mechanical deadbolt, not the entire lockset. This made me look closer at the original deadbolt. With the door open, I found I could replicate the same behavior (cannot manually unlock) by pressing lightly on the end of the deadbolt. It felt exactly the same.
I believe the deadbolt is designed to behave like this so the bolt cannot be jimmied open.
I noticed the hole in the door jamb was not cleaned out well and had some wood shavings hanging that could touch the end of the deadbolt. I cleaned out and opened up the hole with a chisel, and I have not had the unlocking problem since.
This does not really explain the intermittent problem - maybe the wood was swelling with the weather.
I did not install the replacement deadbolt.
Hope this helps.

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This is definitely a defective/flawed design on this unit. I experience the same thing, intermittently, the lock will jam when manually turning deadbolt. I’ve had this lock for 6 months and it has done it from day 1, the clearance for the bolt in the door jamb/plate is 100% correct, there is nothing in the way of the bolt’s travel. Plus, my lock will jamb/get really tight even when it’s in the unlocked position, requiring just as much force to manually lock the thing. I’m so disappointed I spent the money on this flawed product from a company that doesn’t give two ishes about their customers.

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I am having the same problem. The lock jams in the locked position and will not open manually even with the door open, so it’s not something that is happening because the deadbolt is hitting something. The internal gears make a grinding noise and it’s a little bit hard to lock it also, but then it won’t manually unlock at all. It started out as an intermittent problem but is happening every time now.

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I also have the same issue. And it’s not because of door jamb not being clean or something else sticking the deadbolt. It’s something internal to this device that’s causing it to get stuck. I say this because even when the door is open, the deadbolt won’t extend and if I manually try to turn, it takes a lot of force to get it to extend. After that it moves fine until the auto-lock try to work again. Luckily, in my case it’s only happening when locking and doesn’t seem to happen when unlocking - still a huge huge security issue because then I won’t be able to move the deadbolt even with a key from outside - the only option would be breakdown the door to get entry. At first, it won’t auto-lock ( I have it set to auto lock after 30 seconds) and would complain but would work if I try from the phone. After 3 months of this issue, it escalated and now even the phone won’t work and it won’t work manually too (doesn’t seem to matter how much ever force I apply). All this is after about 1 year of ownership. I called the customer support and they sent me a refurbished device. That makes me pretty angry. Hell no, I won’t trust a refurbished device with security of my house knowing that it might just be a month or so away from this issue. Never ever buying a Eufy product again.

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Same issue here. Eufy, when will you reply??

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I’m having the same issue as this. Why hasn’t there been a response from eufy about this? I’m so close to retuning this lock and getting my money back. This is causing a lot of stress for my family as we’re fearing one day it won’t unlock at all.

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I have the same problem. This is my second lock. I returned the first lock to Costco and bought another one from Amazon. Both locks are defective. I keep hoping that Eufy will fix the problem and send me a good lock.

I hope Eufy fixes this problem and FAST!

This sounds like a major fire hazard and potential legal issue that Eufy will most likely not want to be defending.

Just imagine a huge gas fire breaks out in your home and any other exit and windows are blocked by the fire except the front door. So you run towards the front door just to find out that you can’t open it because the deadbolt is in the locked position and can’t be unlocked manually because the smart lock malfunctioned.

This would be a horrible story for the company. I don’t mean to cause alarm to anyone, just throwing this thought out there to try to understand if that is the problem people are having (deadbolt won’t unlock manually)… is this correct?

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There may be friction on the deadbolt that can be causing the jam. Here is a video of how to correct the problem

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I’ve found that this is almost always happens when my wife opens the door. And she opens it quickly after the bolt starts to retract. So I have a feeling that it’s happening when the bolt sees side load and it’s causing the motor to stall out. If you manually turn the lock it frees itself. Not sure if it’s a design flaw or some safety feature?

Nice helpful little video you posted! Maybe this will help people with some of the fiction issues now.

Thank you for posting this for the community!

Hmmm :thinking: good question

Here is the issue I had: Smart Lock would lock just fine using fingerprint, keypad or eufy app. But using the same methods would NOT unlock the deadbolt! The app would even indicate that the deadbolt was unlocked, but it clearly wasn’t. The same result would happen when the door was ajar, and thereby not in contact with the strike plate at all, so it wasn’t a problem with friction in the hole in the door jamb.

Here is how we solved it: We took apart the unit, and it appeared that the electronic wires were only partly plugged in. We unplugged it, and plugged it back in firmly. That seemed to do the trick!

I have the same issue. It’s scary not to be able to open the door.

I’ve got two Eufy Smart Lock touch with Wi-Fi bridge. One on my garage door and one on my back patio door. The garage door lock has worked perfect from day 1. The back patio door has been giving me this exact problem since day 1. They’ve sent 4 replacements at this point and the newest one I received about 3 weeks ago is also doing it. And it jams with the door open or closed so it’s not an issue of the deadbolt getting hung up in the door frame or anything like that. Eufy really needs to get their act together and figure out a solution. This is ridiculous on a product this expensive and this important.

This thread is wild. I JUST installed my lock a week ago, and the issue hasn’t been bad. It’s done it a couple of times which raised concern for my wife and I. I came here hoping to find a solution.

Seeing this thread REALLY CONCERNS me now. I’ll still monitor it, and if i can’t figure something out or it keeps happening, I gotta send it back. Safety first.

I had the Nest Yale Doorlock for 2 years. Never any issues there. I might have to go back to that if this doesn’t work out.

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Same happened to me. Cannot manually open from the inside! Please give fix ASAP!

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Argh…I just encountered this for the first time today. The lock has been completely trouble-free until we replaced the batteries yesterday. Looks like it might be a calibration issue?

This video seems to explain what’s going on inside the lock. Seems like a pretty simple fix for eufy to implement via a firmware update.

I have the same problem, deadbolt sticks and does not want to easily unlock manually. This happens nearly all the time and requires a lot of force to unlock. My children cannot unlock the door manually. Very keen to hear from a @eufy_Operation @eufy_official to provide a solution to this urgently. Will be following up via Eufy H/O if I don’t hear anything via this channel.

I was having this problem as well until…

…I updated the firmware through the Eufy app!

If you are having this problem, go look for the Eufy firmware update via the app and allow your Eufy Smart Lock to update its firmware version. As soon as I did this, the issue was resolved. This should fix the tightened interior manual lock issue. If it doesn’t, then email Eufy through the app since it might be your physical lock itself.