The appliance is behaving oddly
The drawer will not close, or will not stay closed
Nearly always something in the way or something not seated. It matters because most drawer machines will not run at all until it is right.
What is happening
Drawer air fryers have an interlock: the appliance stops when the drawer is out and resumes when it goes back. A drawer that will not close is therefore an appliance that will not cook, and the cause is almost always mechanical and visible.
Narrow it down
Each of these has an answer you already know, and each one rules something out.
Does it close normally with everything taken out?
- Yes — Then it is loading rather than the appliance.
- No, it still will not close or latch
Why it happens
Commonest first. It is almost always the boring one, and a page that walks you through the exotic causes before the obvious one has given you a longer path to a fixed dinner.
Most common
It is overfilled
Food standing proud of the basket rim fouls the top of the chamber. One manufacturer in this catalogue publishes a fill limit of half full for its basket, which is well below what looks reasonable.
What to do
- Take some out
Common
The crisper plate is not clicked in
A plate sitting proud on one side lifts the whole basket a few millimetres, which is enough. Cosori's manual describes the correct action — tilt one side in first, then press the other down.
What to do
- Reseat the crisper plate
Common
Something has fallen between the basket and the outer pan
A chip or a piece of coating that has slipped through the perforations sits under the basket and stops it dropping fully into the pan.
What to do
- Lift the basket out and look in the outer pan
Occasional
The drawer or the basket is warped
Usually from thermal shock — a hot basket put into cold water. A warped basket no longer seats and the fault is permanent.
What to do
- Contact the manufacturer
Rare
The interlock or catch is faulty
A drawer that closes fully and still reads as open, or that will not latch at all, is a mechanism fault in a mains appliance rather than an obstruction.
What to do
- Contact the manufacturer
The fixes in full
- Take some out
Nothing should stand above the rim of the basket. One manufacturer in this catalogue specifies filling the basket no more than halfway, which is a useful reference point when a load looks fine and does not fit.
You will know it worked when: The drawer closes with no pressure at all.
- Reseat the crisper plate
Take it out and put it back: tilt one side in first, then press down on the other until it is flat and flush.
- Lift the basket out and look in the outer pan
With the appliance cold, remove the basket completely and check for anything sitting in the pan under it.
- Contact the manufacturer
A warped basket or a faulty catch is a parts or service matter. Do not force a drawer that will not close, and do not run the appliance with an interlock defeated in any way — the interlock is a safety device.
Evidence and confidence
- Applies to
- Specific to this type of appliance
- Why this rating
- Two published details — the seating method and a fill limit — cover the two commonest causes. The interlock behaviour is documented by a third manufacturer as a display state rather than a fault.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-13
What this does not cover
- Derived from manufacturer troubleshooting tables for the appliances AirfryerHQ holds manuals for. It is not fault-rate data and nobody has counted how often each cause actually occurs.
Sources (3)
Cosori Dual Blaze TwinFry 10L Air Fryer CAF-TF101S-AES — User Manual (PDF)
Arovast Corporation (Cosori) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: The correct method for seating a crisper plate — tilting one side in first, then pressing the other down.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 818/0764. The document covers several languages in one file; every figure recorded here comes from the English section.
Tefal Easy Fry 9in1 11L Air Fryer & Mini Oven — Instruction Manual (PDF)
Groupe SEB (Tefal) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom and European Union)
Relied on for: That the basket must not be filled more than halfway.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 201/0524.
AirfryerHQ assessment of airflow, element proximity and material behaviour
AirfryerHQ — Calculated or inferred by AirfryerHQ (Not jurisdictional)
Relied on for: The mechanism behind the symptom: airflow, element proximity and thermal behaviour in a small chamber.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Citation checked — the document exists and is described correctly