A refrigerator that cools perfectly but makes no ice is not a refrigeration problem. It is a small machine bolted inside a cold one, and it fails on its own terms.
The chain
Water arrives. The tray fills. The tray freezes. A sensor decides the ice is ready. A motor twists the tray and drops the cubes. Then it starts again. Five events, and you can usually see which one is missing.
Is water getting there at all?
Start at the far end. The shut-off valve behind the refrigerator or under the sink gets closed during other work and forgotten more often than anything else on this list. Then the filter: a filter past its life restricts flow enough that the tray never fills to the level that triggers the freeze.
If the dispenser also runs slowly or not at all, you have your answer without opening anything.
The fill tube
Water reaches the tray through a short tube that passes through the cabinet wall. If the fill valve leaks slightly, that tube ices over from the inside and the flow stops while everything else carries on working normally. A hair dryer on low, held well back, clears it. If it returns within a fortnight, the valve is the real problem.
The arm and the sensor
Older units use a wire arm that lifts as the bin fills and switches the maker off. Bags of frozen food lean on it constantly. Newer units use an infrared beam across the bin, and a smear on the emitter reads as a full bin to the machine. Both take seconds to check.
Freezer temperature matters more than people expect
An ice maker needs the freezer at or below zero Fahrenheit to complete a harvest. At five degrees it will still keep your food frozen and still fail to make ice, which is why this is worth reading before assuming the module has died.
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