How to Reset Bosch Dishwasher Error Codes

Bosch dishwashers have a genuine cycle reset (unlike most appliances, it's a designed user function): holding the Start button cancels the current cycle, runs a short drain, and returns the machine to a ready state. This page covers that reset, the power reset behind it, and which Bosch codes a reset can clear versus the ones that re-measure instantly (E24 and E15 have opinions about resets).

The Start-hold cycle reset

With the door closed and the machine on, press and hold Start for about 3 seconds (on many models the display counts down / shows 0:01) — the machine cancels, drains for roughly a minute, and resets. Open the door only after it finishes. This is the correct way to interrupt any Bosch cycle and the first step in most Bosch troubleshooting.

The power reset

If the panel is unresponsive, switch the dishwasher off at its power switch/breaker for 5 minutes. A panel that stays dead after that is a power/latch/control problem, not a reset problem (the door latch carries panel power on many built-ins — check it seats fully).

Code behaviour after reset

E24/E25 (drain): return on the next drain attempt if the path is still blocked — the reset drains what's drainable, the filter does the rest. E15 (base water): cannot be reset away at all; it clears when the base is dry. E09/E01 (heating): return if the heater circuit is faulty. One-off display glitches after power events: the legitimate reset-curable case.

The Start-button cancel, series by series — what Bosch's manuals actually say

Bosch does not publish one universal cancel, so this guide keeps the variants separate, exactly as Bosch prints them. On Bosch Use & Care manuals for models with a countdown display, cancelling a cycle is: press and hold the START/RESET button until the countdown display reads "0:01", then wait until the display reads "0:00" and switch the unit off. A second Bosch manual family phrases the same function without the countdown: press and hold START/RESET until the "Active" indicator light goes out, wait about a minute while the dishwasher drains, and when the "Clean" light illuminates, switch the unit off with the ON/OFF switch — the drain minute is part of the procedure, not a delay to skip, because the machine is emptying itself before it will accept a fresh start. A third family, the SHE-series instruction manuals, moves the function to two buttons: with the door open far enough to reach the controls, press and hold the two "Cancel Reset" buttons for three seconds, close the door, wait until the cycle completes (approximately one minute), then open the door and press ON/OFF. The pattern across all three is the same — a deliberate hold, a drain of roughly a minute, then power off — but the buttons are not interchangeable, and pressing the variant from a different series is the most common reason a Bosch cancel 'does nothing'. Find your model's variant in its manual first, then use it.

Bosch's own reset for error codes: 30 seconds at the breaker

When a Bosch dishwasher is showing an error code rather than merely running a cycle you want to stop, Bosch's published reset is not a button at all. Across its official US and Canadian error-code lists, Bosch attaches the same instruction to code after code — E01, E02, E03, E05 and most of the other circuit codes carry it word for word: "Reset power to breaker for 30 seconds. If not resolved, call Bosch Customer Support." Switch the breaker off, wait the full thirty seconds Bosch specifies (not a quick off-on flick, which does not let the control fully discharge and re-initialise), restore power, and run a cycle while watching for the code. Understand what this reset can and cannot do: it clears the control's latched state and forces a fresh self-check, so a code raised by a transient glitch disappears and stays gone. It changes nothing about a live fault — the board re-tests the circuit it was monitoring the moment the new cycle reaches that stage, and an honest fault is posted again. Bosch builds its own escalation into the instruction: a code that survives the breaker reset goes to Bosch Customer Support (1-800-944-2904 on the US list), and this guide follows Bosch in treating a return as the diagnosis, not as a reset that needs repeating harder.

The codes a reset will never clear: E15, and the drain family

Some Bosch codes are not control states waiting to be cleared but measurements of physical conditions, and resetting them without touching the condition is wasted effort. E15 is the clearest case: Bosch defines it as the safety switch having detected water in the base — the leakage protection system has activated — and Bosch's remedy contains no reset at all: the water inflow is to be turned off and Bosch's support contacted, because water where it should never be has to be found, not forgotten. The drain family makes the same point in a milder key. E24 (the dishwasher does not drain properly or at all) and E25 (drain pump blocked, or its cover missing or not fitted correctly) are remedied in Bosch's list by work, not by resets: check that the drain hose is installed without kinks, clean the filters and check the pump and its cover. E22 is Bosch telling you the filter is dirty or blocked and needs cleaning. In each case the code clears itself when the measured condition clears — which is why the honest sequence on this page is always remedy first, reset second: fix what the code is measuring, then use the breaker reset to give the control a clean self-check on the repaired machine.

When the machine won't start or the display stays dark

Bosch's own manuals troubleshoot the reset-adjacent complaints in their Self Help sections, and their answers are worth having before assuming a failed reset has killed the machine. For 'dishwasher does not start', the manual's listed causes include a door that is not shut properly, a child lock that is activated, a power supply interruption — and, most relevant here, 'unit not reset or previous cycle not completed', with the fix given as: to reset, refer to Cancel a Cycle. In other words, a Bosch that ignores the Start button after an error is often a Bosch still holding its previous cycle, and the staged cancel procedure for your series (hold, drain minute, power off) is the reset it is waiting for. For a display that does not illuminate at all, the same manual section sends you to the supply side: check whether the fuse or circuit breaker has tripped, make sure the appliance is switched on, and check the door is fully closed — several Bosch models show nothing until the door is latched. Only when power is proven present, the door is latched and a completed cancel still leaves the panel dark does the complaint move from reset territory into a control or power-supply fault for Bosch support.

After the reset: reading what the returning code tells you

Treat the first cycle after any reset as a diagnostic run and watch it, because the behaviour of the code afterwards sorts the whole problem. If the code never returns through several full cycles, the reset closed the matter — a transient latch, exactly the case Bosch's 30-second instruction is written for. If the same code returns at the same stage of the cycle, the board is reporting a live, repeatable fault in the system that code names, and further resets have stopped being diagnosis; the code's own Bosch definition now leads (E01 to the heat pump motor circuit, E02/E03 to control board relays, and so on). If a different code appears after the reset, the machine has usually cleared its first layer and is reporting the next condition it can measure — record the new code and work from its definition rather than treating the change as random. One more Bosch-specific behaviour matters here: Bosch manuals run a component self-test on many models, and some codes (E04 in Bosch's list is explicitly a fault detected by that self-test of the heater electronics) only ever appear when the test runs — a code that shows immediately at power-on or cycle start, before any washing happens, is often the self-test speaking, and it will greet every reset the same way until the component is repaired.

What Bosch does not publish: there is no universal error-code erase

It is worth stating plainly, because the internet will not: Bosch's manuals and support pages contain no master sequence that erases all error codes on all models — no shared button dance, no service code printed for owners. What Bosch publishes is exactly what this guide is built from: a per-series cycle cancel, a per-code remedy list whose standard electrical reset is 30 seconds at the breaker, and a support line for whatever survives those two steps. The elaborate multi-button reset routines attached to Bosch's name on forums and video sites are not Bosch procedures; some are misremembered procedures from other brands, and pressing through them can change settings or interrupt a drain mid-sequence. The discipline that protects you is the one Bosch itself models: cancel the cycle by your series' method, reset power by Bosch's 30-second instruction, remedy what the returning code actually names — and let Bosch Customer Support, not folklore, be the third step.

Cancel or reset? Choosing the right one in the moment

Most failed Bosch dishwasher resets are really a confusion between the two different tools this guide covers, so here is the decision in one place. If the machine is simply running a programme you chose by mistake, or you need to add a dish and start over, you want the cycle cancel for your series — the Start hold, the two-button Cancel Reset, the drain minute — because nothing is wrong and nothing needs clearing; you are just handing the machine back its idle state in the orderly way Bosch designed. If the machine is displaying an error code, the cancel is only step zero: it settles the current cycle, but the code belongs to the control's fault memory, and Bosch's tool for that is the 30-second breaker reset, followed by a watched test cycle. And if the code names a physical condition — water in the base on E15, a blocked drain on E24/E25, a dirty filter on E22 — neither tool finishes the job until the condition itself is remedied, because Bosch's codes re-measure rather than remember. Running the decision in that order — cancel for programmes, breaker for codes, remedy for conditions — is what separates a reset that works once from a reset ritual repeated every wash.

Key takeaways

• After any reset, run the shortest cycle and watch it complete — that's the verification, not the reset itself.
• A Bosch that needs resetting weekly is a Bosch with a fault asking politely; answer it with the code list.

Resetting the Bosch dishwasher

On Bosch dishwashers, most error codes clear when the cycle is cancelled: hold the Start button for about 3 seconds until the display shows 0:01, let the machine pump out for a minute, then switch off. For many codes a control reset is the next step — switch the machine off, and on models with a physical power switch also cut power at the breaker for a few minutes. A code that returns straight after a reset is an active fault; Bosch controls re-detect it at the next self-check, typically within the first minutes of a new cycle.

Related guides

Facts on this page were checked against manufacturer documentation: www.bosch-home.ca · www.bosch-home.com · www.bosch-home.com · washingcodes.com · manuals.plus · mans.io