If the wiring looks good, carefully disconnect the wire from the keypad, open the battery cover, and remove the battery or batteries. Remove the entire keypad and inspect the wires to see if are loose, kinked, abraded, or cut. While troubleshooting an electronic or combination lock is best left to the experts, you can do easy checks to see if the wiring is disconnected and/or damaged. (This assumes that someone else has a code and access to your safe.) Disconnected and/or Damaged WiringĪll electronic devices have circuit boards and electrical wires. Before you phone the safe company, have someone else try their code to see if theirs works.

In this case, it could be that your code is deactivated. It is possible that for some reason, even if you enter the correct combination, your safe won't open. Open Safe with Valuables Deactivated Code This will release some of the pressure on the bolt work and can help the handle come loose. Enter the combo code if you have an electronic safe, otherwise, try turning the key. Tug the handle of the safe in the opposite direction from how you turn it to open it. Make sure that you do not kick the electronic keypad or the safe handle. This will often loosen and stuck bolt work. Face away from the safe, and kick the door of the safe hard. Keep trying to open the safe and listen carefully to the sounds from the front of the safe.Īn unconventional but simple solution worth trying is what we call the 'mule kick' option. One way to tell if the bolts are jammed is if you hear the motor whirring or trying to retract the bolts but the safe won't open. Most customers forget that safes are precision equipment, not just expensive metal boxes. Sometimes a jarring, or dropping or a hard knock on a safe can jam the bolts. The bolt work of a safe can get jammed even for a quality safe. We recommend staying away from off brand batteries because studies show they lose power much faster than the branded types. Pop the battery or batteries out of the battery holder, check the terminals, and if you can't check the battery charge, just replace the battery with a brand-name battery pack like Duracell or Energizer. Sounds silly, but you will be surprised how many times this is the case. If you are lucky the simplest reason why your safe won't open is dead safe batteries. We recommend doing these before you call your locksmith or safe technician (typical trip charge $100) or the safe manufacturer. These methods should work for just about any Sentry Safe model, including the ones with keys, and combination locks or the electronic and biometric safes. The safe is in lockout mode or the time delay is active The bolts of the safe are jammed or misaligned Try these before calling Sentry Safe Customer Service or a safe locksmith. Here are the most common reasons a Sentry Safe won't open.

What do I do?” Usually, the caller is in a hurry and doesn't have the time to call a locksmith or wants to avoid the trip charge if there were some easy and simple things to try first. With the popularity of Sentry Safes and the over 200 models on the market, it is no surprise that the most common troubleshooting question we receive is: “My Sentry Safe safe won’t open.

Sentry fire safe