Traeger

if your auger tube is empty , run it on high to feed the pellets into the the cup , the rod only stays hot for a little bit , then it cyles off

If you ran the cooker for 20 minutes after you ran out and added pellets back to the firepot, the fire was out and you just dumped a whole load of pellets in the firepot. Remove everything and clean out the firepot first! If you don't clean it then restart the cooker, that whole pile of pellets will ignite and cause a huge fire in your Traeger.

The hot rod is only active for the first 5 minutes of the cycle. So if the cooker stays on and you add pellets after the fire has gone out, there is nothing there to start the fire. You can still start on smoke as always, but if you run it out of pellets, you will have to turn it off, turn it on and prime it by feeding pellets down the auger. Then when they are dropping in the firepot, turn it off as the hot rod is probably done with its cycle, then turn it back to smoke to reignite the pellets.

The easiest thing, is just to make sure you don't run it out of pellets. :thumb: