Hi @ben1,
[Revised]
Asking people whether they have a “backup plan” when they are having problems with their GF, or suggesting that a “hobby level unit” should not be used for a business can be interpreted as hostile and not constructive. In addition, the Glowforge includes a “Pro” model, suggesting that it is a professional and not hobby version.
[/Revised]
@mustangfuzz might be seeing the same problem that a lot of us are recently experiencing. If you look over the requests to Problems and Support, there seems to be a dramatic increase in people reporting “Stuck on centering” and “stuck on scanning”. If multiple people are experiencing this problem, then it’s good for GF support to know about it.
And @geek2nurse is absolutely right to suggest the basic troubleshooting checklist first.
Finally: @mustangfuzz, assuming you’re past the “clean everything” and “ribbon cables look fine” and “triple check the wifi” stage, try this: power on with the lid open, then close the lid when the UI reports “lid open”, and let it sit for an hour. In my case, centering DID complete, but it took nearly an hour. If this is your problem too, then this makes it unusable, but strongly suggests that it isn’t a hardware issue. See: Stuck on Centering, head doesn't move