On Monday I cleaned the machine… I do this once a week. All fans, all lenses. That day I ran a print job and everything went great as usual. On Tuesday I continued on the same piece of wood and the machine wouldn’t cut through and when I do a set focus (which I do each time before a job), I received an Error ("an error occurred on your Glowforge. Please refresh your browser…etc). So I turned the machine off and back on… nothing changed. I refreshed browser… in fact, I tried 3 separate browsers and all with no new results. I also reset the design back to GOGM and tried to cut that on draftboard and it didn’t cut though either. All engraves are fine. And it doesn’t look out of focus on any of the cuts. They are all clean and thin lines, etc. It will cut though with two passes on faster speed. I have tried different materials with my normal settings, same result.
I thought maybe it was my print head, so I took the print head out of my other Plus and nothing changed.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Just to be sure, when you say all lenses, there are six lenses and windows to be cleaned, including the lid. Are you hitting all of them?
How about the mirror? (You tried a different head so it’s probably not related)
Are you finding it performs differently on the extreme right/left/front/ back corners, that can indicate laser alignment issues.
Assume your lens isn’t upside down but worth asking.
All of this may be pretty elementary, you’ve had your machines for ages and are well beyond beginner stage.
Lastly, as machines age they do lose power. You can talk to support@glowforge.com and they can recalibrate your power in some cases. Might be worth checking out if all else fails.
When cleaning, you did get the windows on either side of the lens? When using set focus are you getting the red dot on the material? In a single cut it is possible for a piece of crud to block a place that is open. The windows on the side of the head and underneath on the left are particularly prone to it.
I have had several instances when the cut did not go through and the under left window looked fine, but a wipe came back with a slight brown streak and it worked fine after that.
Thank you for your reply. I had cleaned all you mentioned etc, but just went back in to take a really good look and see that there is a hole (or worn down area) on the side of the white printer cable. Ugh.
Thank you for your reply. I had cleaned all you mentioned etc, but just went back in to take a really good look and see that there is a hole (or worn down area) on the side of the white printer cable. Ugh.
Oh no! Hopefully it’s and easy part to get. Good luck.
If it’s the white ribbon cable on the print head, isn’t that one non-user-serviceable? 
Either way, cleaning thoroughly weekly sounds like overdoing it unless the machine is used very heavily.
You can replace the white ribbon yourself, though it looks daunting. You can purchase it from etsy and there are good videos to get you through it (though I haven’t done one myself yet).
I do use the machine heavily and have to clean all fans, lenses, etc weekly. 
You might consider a commercial laser. The GF is a crafting machine designed for occasional use. If you have to clean it weekly, it’s not going to hold up.
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