Hi everyone.

I wanted to give something back, as this forum and others like it was helpful in helping me figure out what was wrong with my POS GE Dishwasher today.

Here's what it was doing...

It wasn't draining. Like many forums said, I checked for a drain pipe clog and/or air. No clog. I then checked the drain filter under it's protective shield at the bottom back of the inside of dishwasher. I took off shield by removing it's (2) screws, found a 'cane' from a McDonald's toy (thanks to my youngest: Argghhh!) but nothing else. No sluggy goo or anything. Reassembled shield.
Tested the dishwasher cycle: Still not draining.

Next, I took off bottom front panel and saw this swivel half-gear looking white plastic thing (found out later it's the Drain solenoid plunger and armature). I moved it counterclockwise while it was running (ha ha). Wham, the drain pump came on. Cool. It drained the inside.

New problem: Now, the drain pump ran throughout the entire next test cycle, but no water (rinse or otherwise) was shooting/spraying around. Man, that was the original problem in reverse. I flipped the little whote plastic solenoid arm again, thinking i could make a manual switch in 'modes' to stop the pumping and start the spraying again and -maybe- get the whole thing synced back up in a normal cycle of things. No luck.

Then I read where people were having these issues when the solenoid goes bad and dies. I was like 'Man, this stinks. That's gonna cost me $$'.

I went back and played with it some for giggles and pushed in the tab to make it run while the door was open so I could see what was happening inside. I got the bright idea to add a pot full of water to the bottom of the inside dishwasher from the idea that it's probably not a good thing to run a pump dry like that...and BAM! The water starts spraying again (LOL), mostly on me. I cut it off and laugh and wipe up floor.

Still no luck with getting the cycles straightend out....But then I noticed the water wasn't heating up. That made me wonder. Was the heater element broke now as well? Dang on it. I check the hot push-in buttons on the front. Ummmm, I couldn't switch the 'High Temp Dry' 'on or 'off' buttons from one to the other. WTH?

I then remember telling my kids not to mess with the buttons and for my wife not to lean back and hang out in the kitchen resting against the front panel of this dishwasher, since on many many occasions, I have found that BOTH the 'High Temp Dry' 'on' AND 'off' buttons were pressed in at the SAME TIME. I have said on many occassions that can't be good, in which my wife looked at me like an ass and I would press the 'on' button to be the only one depressed.

WELL GUESS WHAT?!!?!
You guessed it...
I cut the power off at the dishwasher's wall switch (****IMPORTANT, DANGER***)
Then went out to my breaker and cut off the breaker for the dishwasher (****ALSO IMPORTANT, DANGER***)
I unscrewed and popped the inside cover off, so I could see the buttons, and the back of the 'High Temp Dry' buttons were just about melted with black plastic.
I thought, well, I could get a new button, but I don't know if that is even it, so I cut the (3) wires and put the (2) for 'on' together with one of those twist-on electrican caps and added a second cap to the 'off' wire by itself, making the dishwasher permantly on the 'on' condition for the 'High Temp Dry' option (which is the only option I ever used/wanted in the first place).

I put the inside cover back together, closed door, turned breaker back on, turned the dishwasher's wall switch back on, and turned dail to start dishwasher (waiting for it to blow up).
Nope.
The water got hot, the sprayer sprayed, the drain drained, and the drier dried at the end of cycle. The melted switch must had been shorting out the other componets or something. Now it all works.

Husband-who-told-wife-not-to-lean-on-dishwasher-controls-repeatly-for-the-last-2-years-or-something-bad-was-gonna-happen = WIN. Yay me.
Hope this helps some other poor joe out there.