Search for how to reset a Daikin air conditioner and you will find pages telling you to press the reset button on the remote. Daikin does not publish one. There is no reset button on a Daikin wireless remote, and knowing that saves a lot of time turning the thing over looking for a pinhole.
What Daikin does publish is a clear sequence for restarting a system that has stopped, a manual operation button on the indoor unit, and a short list of conditions where a reset is the wrong thing to do. This page sets out all of it in the order worth trying.
What Daikin actually publishes as a reset
The instruction appears in Daikin troubleshooting for a unit that has stopped with the operation lamp blinking. It reads, turn off the power with the circuit breaker and restart operation with the remote controller. If the operation lamp is still blinking, check the error code and consult your dealer.
That is the whole procedure. Power off at the breaker or the isolator, power back on, then start the unit from the remote as normal.
How long to leave the power off
Here is where it gets awkward, and it is worth being straight about it. Daikin does not publish a single wait time. Different Daikin regional guidance gives different figures, from about 1 minute up to 20 minutes, and the Australian manuals give no interval at all.
The commonly repeated figures you will see on other sites are not Daikin numbers. If you want a practical approach, five minutes sits comfortably inside the range Daikin uses across its regions and is long enough for the control board to drop power completely.
Do not confuse the wait time with the 3 minute figure Daikin publishes elsewhere. Those 3 minutes are the compressor protection delay and the auto restart delay, which are covered further down. They are not instructions to wait 3 minutes with the power off.
Check the filters first
Daikin puts this ahead of the reset, not after it, and there is a reason. A large share of stopped Daikin units have tripped on a temperature or pressure protection caused by restricted airflow, and a power cycle with dirty filters simply repeats the fault an hour later.
Daikin asks owners to check the air filters are clean and to make sure the air inlets and outlets of both the indoor and outdoor units are not blocked. If the filters are the issue, our guide on how often to replace air conditioner filters covers the interval Daikin recommends.
The button on the indoor unit
Every Daikin wall split has a small switch on the indoor unit that runs the system without a remote. Daikin describes it simply, press this switch once to start operation, press once again to stop it.
On the current premium range it sits on the front panel. On the slimline range it sits in the signal receiver area. On both, you may need to lift the front panel to reach it.
What matters is what happens when you press it, because the settings are fixed and you cannot change them from the unit.
| Model family | Mode | Temperature | Fan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium wall split, larger capacities | Auto | 25 degrees | Auto |
| Cooling only wall split, larger capacities | Cool | 22 degrees | Auto |
| Current European specification wall split | Automatic | 25 degrees | Automatic |
This is not a reset. It is a way to run the unit when the remote has failed or the batteries are flat. Daikin does not describe it anywhere as a reset procedure, and pressing it will not clear a stored fault.
Ducted and cassette systems
Ducted and cassette Daikin units with a wireless receiver have a separate switch, which Daikin calls the emergency operation switch. It sits beside the discharge grille on the main unit. Press once to start in the previous mode, press again to stop.
Daikin names the specific situation it is for, which is when the batteries in the remote controller have failed or the remote is missing.
The delays that are not faults
After any reset, two things happen that look like the unit refusing to start. Neither is a problem.
The first is the compressor protection delay. Daikin publishes it plainly. Operation does not start soon, this is to protect the air conditioner, you should wait for about 3 minutes. It applies when you restart shortly after stopping, and when you change mode.
The second is auto restart after a power failure. Daikin says the air conditioner automatically resumes operation in about 3 minutes, and asks you to wait. On the current range the wording is that when the power turns back on after a power break, the previously selected mode will be resumed.
So a Daikin that sits silent for a few minutes after a reset is doing exactly what it was built to do. Give it five minutes before deciding the reset failed.
Daikin also publishes a short list of other behaviours that are not malfunctions, and they catch people out after a reset. Airflow reducing or stopping in heating once the set temperature is reached, in order to avoid generating a cool airflow. Heating stopping with a flowing sound, which is the outdoor unit defrosting. Flaps not swinging immediately, because the air conditioner is adjusting their position. Ticking and clicking sounds from refrigerant flow. Water or steam coming off the outdoor unit.
Resetting a Daikin wired controller
If your Daikin is ducted, the wall controller is where everything happens, and there are two resets people ask about.
Unlocking the keys
If the controller is not responding to any button, check whether the key lock is on. On the Daikin navigation controller and the Australian ducted wall controller, the method is the same. Press the menu and enter button for at least four seconds while the backlight is lit. The same press and hold releases it.
The locked screen says so. On the Australian controller it reads that buttons have been locked, and that you press the menu button for 4 seconds to release.
Resetting the filter indicator
When the controller says it is time to clean the filter, cleaning the filter does not clear the message on its own. You have to reset the count.
On the navigation controller, press the menu and enter button to open the main menu, select reset filter indicator, and press menu and enter again.
On a wireless remote for a ducted or cassette system, Daikin publishes a different method. After cleaning and reinstalling the air filter, press the filter sign reset button on the remote controller, and the air filter cleaning time indicator lamp on the receiver will go out.
Wall splits do not have this at all. Daikin publishes no filter sign or filter reset on the Australian wall split remotes, and instead recommends cleaning the air filters every 2 weeks.
Reading the error code before you reset again
Daikin is one of the few brands that lets an owner retrieve the stored code without a technician, and doing it before the second reset is worth the two minutes.
On a wireless remote, hold the cancel button for about 5 seconds. Two zeros blink in the temperature display. Press cancel repeatedly to step through codes until you hear a long beep. That is the stored code.
On a wired controller, the screen tells you what to do. When an error is present it shows a prompt to push the menu button, and pressing menu and enter flashes the error code. Daikin then asks you to notify your dealer of the error code and the model name or code.
Some codes have a published owner action. Daikin lists a filter cleaning code that clears after cleaning and restarting, a code caused by a foreign object in the outdoor fan that requires the breaker to be turned off before removing it, and several codes caused by obstructions blocking the outdoor unit air outlet. Everything else goes to the service shop.
Our guide to Daikin error codes covers the families in more detail, and the Daikin flashing green light page deals with the lamp itself.
Resetting the wireless adaptor
This one is genuinely a factory reset, and it is separate from everything above. It applies to the wireless connection, not the air conditioner.
Daikin publishes the procedure from the wireless remote, not from the app. With operation stopped, press and hold the powerful button for 5 seconds until a service menu appears with the first item blinking. Use the temperature up and down buttons to select the option Daikin nominates for reset. Press and hold powerful for 2 seconds, and the adaptor lamp blinks for a second. Press cancel to return to the normal display.
Daikin publishes a warning with it. When the device is reset, the out of home user account and the wireless connection settings are changed back to the factory defaults, so you will need to set up the app connection again from scratch.
When a reset is the wrong answer
Daikin publishes a list of conditions where the instruction is to call the dealer immediately rather than reset anything.
- Abnormal heat or damage on the power cord.
- Unusual or abnormal sounds during operation.
- Frequent circuit breaker or fuse trips.
- Switches or buttons that are failing.
- A burning smell.
- Water leaking from the indoor unit.
A breaker that trips again the moment you reset it is the clearest of these. That is a protective device doing its job, and switching it back on repeatedly is not a repair. If water is the problem rather than power, our guide to an air conditioner leaking water covers the causes.
What to check before the second reset
If the first power cycle did not hold, there are three checks worth making before trying again, because each one addresses a cause that a reset cannot touch.
Look at the outdoor unit. Daikin publishes obstruction of the outdoor air outlet as a genuine cause of several stored codes, and it is a common thing an owner can fix without tools. Clear leaves, boxes and pot plants from around the unit and leave clear space at the discharge face.
Check whether anything else in the house changed. Daikin notes that to protect the system, the air conditioner may stop operating after sudden large voltage fluctuations. If the unit stopped during a storm or at the same moment something else in the house tripped, the power supply is worth mentioning to whoever attends.
Check the obvious settings. Daikin publishes a short before calling list that people skip because it feels too simple. Is the airflow rate setting adequate, is the set temperature appropriate, is furniture blocking the airflow, are the filters dirty, are windows or doors open, and is an exhaust fan running and pulling the conditioned air out of the room.
That last one matters more in Melbourne than people expect. A bathroom or rangehood fan left running will fight a split system all afternoon and the unit will run continuously without reaching the set temperature, which is a different problem from a fault and no reset will help it.
Common questions about resetting a Daikin
Where is the reset button on my Daikin remote?
There is not one. Daikin does not publish a reset button on the wireless handheld remote in any of the manuals for the Australian range. What the remote does have is the cancel button, which Daikin describes as diagnosing faults and taking you back to the default screen.
Will a reset clear the error code?
It will clear the display if the underlying condition has gone. If the cause is still there, the code returns, usually within a day. A fault that comes back after a reset is telling you the reset was not the fix.
Do I lose my settings?
No. A power cycle at the breaker does not wipe the remote settings, because the remote holds them. You may need to reset the clock on the remote if the batteries were also changed, and Daikin notes that on some models the flaps open and close once after power is restored to set the reference position.
How often can I reset it?
Once, sensibly. Twice if the first attempt was made with dirty filters and you have since cleaned them. Beyond that you are repeating a test that has already given you its answer.
My Daikin has a wired controller and a handheld remote
Daikin warns against using both at the same time, because the wireless unit can show an incorrect status and settings get overwritten when either device is used. Pick one and use it consistently.
The short version
Check the filters and the clearance around both units. Turn the power off at the breaker or isolator, leave it for about five minutes, then restore power and start the unit from the remote. Expect nothing to happen for about 3 minutes while the compressor protection runs.
If the unit is old enough that replacement is on the table, our comparison of Daikin and Mitsubishi air conditioners is a useful starting point.
If the operation lamp is still blinking after that, retrieve the code with the cancel button and stop there. That is the point Daikin itself says to consult the dealer, and a technician arriving with the code already known is a shorter and cheaper visit. You can request a quote with the code in hand.
For general advice on staying safe around electrical appliances at home, see Energy Safe Victoria.
Need a technician for your Daikin system? Read about our Daikin air conditioner service in Melbourne, or call 03 9088 4796.
Reviewed by AC repair and service specialist on 22 October 2026. How we write our articles