If the door is working properly it should be easy to lift by hand.
My garage door will only open a few inches.
If this isn t lit check for a tripped breaker in the main panel or a tripped gfci outlet.
Disconnect the opener from the door itself like so and open it manually a few times.
If your garage door is closing fully and then reversing to open again then it may be due to a problem with the close limit switch.
Garage door only travels a little way and then reverses does your garage door only travel a little way 6 inches or so and then reverse.
A broken torsion spring will also cause the door to slam closed instead of closing gently.
If the door starts to open but won t move more than a few inches the torsion spring may be broken.
In order to fix this you ll want to make small changes to the close limit setting until the door opener knows to stop once the door has reached the floor.
This indicates that the springs torsion springs in the case of the photo above are working properly and are not the issue.
The most likely cause for a garage door to only open a few inches when hitting the garage door opener remote control or the garage door opener wall button is.
I would encourage you to test the mechanism of the door itself to completely rule out any damage or blockages.
We will now want to take a look at the garage door springs.
My garage door opens about six inches and stops i press the my garage door opens about six inches and stops i press the button twice so it will stop going down and then is goes up another 6 inches or so.
The photo eye will be about 4 6 inches off of the ground for most doors with an eye that is about the size of a pea.
You will have to call a professional garage door service tech.
Most garage doors from the past 15 20 years have a photo eye which detects if a person or object is blocking the door from lowering all the way.