I have a Kenmore Elite side by side fridge that stopped making ice. Any ideas on how to fix it and do they need to be defrosted?

These symptoms occur when the fresh water line that supplies your ice maker and water dispenser is frozen.
You will have to trace the water line from the ice maker to the back of the fridge and defrost that line. After defrosting all will work as normal but the first few batches of ice should be discarded. It is also advised to replace the water filter due to impurities from the melted water.

Your defrost drain tube is probably clogged with ice or something. Defrost your refrigerator (put towels around to soak up any excess water), then after it's defrosted, take off the back, lower panel and look for a 1 inch diameter tube coming down from your refrigerator. Remove it and clear out any blockages and then re-assemble everything.

Good luck!

what is your model number is then we can get started then

HI.CHECK WATER SUPPLY FIRST.then defrost fridge.if this basic fails u need to check 1-supply to valve 2-the valve itself 3-pipes 4 -microswitch.good luck ali

Check Temp inside freezer. It has to be down to about 10 or 15 degrees
This can cause slow ice making if its too high even tho its freezing everything else at 25 degrees
See if water is in icemaker.
Pour water in Ice Maker and wait to see if it ejects.
If it ejects thenyou need to replace water valve in rear bottom of fridge(Its the part that
attaches to water line out of wall)
If it doesn't eject then it is a faulty Ice Maker.
If its leaking same part needs replaced.The water valve at the bottom rear of fridge
First I would check the fan in the freezer. Listen to see if it is running
It moves air to the ref from the freezer
Then check to see if freezer control is turned WARMER, which makes the Ref. colder
Also if it is getting drinking water to the door but not to the icemaker (or vice versa) Then you need to replace
the water valve at the bottom rear of the fridge. It is a double valve and one side is not working
Also this might be a common Defrost problem, Ice
is not being melted by the defrost system.The fan can't blow through the coils into the fridge.
Take out back panel of freezer to check for ice buildup. The coils should be clean.
There are three components to a defrost system- a heater,heater thermostat, and a timer unless you have a defrost electronic card.
Its best handled by a Technician but you could possibly do it by taking your model number to the nearest appliance parts store and asking for the parts. They are mostly located in freezer ,behind back panel on freezer coils.except the card which is usually located in ref The parts store will have info
Also check fan undernearh Ref in the rear
Clean condenser coils underneath
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Refrigerator gets cold air from freezer compartment. Either the air flow is blocked by food items or ice, or the recirculating fan is not working.

The most common failure is that the freezer coils get all iced up becuase the defroster timer, defroster thermostat, or heater has stopped working.

When it's running, you should feel cold air blowing out of the vents that are in the fridge, otherwise, the 'air tower' (air vent) is blocked with ice.

If you manually defrost the whole thing, and it runs fine for a day or so, then it's not defrosting properly. If you manually turn the defroster timer, and you don't hear the scorching/hissing/gurgling of the defroster working, then that would confirm a fault in the defroster circuits.

Based on the following thread, it's probably a bad defrost thermostat.

http://www.applianceblog.com/mainforums/sears-kenmore/13766-kenmore-elite-22-bottom-freezer-refrigerator-fridge-not-cooling.html

Make sure the fill tube going directly into the icemaker is not touching the part that receives the water, if it is touching the water will spray all over and not go into the cavity

sounds like your freezer needs repair.

Sounds like you have a defrost problem. The timer could be playing up and taking too long to defrost, which causes the evaporator to ice up, hence no cold air to the fridge and the water line freezes up, hence no water dispensed. When the timer does eventually defrost the fridge then everything returns to normal. This could also be caused by a faulty defrost terminator or bad connection on the defrost element.

It could be a frozen filter. If it is a fridgidair made unit they did have that problem with the filter freezing and put a fix kit out to correct it. you also should check he water valves make sure you are getting power to them when you press the water arm. If its electronic it could be a bad dispensor control bord. with kenmore its hard to say because different manufactures make there products.