ignitor dying?

I woke up to a cold house this morning and an overflowing burn pot. Looks like it never ignighted after the thermostat call in the middle of the night.

Cleaned her all out, and it still wouldn't restart.... overflowed again, no ignition.

ok... its been a while since i did the pipe... got my full clean on.

still wont start.

The burn pot was WARM, and i stuck my hand in there and the ignitor was WARM, but i could touch it quickly without getting burnt. I didn't try for longer....

i've never felt it in normal operating state. is this normal? I assumed it would be red hot.

I started a few pellets on fire outside the box (like an idiot, don't try this at home :D) and got the stove back running again 'manually' so i'm warm, but im trying to figure out if i need a new ignitor or if this is a sign of something else. The fuse looked fine... no error lights (until the PoF kicks on for lack of burn) its just not igniting, but it's trying.

I also have new (to me) pellets in here. the energex. i don't see why these would be anything out of the ordinary. I've lit probably 30 different brands in the stove with no issue.... and once on, these are burning fine for me.

is a weak ignitor one on its way out? or is it an all or nothing on/off?

I don't think it's a placement issue. It has cycled a few times run a few times since i touched it last on the thermo last sunday when i cleaned it.

my thermo does real time hi/lo/off. it stays on low for up to 1 hour. if it doesn't call for heat, it shuts, if it does it goes back to hi. I have a 2 degree swing set up so it doesn't cycle too much, but it does.

It's the original with the stove, from 2007. so, its logical that its simply worn out. I just assumed a bad ignitor would 'break', not get 'kinda hot' as it died.

The lower swing had it starting and stopping too much so i raised it. it gets to temp, and then easily gets to 1 degree warmer, and goes to low... but low is able to keep my house at temp, so it shuts it. and 15 min later, its starting back up again because it dropped. I have a fairly modern house (1997) with good insulation.

i'm just going to idle the stove on '1' for the rest of the season i think unless it gets warm, and then it's going off for good until i have time to mess with it more. these next few weeks are crazy for me.

my stove is all automatic. I basically have options of 1 through 5, and that's it. it adjusts the feed, blower speed, etc etc all by the computer.

Nothing looks out of the ordinary... it fills about the same rate as normal. They just don't glow red.