Help! Harman XXV issues

Hi everyone, I have a Harman XXV stove, wired to a Lennox thermostat. I don't remember the specific model thermostat, but it is millivolt, and this is the 2nd year of using it, so it is hooked up correctly.. I burnt through a ton of Big Heat pellets this year, without any problems.. I just ran out of them, and the only thing available in the area were Ozark Hardwood pelllets from Tractor Supply. As soon as my stove switched to the Ozark pellets, It started giving me problems. It was having trouble igniting.. it actually timed out (36 mins) and was giving me a 5 blink status. I reset the stove, and tried again. This time it did light, started blowing some heat until the stat was satisfied, and shut down. I have it on auto light mode, so it should shut down and re ignite if the stat calls for heat.. When the stat called for heat, I watched it light for a moment, but ended up timing out again. I reset it, and this time it did light up and make some heat, so I switched it to manual, so that the fire wouldn't go out, and I went to bed. When I woke up, the stove was off, and hardly used any pellets at all so it must have went out shortly after I went to bed. This time the burn pot was pretty much empty, so I reset the stove and watched it, the auger wasn't turning.. I noticed that these pellets are sometimes 2 inches or more long, which is not what my stove is used to.. and they are also very dark in color compared to other brands I've burnt. Could these pellets be my issue? I'm going to buy a few bags of something else to see what happens...

Yes the ignitor is getting hot. I talked to my harman dealer today, and they said they've gotten several calls today about the same pellets that their customers bought from tractor supply.. Sounds like the pellets are too long, and forming a bridge over the hole at the bottom of the hopper, thus causing pellets not to feed properly. The dealer said that the pellets are not supposed to be longer than a half inch, by regulation.. Some of mine are nearly 2 inches long! So now I'm stuck with a ton of pellets that if i burn i need to go through each back and snap them into smaller pieces..

I should also add that I thoroughly cleaned the stove before I started into these pellets.. I did not clean the vent pipe though. I typically only do that at the beginning of every season.

Johnny_Fiv3 said:

A few good drops of the bags from waist height will resolve most of your long pellet issues.

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I thought about it.. but these bags seem like they are not made very well, I would end up making a huge mess, lol.

tonyd said:

I was in ts when it started raining and the skid of pellets I pulled a couple of bags off of were sitting outside uncovered. I mentioned it to the store clerk that it was raining and it the pellets shouldn't be getting wet. Well I got a stare like I had three heads. Haven't been back.

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Mine were outside.. I bought the whole pallet, and it was sealed up pretty well. They also got the shipment that same day. I don't think they were ever wet.

Well my local stove dealer is rationing a 10 bag limit right now of Hamer Hot Ones. I picked up 10 today, cleared my stove of the virgina slims I bougth from tractor supply, dumped in the Hamers and now it works perfectly again...