Yes Nevis5 it is the same dealer. I had to take the buttonhole slide foot off the machine and hold it with my left hand and then push the slide back towards the ankle and let go and it sprung back as it should so that was fine. As you know about the sensors being clean I always make sure that they are - if you can get hold of a dental mirror that will be useful in seeing exactly where the sensor is tucked up in the machine near the needle, and then keep on wiping this so any debris and dust from the needle penetration is removed, and the other sensor on the foot is much easier to clean.
I was also getting interruptions on my screen saying that I needed to clean the bobbin area or wind a new bobbin, and this made the machine stop so many times it was driving me mad, and I was constantly having to bring the machine up from its 'flatbed' setting to open the bobbin case to clean that area. On my machine once the door is open there is a black plastic part, and part way down this black plastic part is yet another sensor and that has to be clean as well as if this has any bits of fluff on it will trigger the message on the screen that the bobbin area needs cleaning. Steve then took me through to a part of the machine I did not know about via the buttons on the front of the machine called 'Set up button' and I disabled this via the 'Messages and Voice Control' and the 'lower thread control'.
So, so far ten lovely buttonholes stitched in next to no time, and this morning I will venture into the machine again and reinstate the 'lower thread control' and then see what happens. I might even be brave and try stitching buttons on as this is something I have never done before, I have the foot as it is one that came with the machine.
However Steve worried me somewhat, whilst he is still working and working even harder as several other dealers within a radius of where he works have gone, either moved away, retired or passed away, he is beginning to think about his own retirement which is still several years away yet but that means there will be nobody within distance of several of us to service our machines or to buy a machine - what are we going to do. I suppose if we are given sufficient notice then we can have our machines serviced and all in good order and that should see us through to the end of our sewing days.