Nothing is wrong with the door. Locking the door does 2 things, it prevents people entering from the outside and it keeps the door tight to the weatherstripping. There is no need to play with the passive door, it is useless unless you are moving furniture in and out.

I have not noticed that problem with our Frenchwood door in our new house. Takes some force pulling up the active door handle before you can lock it, but everything is very tight and stable once thats done. The framer who installed it made the comment that if it ever came a tornado to get behnd this door, in aint' going anywhere.

jbs----I have this same door and it functions very well. However, it has started to delaminate and thru some investigation today, I found the Anderson Corp Care Line. Their number is 888-888-7020. If you can't resolve the problem on your own, give them a call. They are VERY helpful. They are shipping me a new door and I will have to take the lock mechanisms out and put them in the new door. They said it is easy but if I have any problems to give them a call and they would help me over the phone.

This was one reason I put Anderson windows in my house because I was told by several builders that they are very responsive and stand behind their product. Very important when you have warranty issues. And with my experience today, that certainly seems to be the case.

jbsjbs...I think you are spot on and the other posters are out in left field picking daisies...Actually I think they are NOT outside, or they would see as I do with MY set of doors that if they go OUTSIDE and have their partner lock the "active" AND "passive" doors from the inside, they will realize that they still can OPEN / UNLATCH the passive door latch from the outside and that there is NO assembly lock on that door.

Seriously, any of you 400 Series double hung door owners, test that lock and see what they do. I bet you will be UNPLEASANLY SURPRISED at the fact that the passive door will unlatch leaving only the active latch holding both doors and an interesting "breach" event just waiting to happen.

If your doors are working like that your missing the "blocker". This stops the passive door lock from operating in that manner. Who ever put the door together may have missed putting them in. Go to Andersens website to get the PDF on lock replacement

Guy...You are absolutely perfect and I apolgize to ALL I insulted with the "daisies" comment. I assume my issue is the type of blocker...an slide based plate in the striker mech. that the deadbolt slides into not allowing the secondary handle to move. My slide was adjusted to the lowest point that allowed the deadbolt to overshoot the top wedge on the slide...thus doing Nadda on the security side. THANKS and I am very sorry for the previous post. Yo, jbs...door was screwed at the show...good lock bad install. I just fixed mine. I love Forums!!!

I checked my doors last night and they won't open from the outside when latched. And thats before latching the deadbolt.

Guy knows his stuff, I have learned a ton from him!

Yes many window and door problems are from poor installation where the contractor will assemble things upside down or not put all the parts together correctly. There are also a few set screws on the hinges and handles that are rarely tightened by the installer. Its funny to see a home owner scratching his head wondering why his Andersen sliding screen door won't line up with the side jam latch. The screen is upside down! Whats wrong with these installers?

guy exterior is correct! I had the same issue and have 99% solved it. Unfortunately, I believe my installer installed the passive mechanism upside down as the Anderson instructions say to place the Lower tab of the blocker just above the deadbolt pencil mark. I cannot raise it that high as my set screw is then to low to hold the blocker. Therefore, for the time being, I have the lower tab just below the blocker and the upper tab just above it. It does provide much more security and I will be having the installer back out to fix his mistake.
THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH Guy_Exterior_Man!!!!!

The passive panel lock mechanism will not work upside down as the handle holes in the panel will not line up with the hole in the lock mechanism.

Make sure the passive panel lock mechanism is fully extending in the head jamb and sill. You can test this by opening the passive panel and activating the lock. Try it again while the door panel is closed. Is it the same?

If that's OK, then the blocker just needs to be adjusted.....

I am missing the blocker and will be installing when I get the part. I always knew something was wrong with the way it operated.

I also have a potentially related problem. In cold weather, the
deadbolt that pulls the doors together tightly and seals the weatherstrips does not stay engaged in the passive door, and pops back into the active door unless the thumb knob locks it in place. Could this be a related problem?
The colder it gets, the worse the problem.

The blocker missing would be a problem.

Adjust the keepers in the edge of the passive door. Put a flat bladed screwdriver into the slot of the keeper and bend the tab a bit until it is a tighter opening. Do this until the hooks stay engaged.

I installed the key lock according to the directions on my andersen hinged door and can not engage the lock. (can't turn the knob/key so the latch will pop out, top/bottom latches don't engage. Is there a trick to this. I've read the instructions over several times. I must be missing something.
Thanks

I know this is an old post but I want to put some information up here that may help others. I'm a builder and a big supporter of Andersen windows and doors. I had a customer with an 8' patio door that would not unlock. Similar to what you see here, we pulled the handle with some force and it opened. We lubricated everything and went on our happy way.

Soon after, however, the deadbolt would not engage or lock. If the door was open I could lock and unlock the door to my mind's delight. Not happening with the door closed. To be clear, the throw bolts above and below appeared to be engaging fully. It was just the deadbolt we could not lock. We fiddled with moving the strikeplate and adjusting the hinges in and out to realign it but no go.

The answer was the height adjustment on the Andersen hinges. Andersen states that it is very rare having to touch these but in this case it was the answer. (The hinges are adjusted up and down via an allen screw at the bottom of the hinge. You need an allen wrench to reach up there and adjust it). We first adjusted it up thinking that the door was too low and was stopping the locks from engaging. However, we ended up adjusting the door downwards and voila. Lockable once again.

I note here and in my aging brain that if I have another door that won't open (the first problem I had with this door) I would first try to adjust the height on the hinges to see if I could get the door to release. I'm convinced that the locking door and the door lock were very related to the hinges being slightly out of whack.

FYI