See my post from Jan 11 earlier in this thread - looks like exactly what is happening. I don't see anything wrong with your smoker, looks to be functioning as designed. Run with your hopper half full and see what happens, should be fine.So I put the grill on to smoke some meatloaf and the hopper is half way full and still the charcoal and wood are in flames. Going to contact Masterbuilt and see what they say