Help i have a smeg dishwasher, which until recently has been perfect,it seems to be stuck on its cycle and is making all the noises of working, but nothing is happening, then the panel says E 1. any ideas what is wrong and what can i do? thanks to anyone that can help

We have a Smeg SA8605W which has had a similar problem 3 times in its short 3 month life. The problem with ours is that the control panel on the front pushes against a very brittle plastic frame to activate the micro switches. Because of the brittle nature the 'fingers' of plastic break off and either get stuck holding the machine in a set cycle or break off fully so nothing functions. Gaffa tape or Elastoplast is a simple solution.