Run an empty cycle with hot water and one cup of bleach.

Use a cycle like Heavy Duty.

Start the washer and let it fill up first. Pause it and pour a cup of bleach directly into the drum (not the bleach compartment in dispenser drawer).

This way the bleach will have time to mix with the water and be dispersed through the spray port hose system.

See if that clears up the smell.

Thanks! I'll give that a shot.

Can anyone tell me what is the purpose of each port?

I have an older model that only has the recirculation port.

Yours my have the detergent premixer which might have its own port.

It may work differently so you may want to try putting bleach in the detergent compartment (maximum it allows) in an empty machine on a Heavy Duty hot wash.

So bleach can run through that system.

Thanks georgect. It seems like it's the first wash that has the smell. Loads after no smell. I ran an empty load with bleach in the tub. Ran out of bleach but will run some bleach in the detergent drawer once I get more.

I would try and make your last load of the day the hottest wash you plan on running. Also, I would use an extra rinse each time for the last given cycle to see if that helps. Let us know!

The port on the left (11 o'clock position) is fresh water. Detergent and other chemicals are sent to the mixing sump below the tub. The port on the right (1 o'clock position) is recirculation. Your problem is likely a lint ball in the strainer underneath the outer tub. I have to clean mine out at least once a year as I am a pet owner and the fur can build up. It is quite a job to disassemble, clean, and put back together. The below video will help you with disassembly.

mrb6228 thank you. That video is very helpful. We are going to give that a shot. Is there a lot of water that comes out while doing this?

While I have it open is there anything else to check in there that could be the issue. Or anything else worth cleaning?

I haven't found any other issues when cleaning out mine. My machine never had developed a smell, but I had noticed the recirculating pump had gotten louder and the drain pump would struggle to empty the tub (cycling on and off multiple times during a drain period).

I have cleaned mine out at least a half a dozen times. Takes me between 2-3 hours to complete. I wish they had designed it better. Also, be wary of sharp edges. And good luck.

Thanks. I wish they would make access and cleaning easier as well. It annoys me to no end that I take such good care of the washer and do all the right things and still end up with a smell.

Well we are at a loss with this smell. We opened up the washer. We took out lint trap. Had a few pieces of lint but absolutely no smell. I cleaned out the hoses and again no smell. We unclamped so many hoses. No smell. We put our noses to the pump, no smell. Took off recirculation hose because there looked like there was a little bit of debris in it. No smell. Ran water through it to get out the little bit of stuff in it. No smell. I even took off the hot and cold water hoses and smelled those. Nothing. Unclamped waste hose. No smell. We have the whole washing machine front open and there is no smell. Tub smells fresh. The only thing I am wondering now is if it has something to do with the magic vent. So frustrating.

Water heater anode rod? When those go bad, they smell bad. One notices the odor when using the hot water supply. I've not had this happen myself, but I've read about it on this board. Washing machine seems to be where people notice the foul odor. Sounds like you have done a through examination of the washer. My condolences. Sending good luck.

Sea Sea are these anode rods in tankless water heaters? Our tankless is only 3 years old.

vinmarks, no, they are not. Only in traditional hot water heater tanks. Sorry. A new anode would have been a relatively easy fix. Hope you find a solution.

Thanks Sea Sea. I hope we find one too.

Can you check to see how far down the standpipe your drain hose runs?

Sometimes smells can originate in the drain line.

mrb6228 we actually stuffed a piece of paper towel in gap between hose pipe and standpipe to help rule that out. It's not coming from there.

I ran several affresh cleaning cycles and it seemed to help for a few days and today it smells again. I'm assuming there is something in the outer tub. What that is I don't know. Very frustrating. I don't use fabric softener, don't over dose with detergent (have 2 measuring spoons-1 tblspn and 2 tblspn). Never use more than 2 tblspns detergent. We might have to pull out the whole tub which we really don't want to do.

A little late to the thread, but did you ever find the culprit? I’ve been so diligent on running cleaning cycles, switching loads to the dryer immediately, leaving door and drawer open. I’m frustrated and not really looking forward to disassembling the whole machine if I can help it.

@HU-172700941 It turned out it was the clothes themselves. A nasty bio-stink built up in the clothing due to the poor performance of the washer. The clothing didn't smell when dry but when it got wet in the washer it reactivated the stink hence why when I first put clothes in the washer there was no smell until they got wet and then the whole laundry room started to stink. We ended up getting rid of the washing machine and bought an LG front load. I ran all our clothes on sanitize cycle and used some ammonia. Eventually I got the stink out of the clothing and haven't had any problems since with smells and my LG.

Ok, good to know. We’be been washing almost exclusively on eco-cold, cold and warm. Mostly cold cycles though. I’m going to start washing hot and sanitize where I can and see what happens. Thanks for the info, it’s helpful to start ruling things out.

I never used cold washes. Either warm or hot, heavy cycle, extra rinse. Still ended up with stinky clothing.

That happened to one of my adult children that is very active/sweats a lot. They visited and had to wash clothes here and I could not beleive the smell although the colthes apeared clean and they were recently laundered. We ended up pretreating, soaking and washing them twice to get them back to fresh. They were variety of colors/materials some really delicates and we did not want to put them through the sanitary cycle or xtra hot.

I use oxI clean powder in the washer woth smelly sweaty stuff. Never have odors in my front loader. Never have and used front loader at least 15 years

It's the bellows folks. There's mold in the folds. Replace it.

@Will Brokhof. I am the original poster. It was not the bellows. I wish it were that simple. The bellows were completely clean. No mold. We took the entire machine apart. It was clean and no mold or smells of mold anywhere. It was stink build up in the clothes because the machine was garbage at cleaning. The machine is gone and I now have an LG and no smelly clothes.