Ceiling Fan stop Spinning, Can hear motor running and spins with a push

I've never done any troubleshooting or even worked with ceiling fans at all. Bought the house last year and the fan worked great until this summer. It just recently stopped spinning regardless of which direction.

I took the lower housing down to check all connections and everything seemed fine. Turned the power back on and pulled the string..no spin..but being up on the ladder this time I could hear a very faint sound like a motor. I could hear and feel the fan motor running and could hear it stop when I pulled it 3 times.

I put the fan on the highest speed and gave the fan a push in the direction it should be spinning and its able to continue spinning with no issues.

This isn't obviously what I want to do every time I want to run my fan but if thats my only option so be it but I figured it must be something small and I don't have the knowledge of these fans to find it on my own. I'm a computer guy and I know from experience with computer fans sometimes just seating the fan incorrectly can cause it to not spin.

is there anything I can do to get this thing running like it should?

 

Welcome to the forums!

Just guessing, but I'm wondering if the problem could be with the fan's directional switch.

Have you checked the switch on the side of the control housing? Assuming it has one, have you pushed it fully in one direction - with the motor quiet - and then started the fan again? And then stopped the fan (quiet) and pushed it fully the other direction and tried the fan again?

 

It could allso be a bad capacitor. Remove the light and see if it is swollen or leaking.
<img src="https://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk116/ray2047/Fan-cap.jpg" width="300" height="314"/>

 

Yes have tried in both switch positions.

I'll check the capacitor as soon as I can, thanks for the suggestion.