Harbor Breeze Ceiling Fan Light stopped working

I bought my house and it already had Harbor Breeze Ceiling fans with lights installed. I recently noticed that in one fan, the lights would seem to flicker, like they were warming up, before they turned on completely. After about a month of this, the light quit working altogether. Then it happened to the other fan.

Upon investigating, I found a weird, sticky, brown liquid in each of the globes of the light kit. Seemed to come out of the light sockets. Any thoughts on what the issue may be, or how I can best troubleshoot it?

I do have a multimeter and am somewhat proficient with it, just don't know much about electrical components.

Thanks for your help.

 

Welcome to the forums! Not sure what the brown stuff is, but the flickering could possibly be older CFL bulbs, which don't like ceiling fans unless they are rated as such. Are the globes enclosed or open to the atmosphere? If they are enclosed, your bulbs could be causing enclosed heat that is taking a toll on your socket wiring and causing it to melt. Not common, but could happen.

 

Actually Larry, more common that one might think. Those old CFL's were not rated for enclosed fixtures. Most people did not read the fine print on the ballast part of the bulb. Regardless of what the package says I always tell my customers to read the ballast to be sure the bulb meets the rating for the intended use. This also goes for the LED bulbs. I agree the goo is melting light fixture material.

 

It happened to me, and the goo came from the CFL when it blew.