Clean the salt cell first.

Yep. If your salt chlorine generator says “low salt” but your manual test strip or drop test says otherwise, the cell is almost certainly coated in calcium scale. That buildup messes with the conductivity reading, so the system thinks there’s less salt than there is.

Pull the cell, inspect it. If you see white or crusty deposits, clean it with a 1:4 mix of muriatic acid and water (or a dedicated cell cleaner). Soak for 10-15 minutes, rinse, reinstall. Nine times out of ten that fixes it.

If it doesn’t, check the water temperature—most generators stop reading accurately below 60°F. Also make sure the flow switch is clean and moving freely. But honestly, it’s almost always the cell being dirty. Start there.