We just moved into new house with outdoor hot-tub that was disconnected for about a year. We had a electrician come in and reconnect the tub to the circuit breaker and we cleaned and filled hot tub.
Initially hot tub came on, all jets worked etc and I set the temp to 100 degrees and left the filter cycles set to standard which was 4 half hour cycles at 6 am 12 noon, 6 pm and 12 am. First cycle at 6 pm came on and worked etc... spa was fine that evening. Next moring we woke up and the display panel read "- - - -" which in manual states system deactiveated bc detected something in system that could harm it. Well there was a lot of buildup and old filter so thought perhaps that was the problem, so drained again, cleaned again, bought new filter and still same message is coming up? We cannot afford a service call and wanted to know if this is something common and will the system re-set it self eventually ( we have turned off the circuit breaker in the mean time) any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.
The spa is a Sundance Altamar 850 series

The spa is in Watchdog mode; could be a bad sensor or a bad board. Sensors would be a good starting point.