This is also true for other detergent remaining in the detergent dispenser, but it's a common complaint that's often wrongfully associated with the pods themselves.
"If you've ever run your dishwasher with a detergent pod and instead of cleaning your dishes it came out looking like this, here are a few reasons why that might have happened. This most commonly happens when you loaded the dishwasher with something blocking the detergent drawer from opening. Oftentimes this is something like a cutting board or something else tall in front of the door. Dishwashers rely on the water being sprayed into that compartment to be able to get all of the detergent out. So if you block the door from opening, or you block the water from being able to get into that compartment, the detergent pod is not going to come out, and it may not even be fully dissolved by the end of the cycle. That's done in combination with a few other factors that can make it even worse. These factors include grabbing the detergent pod with wet hands, which can make both the pod you're putting into the dishwasher and the pods in the container sticky. The pods in the container can then start to stick together, and then if you're even able to separate them to use them, sometimes the chemicals inside of them will already be pre-activated, so they're not going to be as effective. But if the film on the pod that you're placing into the dishwasher is sticky, it can also stick the pod in place in that compartment. Which means even if the dispenser door is able to open, but maybe there's no water access to it, that pod is stuck in place. So even gravity can't help it fall out. It's also a reason why you might find at the end of the cycle that the door has opened, but the pod is still in there and not dissolved. So best practices for using pods are to make sure you're doing so with dry hands, and not blocking the dispenser door so it can actually open and water can get in there."
💬 Discussion
This is also true for other detergent remaining in the detergent dispenser, but it's a common complaint that's often wrongfully associated with the pods themselves.