Bake cycle my dough looks fine and rises perfectly, but during the bake cycle the top caves in. i have checked and double checked and am so careful about the ingredients measured properly and not forgotten, but this continues to happen to various degrees. also the sides are always too dark and hard no matter what crust setting i use. please explain what i am doing wrong or if i need to return it and get a replacement.

I am not a baker but I do know dough rises either by the action of live yeast producing carbon dioxide or by the chemical action of bacteria + chemicals as in soda bread.
Soda bread doesn't rise very much and produces a fairly dense bread. A portion of active dough is kept from every batch to start activity in the next batch and in this way the cultures in many artisan breads are unchanged over the last century or two.

Yeast risen bread dough needs 10 minutes of energetic kneading after mixing and then about an hour in a warm place until it has doubled in volume before baking. Be sure to use live yeast and be careful with the amount of salt in the dry ingredients.

There are many recipes online.

That's not a good sign. This will keep your bread from rising properly and baking, obviously.
If you are still under warranty, contact your manufacturer, otherwise, you can still use the machine to mix but you will need to use your oven to finish your bread.
If your bread is not rising in the machine:

• Remove mxing chamber from machine
• If the chamber is not removable, UN-PLUG THE BREAD MACHINE so the blades DO NOT TURN.
• Be careful of the mixing blade in the chamber
• Remove dough gently with slightly oiled hands into a lightly oiled bowl with room for about 2x the volume of the dough
• Cover with plastic wrap to prevent the dough from drying
• Place the bowl of dough in an unheated oven and leave the oven OFF
• Place an empty lasagna pan in the cold oven on a shelf below the dough or on the floor of the oven if there are no exposed elements
• Boil some water and pour it carefully into the lasagna pan
• Close the oven door - You have just made a proofing box. The steam and heat from the boiled water is sufficient to make a great proofing cabinet out of your oven hot box
• Allow the dough to rise to about twice the original volume
• remove the dough from the oven and remove the pan of water
• continue with the baking instructions below

If your bread is rising in the machine or you have finished the above instructions:

• Remove dough gently with slightly oiled hands into bread pans. Breadmakers are different sizes so you may need to use one or two pans. Or make an artisan style loaf on a cookie sheet lined with parchment.
• Be careful not to compress your risen dough as this will make the loaves dense
• You may also choose to make buns by separating the dough into smaller balls and placing on parchment lined cookie sheets
• You can allow the dough to rise again for a short time in the proofing box above but I would just leave them on the counter under clean towels to prevent drying for say another 20 minutes. Over-rising bread should also be prevented. The result will be 'deflated' looking bread.
• Preheat your oven to 375F and bake the bread until it is golden and makes a hollow sound when thumped on the top or the bottom crust

Personally, I love that a machine will mix and knead my dough for me while i go do something else but I don't like the appearance of a machine baked bread. I like the artisan hand-made look. I recommend you keep the breadmaker until you find one you like that is drastically reduced in price and just use the artisan proofing & baking options above.
If you have a Pizza Stone, you can also try that for baking an artisan bread. Use the breadmaker as the workhorse, use your oven as an artist.
Good Luck and may the Yeast be Lively!

Looks like you have the same bread man machine I have. My metod is too unplug the machine for a half hour then put it through a second round of mixing. At the end of secound mixing I place the dough in a bowl greased and large enough for the dough to rise one last time oil top of dough cover with a towel on top of stove turned on set to the desired temperature. Keep dough away from any drafts. Once dough has doubled in size usually about one hour, take dough from bowl and divide it into buns or loafs of bread. Let dough rise again covered. Place in oven bake for about 15 minutes or longer until desired color, bread is done when you tap the top of it and it has a hollow sound, remove from oven let cool in pan for about 5 minutes, then take bread out of pan and place on a rack that allowes air to flow all around it. The reason for the rack is that baked bread that is allowd to cool on a fly surface will cause the bread to sweat on the bottom. Make sure yeast is good not expired or left out in the open

The next time you bake bread use one tablespoon LESS liquid. If it stills falls then the 2nd time use one Tablespoon less liquid AND ONE TABLESPOON MORE FLOUR. That should do it. Please let me know how it works for you.

If you feel your dough has risen enough (look at your cycle times and estimate how long it was into the rise) and if so you could set your machine to the "bake" cycle and then click the timer button in 10 min. increments until it is set to bake the right amount of time. Maybe this will work. Hope it does!

I had this same problem. It has to do with the amount of water and the amount of yeast you are using. I decreased my amount of water to 1 cup ( of course it depends on your recipe) and I also was using rapid rise yeast which calls for a less amount (usually 1/2 tsp less than what the recipe calls for). I did experiment with the recipe until I got it just right. Good luck. Carrie

Sinking in the middle means that there was too much rising for the amount of structure in the bread.
Usual causes:
-too much yeast (reduce 1/2 tsp.)
-too much sugar (reduce 1/2 tsp.)
-not enough salt (increase 1/4 tsp.)
-too much water (reduce 1 tbsp)
Another possible remedy: use "best for bread" flour, it has more gluten, or add gluten separately, 1 tbsp.

Start with reducing amount of water.

IT NEEDS TO PROOF LONGER

Watch/listen to the machine your machine. After the last knead cycle, remove the paddle from the bake pan before the dough rises, continue to bake as normal.

Likely, your loaf is too wet.
This can happen with as little as 1 Tablespoon too much liquid. It's hard to describe "the look," but what I learned to do was to watch the bread during the initial mixing cycle (after the paddle begins to turn full circles). The dough should not stick to the side of the pan while mixing, and it should look elastic, but not shiny. If it looks shiny, there's too much liquid in relationship to flour. I add a tablespoon of flour at a time during the mixing cycle, until I get a good consistency.
There's nothing wrong with the taste of the sunken loaves. We usually just shrug and eat them anyway.