Flashing 'dE' display and warm refrigerator compartment

Vacummed out coils but compressor still ran continuously, yet refer compartment never really cooled. Removed the defrost timer - timer window showed the timer motor was indeed spinning, but timer would only enter defrost mode when I manually spun the small black shaft (of course, that helped immensely by thawing out a winter's worth of evap coil ice!). Ordered a new timer, removed two screws to replace and we have cold beer again.