Hey there! Even though I'm hoping to sell my Oscar soon, I can't live without espresso, so I unpacked my exquisite packaging and booted up the Oscar. I let it get up to temperature, yay, I have steam. Well, brewing is another story. A VERY slow trickle was coming out of the group.. very slow. So, I tore the Oscar down to the frame, and removed the three way, in the group opening I found green bits just sitting in there, on the solenoid, and in the group. I can't decided if they are plastic or scale.. I did just do a descale (2 days ago) and I could see how they could get stuck there if that was stone.. but it also looks like some plastic substance. I don't have a picture, but that's about as well as I can describe it. I put the Oscar back together, and I have brew pressure again, but I notice it takes a while for the pump to build up pressure and the first drops to come out (10-12 seconds), this is using just a typical brew ratio of 1:2, no ristrettos. I've been watching some videos, and other machines seem to take more like 3-5 seconds. I just replaced the pump a few months ago, but It could be possible I got a faulty unit. Any Ideas?

Problem seems to have fixed itself, I'm pretty sure it was scale. On the bright side... my shots are very tasty. This coffee is almost 4 weeks old, and I can tell.. but it's about 10 times better than what I was getting before I recalibrated myself and descaled.

Did you check all the small O-rings in the water circuit? Some are colored green, and there have been reports of them disintegrating and causing havoc. The bits can migrate and clog things.

That might just be it, they looked pretty big to be o rings.