Like Q said, sounds like you aren't getting enough juice 9electricity) to the smoker.
Also recheck all the plugs on back of cabinet and make sure they are fully seated.
You may want to plug and unplug them a couple times to make sure they are all the way in.
I turn my puck burner on when I warm up Gabi (my Bradley).
Bringing an empty smoker to a hot temp is gonna be different than putting a cool mass of meat in it.
When you turn your Bradley on the default temp setting is 280. I let mine warm up at that, and stay there after I put
what I am going to smoke in the Bradley. The cabinet temp will drop with the mass of meat you put in it.
When the cabinet temp comes back up to what I want to smoke/cook at then I turn the temp setting down to my desired smoke/cook temp.
Also take your meat that you want to smoke out of the fridge at least 1 hr ahead of putting it in the Bradley.
If it is a pork butt, brisket (large mass of meat) you can safely take it out longer.
I live in what is suppose to be a warm climate (Texas) so I don't use foiled bricks for heat recovery, But on large masses of meat
I do replace the Factory Bowl with a disposible can pan (13x9x2 u can get them at wal-mart) and put hot water in the pan to start with.