garage frige stopped working

[HELPMEPLEASE]

I have a couple of questions regarding the ref/freezer in my garage that just died. I have now learned that the cold air in the garage is what caused it to stop working.(everything in the freezer was thawed & water had accumulated under the crisper drawers) I have no way of knowing when it stopped but I am hoping others that have experienced this can help. At this point when I plug the fridge in, the light comes on but that's it. Nothing else, however the temp in fridge was around 38 degrees. I am hoping that this is why it did not run.

I have the following questions:

1. If it is the cold that caused it to stop running-would it have run continiously before it stopped?

2. Should I consider it dead or might it start working again when it warms up?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[RegUS_PatOff]

What was the garage temperature ?

[denman]

If the fan in the freezer is not running you may be in a defrost cycle

May be stuck there if the defrost timer has failed

I do not think it should have run continuously
Usually this is an indication of low freon but could be other things

[mikenew]

I have heard of refrigeration systems running in cold temps having problems but the only reason I can think of why that might be true is refrigerant oil thickening up and making start up of the small single phase harder other than that every grocery up north runs all year long with no problem they have crankcase heaters but that is just to boil off any liquid refrigerant that may accumulate.
I lived in the great white north many years and had always heard that so we just put an incandescent drop light close to the compressor and never had any problems I don't know how scientific that was but it made us feel better.
As for whether or not your refer is dead I wouldn't condemn it till you make sure if the box temp is 38 you should be able to turn the controller all the way down and it would come on if it is too cold outside you could put in a heat source (light bulb or heat gun/hair dryer) if it doesn't do anything you might have a problem