The Barista Italia Digital is a completely different machine then the one being discussed here, FYI. Your machine senses a full water tank via a floating magnet in a small chamber inside the tank; if the magnet is missing, oriented incorrectly (flat side should be up) or not floating, the machine will think the tank is empty. If the magnet appears fine but the machine still isn't sensing it, try removing the tank and holding a refrigerator magnet up to the same spot on the back of the machine and moving it around; if the machine "sees" this magnet and turns off the water tank message, then you'll need to replace the tank magnet as it's become too weak for the machine to sense. The Saeco part number is 145500859 and you'll need a fairly small hand to perform the operation.

Is the machine tripping the GFCI outlet that it's plugged into? If so then most likely the heating element has cracked/ruptured and is allowing voltage to escape into the water in the boiler. This would have nothing to do with the machine's power cord, and instead requires that the boiler be rebuilt with a new heating element.

cardogab7341, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment. In my experience repairing these and similar machines it's extremely rare to have brew head flow issues caused by scale buildup, and I have seen some seriously neglected machines. In order of frequency, coffee flow issues on this machine are caused by: a clogged basket/portafiler, a leaking steam wand diverting water pressure, coffee that's ground too fine or tamped too hard, a failing pump, and last and most certainly least, a scale clog at the boiler outlet valve.

The brew head is fed by a feeder tube that pulls water from the top of the boiler (where it's the hottest) so a boiler would need to be almost completely full of scale before any could get into this tube and make it's way down to the boiler valve and clog it; the inside of the tube itself seldom collects any scale. Scale buildup in these machines effects warm up time and steaming performance, but little else.

Will water flow through an empty portafilter? If so then either your coffee is ground too fine / you're tamping too hard, or your pump is failing. How did you determine your pump "checks out"?

That does sound like a failing pump, yes. You could try a slightly coarser grind to limp it along but you'll probably end up with sub-standard shots.

Bob, it could be the heating element but I've replaced more then I can count and never seen one produce smoke, even after flaking to pieces. If the machine trips a GFCI when on then that's probably your culprit. The other possibility is some milk got into the boiler and is now cooking off; that's a fairly horrible smell and might produce what looks like smoke. You can try to cook it off with more steaming but once it gets on the heating element it's usually on there for good.

cardogab7341, since some water is dispensing from the brewhead a scale clog would not be a correct diagnosis in this case. It's exceptionally rare for scale to clog the brewhead on this machine; that amount of scale buildup would be causing other, more obvious issues first.

Slow dispensing from the portafilter is usually due to (in order of likelihood) a clogged coffee basket, coffee ground too fine or tamped too hard, a clogged portafilter or a failing pump.

Too-strong steam is not often a complaint, I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question. If the machine has reached proper steam temperature then there should be very little water coming out of the wand when you open the knob; you should get pure steam almost instantly. If you're getting mostly water and not much steam then the machine isn't at the proper temperature, either because you haven't waited long enough, there's scale buildup that's interfering with the heating process or something is broken/malfunctioning.

Chase, that points to a ruptured or otherwise compromised heating element. Luckily, it's replaceable and the part isn't very expensive.