Hello, need some suggestions if anyone is willing:

A.O. Smith water heater, not more than 3-5 years old. Diagnostic LED's
saying "System Lockout" which manual says is:

1. Gas supply is off or too low to operate.
2. Hot surface igniter not positioned
correctly.
3. Low voltage to the water heater.
4. Electric polarity to unit is incorrect - test

The blower kicks on, igniter glows, gas kicks in, burner lights for a
second then goes out and repeat 3x until it locks out again.

I took out the igniter and cleaned it off, but while doing this
noticed that the mesh above the burner looked to be in pretty bad
shape. Could this be causing the problem?