Engine Cover Lock broken F430 Spider

So lovely experience yesterday, one of the hottest days of the year at a traffic light and the car suddenly won't engage gear as the engine cover has sprung open. The latch/lock simply seems to be broken, any thoughts??

 

First thing to check is if the latch is broken or one of the release cables is stopping it from latching. Take the cover off and have a poke around.

 

The latch will close if you push it down by hand without the engine cover but as soon as you introduce the engine cover it bounces open

 

If you engage the latch with a screwdriver does it stay locked? I had an issue recently where a 360 cover wouldn't close properly. It was because the release cable was pulling on the latch a touch - fixed it by slackening the cable a fraction.

 

ok so finally back home with a chance to look at this

its been extremely hot in the past couple of day in Switzerland and when all the metals heat up in the engine bay, this is when the problem occurred. The engine cover latch of course being directly above the exhaust muffler. I resolved this by loosening the two 10mm bolts on the engine cover latch. You can then move the latch side to side, this made no difference, HOWEVER you can also move it back and forth. Even now in extreme heat it still holds and I can drive the car at all times (i.e it doesn't click into neutral when the engine cover clicks open)
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Pull the black wire off the latch switch (behind the rear panel) until you replace the latch, then it will work. Bear in mind if you have a spider and you try to open the roof without the engine lid being shut properly you will damage the tonneou cover..