Despite storm Malik, took a trip to the garage today to take some photographs of the sensors mounted in/on the roof hydraulic pistons. You can access them by removing the cover held by one screw. See pics attached with cover on and removed. The next two pictures show the sensors mounted on the pistons (red arrow) and the connectors (green arrow), the sensor on the inner piston is not easy to see in the posted pictures.
I think the sensors are Hall effect sensors. There should be three wires from each sensor, black earth lead, yellow and red leads indicating if the piston is extended or not. What colour the wires are on the other side of the connectors I have no idea. These sensor indicate which position the top stack and bow parts of the hood are, open/closed and up/down respectively. I think it is highly unlikely the sensors are faulty, maybe a connection fault or bad earth.
If you have already found the handbrake and hood microswitches there are two more hiding away somewhere associated with the cover being open or closed; I hav'nt found these two yet.
/Paho
P.S. Have you pushed the manual release catch to its locked position? (page 2.22 in the manual). I have a vague recollection that the gear lever should be in neutral too.
I did a state table two years ago to document the sequence, there are about 15 to 17 "states" for the hood to go through depending on whether it is being lowered or raised.