Creality CR-6 Max Homing Error

When starting a print job, the following happens:

The head moves to the center of the bed (at the end height of the last job), lowers until the nozzle touches the bed, and then returns to the starting height. Then, the head slowly lowers and stops after about 10mm with the error ‘Machine encountered an exceptional error: 202 (Homing Failed).’

I then select Z-Axis Compensation in the menu, which triggers the following:

The print head moves to the center, lowers, and stops without touching the bed with the same error ‘Machine encountered an exceptional error: 202 (Homing Failed).’ Shortly after, the print head returns to the zero position (bottom left corner of the bed) and then moves back to the center. There, the head lowers until the nozzle touches the bed, rises about 10mm, slowly lowers until it touches the bed again, and then returns to the preset 0.5mm Z-Axis Compensation.

Now I can start the print job.

This process is, of course, highly unsatisfactory. I have reset the settings to factory defaults without success. I have also repeatedly run the auto-leveling process, sometimes encountering the same error, without success. Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this?

I am very grateful for any helpful suggestions.