Electrical – Ceiling fan light fixture comes on with fan

The power (from the breaker) is likely at the light fixture. When you hook black to black and white to white, the light is powered directly from the breaker. In this configuration, when you flip the switch on you create a short through the switch.

What you need to do is hook it up like this.

Notice the white wire that runs between the switch and the light has a black stripe on it (in above image), that lets anybody that works on this light in the future know that the wire is switched. You can mark the wire using a bit of electrical tape, or a marker.

Figuring out which wires come from the breaker, and which go to the switch will require some tools. First Turn off the breaker, and verify the power is off using a non-contact voltage tester. Now pick one set of wires to work with first (one black and one white from the same cable). Turn the switch to the on position, and use a multimeter to check continuity between the two wires. If the wires are connected (low resistance), these are the switched wires. If not (infinite resistance), check the other set of wires. If neither pair pass the test, contact an electrician.

If at any time you don't feel comfortable doing this work, or you don't have the proper tools to complete the task. Contact a local licensed electrician.

Alright, figured it out thanks to the help of an electrician and about $50.

TL;DR on the solution - one fan had the forward/reverse switch in the middle, the other fan had a blown cap and a loose ground wire.

My main error was an incorrect assumption I made. Once both fans were wired up and both not working, I assumed that they must have both had the same problem. Upon making that assumption, I designated one fan to be my "tester fan" where I would diagnose the problem.

Turns out, the non-tester fan had a very simple fix which I had seen online and tested on the tester fan: make sure the forward/reverse blade direction switch is not in the middle. Needless to say, I felt pretty dumb when the electrician came in and flipped the switch and had my fan working in a matter of seconds after I had assumed it hadn't been working for 2 weeks.

The other fan's problem at least validated my trials a little bit. It turned out it needed a new capacitor for the motor and that there was a loose ground wire in the light kit assembly. In all likelihood, testing some voltages across the cap or in the light kit probably would have revealed the problem, but doing that proved a little more difficult than I thought as there weren't many exposed wires to test the voltages there.

Long story short, I learned:

1. Don't assume that if two things are broken they are broken for the same reason
2. Check your wire connections
3. Doing a lot of prep and having things disassembled for the electrician will save you some cash on their hourly rate

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions here!