As semiconductor lasers have excellent characteristics including wide output wavelength range, simple structure, and easy to be integrated, they are widely used in medical, sensing, optical communications, military, and aerospace fields. With the increase of application requirements and output optical power, the reliability of lasers suffers from severe challenges. This paper reviews the failure mechanism of semiconductor lasers and analyzes the five effective failure detection and analysis methods of photoluminescence technology, electroluminescence technology, cathodoluminescence technology, infrared thermal imaging, and emission microscope. Furthermore, this paper summarizes and suggests the improvement measurements of the failure induced by the active area, cavity surface, welding, and operating environment. These will provide effective suggestions for the research and production of semiconductor lasers.