I’ve noticed lots of LED light bulbs, both snow cone plastic type and glass filament type have notice on box “not for use in totally enclosed fixtures.”

I assume it due to overheating, but I’m surprised how many light bulbs have this note on them.

I would assume people pay no attention to or ignore the note, and install these bulbs in enclosed fixtures.

My dad probably does too, since he uses the Sylvania snow cone bulbs in our fixtures, which are mostly enclosed, with the exception of a few table lamps. I notice those light bulbs last a year or so in regular usage.

I would assume heat as well. Incandescent lamps never had a problem in enclosed fixtures since they are the ones that create heat lol. CFLs and LEDs usually have those warnings on the packages because they have electronics in them that will fail faster due to more more heat build up depending on the orientation of the lamp and what type of light it's used in.

The main thing not so many people take into account is, the incandescent emit majority of the "heat" as a rather short wavelength IR (very close the visible range), which passes through the glass ciovr the same way as the visible does, so only fraction of that power actually stays within the fixture.
Compare to that, the fluorescents, as well as LEDs, emit most of their waste heat as convection heat and long wave IR, which both remain trapped inside.
So although there is e.g. a 100W incandescent, in a fully enclosed glass globe just about 20..25W of heat trapped inside of the fixture.
The same fixture with a 70lm/W 25W CFL (to get similar ~1800lm output), all the losses, so about 20W is dissipated within the globe. Nearly the same as with the 100W incandescent, so leading to similar internal temperature. And that higher temperature is way easier to handle by the incandescent, than the CFL ballast. And also the performance of the tube itself is quite temperature sensitive, it must be specifically designed for the temperatures it is supposed to work at. So it may be possible to design a tube for enclosed fixture operation, such lamp will be very inefficient at lower temperatures (in open fixtures; and also take forever to warm up to ramp up the light output). Because it is easier to work with lower temperatures of open fixtures and many fixtures are indeed open, it is the condition these lamps are designed for.
 
With ~150lm/W LEDs you need about 12W power input, which means about 7W dissipated as heat. It is way less than the CFL (or incandescent), but the plug-in LEDs have extremely tight thermal budget (because there is minimum chance to get rid of the heat, even when there is less of it), so most hsuch higher power LEDs use to be "just on the edge" with an open fixture operation. So very likely will operate beyond its design target, so suffer from worse reliability (every 10degC higher temperature means about halving its lifetime).

I would also guess it also a liability escape for the manufacturers? , if your LED burns out prematurely, or damages the fitting in any way, “well we did tell you not to run them in enclosed fittings”!
In reality, probably nothing would happen at all? But I have seen in the past a 20 watt CFL in a tightly enclosed fitting, where the tube did actually detach itself from its mounting cement!

Angryhorse has hit the nail on the head!  Every year the photoelectric performance of LED lamps and fully integrated LED luminaires gets better - but at the same time cost pressures mean that the lifetime, reliability and general quality seems to get much worse.  Some manufacturers are finding it’s not unusual for as many as 10%-20% of LED products to fail within the first year or two of service, and the warranty claim costs can totally wipe out the company’s profits.  Some of those who continue to offer bad quality products look for caveats to get out of honouring such claims.

It is extremely unhelpful for the customer because now there are certain kinds of fixtures for which it is completely almost impossible to find any LED retrofit lamp via retail channels that will deliver satisfactory service.  Some manufacturers seem to expect the customer to learn that by experience, and throw away the existing closed fixtures in favour of larger or more open or fully integrated LED fixtures.  The resulting ecological problem from electrical waste generation is becoming huge.

Even in the fixtures world this is becoming a big problem.  At a time when we have to insulate buildings better to reduce energy costs, a very common logo found on the technical datasheets of ceiling recessed fixtures, panels, downlights etc is that it’s not allowed to cover them with insulation any more!  Otherwise they overheat and burn out quickly.  Few customers realise at the time of purchase that they have to cut big holes in their roof insulation, even up to eg 20cm all around the perimeter of the fixture.

Another increasingly common trick on ceiling fixtures, track spots etc is to state “max ambient temperature 25C”.  To most people that sounds OK since typical rooms are cooler.  But heat rises, and at the ceiling height or in ceiling voids the usual temperature is closer to 30C and in summer even higher.  I know of many fixtures from formerly big brands where even safety can be compromised - for instance plastic or electronic components or wiring insulation might be running actually at the maximum safe operating temperatures declared on their datasheets, at ambient 25C.  However at ceiling temperatures they know this will be exceeded, but claim immunity by stating that the customer is not allowed to use at higher and even typical or expected ambient temperatures.  The laws on “expected use conditions” are not especially robust and open to interpretation, and many choose to ignore what is to me an obvious safety or reliability risk.

In Europe it’s now compulsory to state the actual maximum allowed operating temperature (unless that is only 25C, in which, ironically, no marking is required).  A few of the better companies allow significant headroom - for mine we invariably state that the fixture is safe for use at up to eg 45 or 50C, and driver life calculations are made not only at 25C, but also at the maximum rated ambient temperature. 

This ensures far more reliable products - but also slightly more expensive, and it is not always an easy sell to persuade customers of the value of selecting fixtures with adequate thermal headroom.  Slowly though the market seems to be learning.  But I consider it unhelpful when certain far bigger companies are so desperate for immediate sales, in an effort to halt their financial failings, that they continue to push the cheapest products that are bound to fail quickly (usually alongside a professional range for the few customers that know how to identify quality products).  The only hope is that over time the irresponsible companies will damage their reputations by such frequent failures that customers begin to look for the better brands.  In professional channels I expect the situation to regulate itself, but for retail sales and home lighting, the LED lamp and fixture market has become a minefield of horrendously unreliable products with no way for the end consumer to identify the good products from bad (other than slow experience by brand name).

"It is extremely unhelpful for the customer because now there are certain kinds of fixtures for which it is completely almost impossible to find any LED retrofit lamp via retail channels that will deliver satisfactory service.  Some manufacturers seem to expect the customer to learn that by experience, and throw away the existing closed fixtures in favour of larger or more open or fully integrated LED fixtures.  The resulting ecological problem from electrical waste generation is becoming huge."

According to me the problem is not that much those fixtures needs to be ditched, the fixtures alone do not pose that much of a waste load to the environment, as the recycleability is quite high.

The main waste problem I see here is the need for common customers to find that by wasting many lamps first. These are the main source of an unnecessary waste.

And also I see as quite a waste spending all that effort trying to make a nonsensical arrangement (trying to marry two things that the nature really does not want together, like enclosed fixtures with retrofit lamps) to work. Not that it is not technically possible, but it is nothing else than waste of resources.  Saving a small piece of steel and glass does not help the environment by far enough as not spending all that effort and cost (both environmental, as well as financial, both manufacture/purchase of the required technology, as well as all the R&D going into it) in something that may use way less energy and last way longer.

You are quite right, but my main point about waste was from fixtures that contain more than just metal and glass.  Specifically enclosed fixtures for low volt halogen lamps with electronic transformers, and fluorescent fixtures containing electronic ballasts.

A year or two ago a European study showed that the quantity of electronic waste being generated by the replacement of luminaires had skyrocketed from insignificant levels, so now generating comparable volumes of E-waste as the quite heavily regulated industry for white goods electrical appliances.  This has stimulated recent political focus concerning how to reduce the enormous and still rapidly increasing waste stream that is suddenly being generated by the lighting industry during the past few years.

When traditional lamps were phased out, one of the justifications was that there are adequate LED retrofits available for almost all general lighting fixtures and that there would be limited need to replace the fixtures.  The reality has shown that this is absolutely not correct.  The problem is compounded by the quantity of new LED fixtures that are failing long before the published lifetimes.  It is made even more severe by the short product lifecycles.  If a shop installs eg 100 LED downlights and after 2 years 10% have failed, it is often impossible to obtain visually identical replacements for the already obsolete designs.  Or due to natural colour drift of LEDs over time, the new versions look unacceptably different.  This often results in the whole installation being replaced and the 90% good fixtures are also thrown out.  Often this is justified financially by the fact that the newer versions are more energy-efficient, and in countries with very high electricity prices it is actually cheaper to scrap luminaires that are only a couple of years old.

The result is new requirements on the repairability and upgradeability of lighting fixtures - a new industry that is emerging.  Incidentally just last week the UK authorities published a proposal for a new international safety and performance standard governing the so-called “Remanufacture of Luminaires”, which are not adequately covered by the existing IEC / EN standards for LED luminaires.