Try using the 'dough' setting (takes about an hour and a half to an hour forty) with the standard machine recipe book for white loaf but change the flour from white to wholemeal or a mix of the two.
On completion of that, dust a worktop with flour and turn the dough out onto it. Carefully unpick any dough that stays behind and bung it onto the dough ball and then give it a good wellying - heel of the hand, stretch the dough away from you then fold back towards you and do it again. There is probably a proper technique here, but I just keep slapping it around - knead flat and fold up - for about five mins.
Drop it into a loaf tin (I always use a 2lb loaf tin even for the 1lb ingedient mix although a midway between 1lb and 1.5lb works best. Hey ho.) that has been wiped out with a bit of oil and use your knuckles to punch it into a slab that fills the bottom of the tin. Turn it out and put it back in the tin upside down and do the same again, and again a couple of times. Finally when ready or bored, cover the tin with a clean tea towel and leave the covered tin somewhere out of the draughts.
Usually takes about an hour or an hour and a half this time of year in a reasonably warm place, longer in winter. The higher the wholemeal proportion, the slower it seems to go. The aim is to check when it has roughly doubled in size. (1.25lb loaf in a 2lb tin is ready when it has a pronounced top bulging an inch or so above the top edge of the tin.) 25 mins in the oven at about 200 (fan oven - 215 without) turning about 7 mins from the end (especially if your oven door seal is 'crepe' like ours) to get the top evenly done. Extend the time if you prefer a high bake.
Let it cool thoroughly and then eat it. All of it. Do not share with anyone - let 'em bake their own. You may however allow them to stand in the kitchen and inhale the aroma of fresh bread.
Incidentally I find a particularly nice mix is 2/3 wholemeal to 1/3 white.
Other thing to try is change your fast action yeast - Allinson fast action in sachets seems consistently reliable.
None of the above is presented as being the right way to do it, all I can say is it consistently works for me. I no longer use the breadmaker on anything other than the dough setting these days!