First, note that Geneious requires the ladder to be in the last dye of your trace. So if you have done a 4 dye run, then your trace should only have 4 dyes and the ladder should be in the last dye. If you have done a 4 dye run but your traces are configured as if 5 dyes are used, then the last dye is likely to be empty so Geneious will not be able to call a ladder.
Otherwise, this may happen if the trim is not set correctly, if the ladder peaks are too low, or if there are extra or missing peaks. First check the trim is set correctly. You may then need to manually call the peaks as follows:
1. Disable viewing all trace dyes except your ladder.
2. Enable the 'Show Traces', 'Show Peak Calls' and 'Show Peak Labels' options, and increase the Y scaling to its maximum extent so you can clearly see the peaks, and increase the X scaling so the peaks are wider.
3. Add missing peak calls by clicking the point where the peak call is and then click the 'Add Peak' button in the toolbar. Remove extra peaks by selecting the peak and clicking the "Remove Peak" button in the toolbar. Check for stutter peaks and remove the shorter of the pair. After you've edited several peaks, Geneious will recognise what ladder it is. You'll see the name of the ladder under the dye name in the panel to the right.
If you are using a custom or unusual microsatellite ladder, you may need to add the ladder to Geneious before it can be called. See this post for instructions.