Learn French: J'allais retirer de l'argent, mais le distributeur est en panne. - I was going to withdraw money, but the ATM is out of order.

Using the imparfait of aller (j'allais) followed by an infinitive (retirer) is how you express an unfulfilled past intention. It means you were going to do something, but as the rest of the sentence shows, you did not end up doing it. If you used the passé composé (je suis allé retirer), it would mean you actually went and completed the withdrawal.

Why is it de l'argent and not just l'argent?

Here we need a partitive article because you are withdrawing an unspecified amount of money (some money). Since argent is masculine and starts with a vowel, the partitive article is de l'. If you were talking about money in a general sense, like saying you love money, you would just use the definite article l'argent.

Is distributeur the standard word for an ATM in French?

Yes, it is the most common everyday word for an ATM or cash machine. The full official term is un distributeur automatique de billets, which is why you will sometimes see bank signs referring to it by the acronym DAB.

Can I use en panne for anything that is broken?