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[Weaver]

Tonight for the second time, my iPad died completely from low battery. We faffed about for ages until we found that two things were wrong:

1. A USB port on an n-way mains distribution block - which has both standard mains sockets and USB sockets - was crap. It could supply enough current to power an iPad but not enough to charge. So thanks Amazon.

2. I was using a white Apple mains-to-USB charger plug adaptor plugged straight into a standard main socket. And that had gone bad too, more or less zero current delivery. In fact not even enough to power an iPad, never mind charge one, although there were some volts present as the iPad detected the insertion of the lightning plug and showed the usual lightning symbol and went ping.

Problem #2 was the original cause of the whole stressful experience. I thought my iPad was dying, because when we took it out of the white Apple charger plug and put it straight into the ‘direct’ (and crap) USB port, the iPad still wouldn’t charge, although at least it stayed at a constant level so there was enough current to power it. So two bad things were tried in turn. I must be cursed.

Those white Apple charger plugs cost a fortune too, something like £20? For just a plug and a few components. There’s no USB protocol traffic in such a situation, is there? Perhaps for example negotiation about max current capabilities? (I know nothing about USB.)

Has anyone else had such an experience with an Apple charger plug?

And I hate these cheap units that have USB sockets that are semi-useless. What good are they if you can’t charge devices through them?

 

[burakkucat]

I wonder if there could be a build up of dust, fibres, cat fur, general crud, etc, in the charging socket of your iPad? Hence the plug is not making full contact in the socket?

A magnifying glass and a good light source may help. As for clearing out the socket, would a wooden cocktail stick be sufficient?

[Weaver]

I ruled out the ipad eventually. Those power delivery devices couldn’t get either of two iPads to charge. And now with a replaced white Apple plug the iPad has regained 100%. So my main iPad it seems is not guilty. And guess what, I have just found an additional white Apple charger which is completely dead! Zero volts. So total equals two duff Apple white chargers and a weedy, semi-useless mains distribution block. 

I definitely should try a cocktail stick in the socket, as you suggest, and some compressed air if I get some in. Could be full of Thomas-hair, as he has coated Janet’s pillow with fluff that he sheds on his small-hours visits for a cuddle and warm-up.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'd be pretty wary of charging an iPad with anything unofficial, considering some of the stories from Louis Rossmann of Apples charge controllers going bang.

[Weaver]

Thanks Alex; I’ll stick to the Apple white plugs. Have to replace two duff ones now, the guilty newly discovered.

[Weaver]

Worse still, my iPad crashed just now and showed the dead battery screen. I fiddled about a bit, re-seating connectors and then the machine rebooted and came back up, and bizarrely now shows 100% battery. This is not the first time that it has done this; it happened a few weeks ago too. So now it looks like we may have a dying iPad! It can’t be a bad lightning socket, because that wouldn’t account for the crashes that show 100% battery after them. And it’s out of warranty now, must be four years old. If I do end up having to buy a new machine, then I won’t be happy, as I really don’t like Janet’s iPad Pro v3 with no “home” [?] button, or whatever it’s called.

Another problem; typing is getting rather unreliable and slow sometimes.

Questions:
* Has anyone else had these problems?
* I’m wondering if I need to clean the screen? (re unreliable typing)


As for the crash, a search of the web shows that other people are having it too. Some reports are three years old, so it can not be a regression ie. a problem introduced in the latest iOS release. I suspect there is a new hardware problem in my machine possibly combined with a bug too, because deteriorating hardware would explain why it has suddenly started doing this. My best guess is that if it were a software bug then it would have been happening all the time or after a new release. It would be interesting to see if anyone has had this crash with a fairly new machine, or whether the machine has to be aged and sickly.

[Weaver]

iPad crashing all the time now, more than once per day. I’m either going to send it off for repair, if I can, or else buy a new one, but I don’t like Janet’s iPad Pro v3 (with no button), so I’m reluctant.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Fingers crossed its some weird side-effect of an old battery and its easily fixed.  Although I believe Apple just send back refurbs rather than repairing your own unit, which kinda sucks.

[Weaver]

This is itself a replacement from when I sent my original iPad back for repair because the mic had stopped working. I subsequently dropped this cure one on the wooden floor, and that knackered the screen leaving it with a very faint green vertical line showing, if you look very carefully. So it wouldn’t hurt at all to get a replacement. Nuisance that the MAC address changes, as I have some ‘firewall’ rules set in the Firebrick that are triggered by source MAC address. This is to withhold certain privileges from guest machines that are unknown and there is a whitelist of the known machines.

[burakkucat]

This is itself a replacement from when I sent my original iPad back for repair because the mic had stopped working.

That was a few years ago, I believe.

I subsequently dropped this cure one on the wooden floor, and that knackered the screen leaving it with a very faint green vertical line showing, if you look very carefully. So it wouldn’t hurt at all to get a replacement.

Oops. 

Nuisance that the MAC address changes, as I have some ‘firewall’ rules set in the Firebrick that are triggered by source MAC address. This is to withhold certain privileges from guest machines that are unknown and there is a whitelist of the known machines.

I'm sure you will have everything documented, so it should just be the tedium of performing the task.

[Weaver]

Yes, it’s just a nuisance editing the xml config to change the mac address in the whitelist. The config is very heavily commented.