Charging Is Not Supported With This Accessory

A healthy looking iPhone

A day or so ago I plugged my iPhone into my Mac and a message saying a new version of the iPhone software was available. I proceeded to update my iPhone.

The next day when I tried to charge up my iPhone, it suddenly started to show a warning triangle with the message “Charging is not supported with this accessory”.

After doing a search on the internet to see if there was any info about this, I decided to clean the socket on the phone with an old clean toothbrush. Although I removed quite a lot of fluff from the phone, it still would not charge and the message still appeared.

I plugged the device into my computer and a message saying a new version of the iPhone software was available, so I proceeded to download it.

In the meantime a Mac software update was being downloaded in the background onto my Mac, and I was hoping that this may be able to fix the problem.

Other messages saying that there was a problem with the computer connecting to the iphone popped up every 10 – 15 minutes. Things began to get a bit worrying and it started to look like my iPhone may have to be replaced. All this happened about 10.30 in the evening and I needed the phone to be functional the next day, otherwise I would have to visit the Apple shop first thing in the morning.

The iPhone software took the best part of an hour to download, but just when it only had 5 minutes of download time left, a message saying the iPhone software had failed due to a network timeout problem appeared and the download bar disappeared from the iTunes browser!

iPhoto kept popping up and another message saying iTunes could not connect to this iPhone because of an unknown error (OxE8000001). Things were starting to look a little worrying.

I took the iPhone out of the computer and plugged it back into the mains via the adapter – again “Charging is not supported with this accessory.”

Tried various other things, but no joy and the power eventually ran out and the iPhone became officially an iBrick

The next day, I took the iBrick to my local apple store first thing in the morning and was told that I had to book an appointment at the Genius Desk to get someone to look at it. Fortunately, I was one of the first people into the store and only had to wait half an hour for an appointment.

The Genius who looked at my phone took a torch to look inside the socket and said there was some indication of water entry. I know for a fact the phone had not come in contact with water over the last 48 hours and it worked perfectly before that, so I was a bit sceptical. Apparently there is a red indicator in the iPhone socket which appears if liquid gets in there.

The Genius then took the phone into the back of the store for approx 10 minutes and then re-emerged to tell me that my phone was irrepairable. Because the phone was out of warranty, he offered to to sell me an identical new iPhone for £120, which I accepted – no other alternative!

Unfortunately, the Genius who served me would not let me upgrade the phone to the iPhone 4s and also would not let me add more memory – this is company policy.

Conclusion

iPhones are great when they are working but can be expensive if you get any problems.

Incidently, I have spoken with two women about this problem and both of them confessed to having dropped their iPhones in the bath and they both worked afterwards – amazing!