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Ipad Pro 2018 Won't Charge - Red Low Battery Icon Flashing Slowly

Have a Ipad Pro 2018 hooked up to various chargers and it will not turn on or take a charge. When I plug it in, the red battery icon flashes, goes away, then comes back in about 30 secs and the cycle repeats. Tried volume up, volume down, long press power to reset. Nothing. Please help!!!!

iPad Pro, iPadOS 13

Posted on Jun 27, 2020 6:20 PM

Reply
17 replies

Jul 28, 2020 1:16 AM in response to Brian Lazzara

No, it doesn't.

I have the same issue, and nothing in boilerplate Apple "solutions" can apparently fix it.


I'm abroad, very far from an Apple store, with a 1-year old iPad Pro that I stupidly let get completely empty, stuck on a slowly flashing red battery - regardless of which cord or adapter I plug into it.


I'm appaled at the zero number of actual responses to this issue, here or elsewhere online, as I'm apparently not the only one with it.

Jul 28, 2020 3:11 AM in response to erpol53

In a similar report to yours, where an iPad refuses to charge (after full discharge) with the Apple OEM Power Adapter and cable - the contributor reports having been able to recover the iPad to a working state by using a third-party USB cable.


From a technical perspective, whilst you’d expect one USB cable to be much the same as another, there are some differences other than the gauge and quality of the wiring. USB cables usually incorporate additional passive components (resistors) that, when the cable is connected, signals certain conditions to the host device.


As such, if the related report is accurate, changing the OEM cable for a third-party cable may have a positive effect. After recovering charge into the iPad, the original OEM cable was reported to be working as expected. Whilst you may not be able to reach an Apple Store, USB cables are commonly available.

Jul 28, 2020 4:19 AM in response to erpol53

Okay, more info is good...


The Power Adapter that you do have needs to be rated at 10-12W minimum; anything less will not charge the iPad (or if it does, it will be very slow). Power Adapters supplied with an iPhone are typically 5W - which is insufficient for most iPad models.


If using a Power Adapter that claims to be Fast Charge capable, it must support “USB PD” (Power Delivery Protocol); the competing “QC” standard is not supported by Apple devices. iPad Pro achieves maximum charge-rate when used with an 18W USB-PD Power Adapter; higher wattage Power Adapters can be used, but the iPad will only accept charge at maximum 18W rate.

Jul 28, 2020 6:03 AM in response to erpol53

OK, so I was in the midst of scheduling a service appointment but decided to give the original iPad charger a try. Sure enough, it resurrected my iPad! However, I will say this, I have been using the same non-Apple chargers for the past 8 months and never had this issue. I've let my iPad run down to zero battery life before and these chargers worked. These were PD 25+ watt chargers. Not sure if there's a correlation but this started happening after the ios 13.5 update. Or maybe I just let the battery run down too much and something in the apple charger pushes it over a hump that other chargers just don't have?

Jul 28, 2020 11:51 AM in response to LotusPilot

I have lots of non-apple devices so i usually use a multi port charger with mini-usb, micro-usb, and usb-c cables. The set up was working fine for months but after ios 13.5, started having some issues with the charging. And I tried multiple non-apple and some iphone chargers. Apparently not enough juice to get it going. Then, as a last ditch effort, I looked for my ipad box and found the original charger, tried that, and it booted up right away!

Aug 19, 2020 10:18 PM in response to E97317

The only thing that solved my problem was to finally use the original charger and cable, that someone brought back to me: when I connected them, the iPad started charging immediately and was full in an hour.

Nothing else would work before that, even very powerful (3 amp) third party chargers, with an assortment of different high quality cables.


It seems that when the battery is redlined everything is blocked, and only a signal provided by the original charger through the factory cable is capable of restarting the charging process.


Aug 20, 2020 7:45 AM in response to erpol53

BLESS. ALL. OF. YOU. I was in tears this weekend when my “new” (2018) iPad Pro wouldn’t turn on and would cycle with the red battery icon when plugged in. I called Apple support and tried everything. They said it was out of warranty, but scheduled a service appointment for this Sunday to see if there was anything that could be done to save it. I’ve been sick about it every day because I use my iPad daily for my small business, but don’t have the money to replace it right now. I found this forum, dug out my original cord and block - and IT WORKED!! Thank you!!! <3

Ipad Pro 2018 Won't Charge - Red Low Battery Icon Flashing Slowly

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