"Charging is not supported with this accessory" with iOS 4.2

your the first I heard of this issue... it may be a bug in your phone..

to be honest these are the solutions that may or may not work..

first thing I would try is rebooting the phone by holding the sleep/wake button and home button for 15 seconds until you see the white apple logo

if that doesn't work I would restore from backup and if that doesn't work I would restore as new if all else fails take it to your closest apple store they may replace the phone for a working one..

I am having this problem too. I updated, and charging is next to impossible. Yesterday I received the Charging is not supported with this accessory message all day. Today I plugged it in once more out of frustration and it worked. Tonight, it's back to not charging again. Not a happy camper at the moment.

For a start you should never use a hub with an iPhone; it is asking for trouble.It can introduce delays that can interfere with updates and syncing, and, unless it has its own power supply that plugs in to the wall, it cannot supply enough power to charge the phone or even allow it to run without using battery. You've been lucky it has worked thus far.

If you MUST use a hub get one that has its own power, and whose specs say it can supply 1 amp at 5 volts on every port.

I can only agree with orignal poster. Since my 3GS has ios 4.2.1, I'm constantly having sporadic messages that charging is not supported; redocking solves the problem for a while.

Is there a solution?

The most likely cause is dirt or moisture in the dock connector or an intermittent cable. Try cleaning the connector with a soft unused toothbrush or air blast. Look at it through a magnifier to see of there are any broken or bent pins. And try a different cable.

I'm having the same issue with my 3Gs with iOS4.2
It won't charge/sync unless I have the connector half way in at an angle. If I plug it in all the way it will give me the "Charging is not supported with this accessory" message.

That means that your dock connector or the cable end is broken.

For me i used my old cable that came with my 5G 64GB iPod to update my iPad, No problems what so ever, But i felt it's a bit slow, So i decided to hook up the cable that came with my iPhone to update it and fine, I think it might be a change of the structure of the connectors of the cable or as some said, the cable is getting worn out by dirt or moist or something.

I also updated to iOS 4.2 & was getting the message "apple charging is not supported with this accessory". I read another post about rebooting the phone & it worked!. I'm using the same cables as before with the 2 fastener buttons on the sides. I hope this helps.

I am having the same problem. The cable used to charge my iPhone 3Gs just fine. But I think a software update has rendered the cable useless... I am surprised that a software update could do that... I hope there is something I can do to fix this.

This error is almost always a hardware problem. Most likely is dirt or moisture in the dock connector, or a bent pin in the connector or cable. Less commonly it is a problem on the logic board. To totally eliminate software as the cause go to Settings/General/Reset: Erase all content and settings, then restore as a new phone in iTunes and do not restore your backup. If you still have the problem it is hardware.

My two cents... This may eliminate some options...

I installed iOS 4.2 on my iTouch last night. I went to set up my link with Ubuntu on my main machine and got the message "Charging is not supported with this accessory" when I plugged into my USB port. After reading this post I tried another USB cable, and a reboot, but neither worked.

I tried plugging my iTouch into a USB charging device USING THE SAME TWO CABLES I USED WITH MY PC, and the iTouch behaved normally.

I tried plugging it into a Windows XP laptop and it behaved normally. I tried plugging it into another Ubuntu computer, and it behaved normally, although this computer is running a slightly different version of Ubuntu.

My iTouch is configured in a standard fashion.

I am concluding that the problem is not the cables, and it is not the connector at the base of my iTouch.

My suspicion is that one of my computers is running at a slightly different USB voltage than the others, and that this difference is somehow triggering a reaction from my new iOS 4.2 installation.

This is a link to an analysis of some voltage-related issues with charging (or not charging) the iPhone... The iPhone apparently makes a decision about whether or not to charge based upon a reference voltage supplied by the USB line. Could this be our issue? Has the threshold changed? Perhaps because iOS 4.2 uses power differently?

http://www.cyber-gsm.com/2010/09/iphone-3g-charger/

Does anyone know of an app that displays the charging voltage available to the iPhone/iTouch?