Q: charging is not supported with this accessory

You've got a bad pin in either the USB connector, the connector on the bottom of the phone, or the cable is bad.

Be good to know if what i posted fixes anyone elses charging problem .

atb

Wizard

I just started having this problem with my old 3gs which I rarely turn on but which I did recently upgrade OS for.

Tuesday 4/24 and got the message all morning long until I read in this thread that turning off wifi might resolve.

I turned it off and it appears to be charging normally now.

I suspect then its a bug on 3gs with wifi on as reported.  I have a fairly new USB charging cable and have not tried cleaning it or the connectors.  I don't think that has anything to do with anything.

@Laurence Finch I have same exact issue and it only started after upgrading my iPhone 3GS to iOS5.1. Same as for most of the people who posted here.
First message on this thread is from August 2011 (8 months ago). Is that hard for Apple to admit that there is a bug in their software/hardware and fix it?????

Be realistic and stop blaming bad cables or connectors!!

I finally gave in after trying all the various remedies for the not charging issue and sent the iphone 4 for service. The company replaced the charging port and cleaned up the phone generally and the problem is fixed. I have had the phone back for 5 days and it is charging normally each day, My guess is that with the millions of iphones out there its a coincidence the charging issue arises after update to ios for a small number of phones. Bite the bullet and send phone in for fix !!!!!!!!

Seems to me we are all floundering in the dark asking one another for a fix while those at Apple look on knowingly giggling and pointing in the dark.

I gotta say I love apple products. It is my belief that Apple builds in a degree of obselecence as do many other companies. As I had my phone now for nearly two years and its now time to replace it. Long gone are the days of longevity these were not good for the bottom line. Furthermore there is no other phone to replace my 3gs other than a 4g as the many applications will not transfer to other make phones. Wish Honda or Toyota made phones!

In relation to our problem I note that my 3gs actually is charging even tho "Charging is not supported with this accessory" displayed (the cable and charger accessory supplied with the 3gs)!

@psommy, since the majority of people in this post are having the problem after updating to iOS5 with an iPhone 3GS and not 4 as in your case, I rekon your guess is just a guess. My iPhone stopped charging only AFTER the iOS update. As other users have pointed out disabling WI-FI does allow the phone to charge. So it's obviously a BUG in the software.

I think who needs to bite the bullet are those people who cannot admit that even Apple produce faulty hardware or buggy software and after more than 8 months Apple has not produced a fix for it yet.

Just get other electrical devices plugged along with your iphone/ipod out to fix this problem. Or directly charge your device on a wall socket without any other electrical devices (computers, TV, etc.) plugged along with it. Thats because (what i hypothesized) iphone and other apple devices require specific amount of voltage (or whatever electricity stuffs) to charge its battery. If other electrical devices uses up electricity/voltage with the same socket where your iphone is plugged in, it may cause the error "Charging is not supported with this accessory."

Had this message.  Problem was flluff that had collected in the socket of the phone.

That's the usual cause

It's funny. so many posts and finally someone says it was a dirty connector.

There are several multipage threads on this subject, and if you actually read them you will find hundreds of posts that said that cleaning the connector fixed the problem. There are a few where it didn't however, so there's likely more than one possible cause.

Oh I read them Lawrence, and as i posted back in November it didn't help, as it didn't help the majority of the people on THIS thread.

Oh, come one Lawrence GET REAL!!

Rod1239 had the correct answer for me.  I usually plug my iPhone into my Sonos Controller charge station at home.  This a.m. I found it almost dead.  I thought maybe the controller had a bad connector, so I plugged my phone into a regular Apple charger.  Same result.  I read Rod's post, turned my wi-fi ON (it was already off), and it immediately started charging.  So it must be changing the state on wi-fi (Rod said turn off wi-fi) that causes some software interference with charging.  In any event, it worked.