My watch will not always charge when I want it to

[lightrider]

I have been able to keep it charged since I purchased it in late October but I never know if it will charge when I plug in the charging cable. I have rebooted it and cleaned with alcohol as well as positioned the cable in many different ways and no different result. I have also used different power sources. If I keep attempting to charge it then eventually it will link up with the power source but there is no apparent reason why it suddenly charges and other times no go. Is this a software problem? Would anyone be able to assist with this?  BTW this is a great device for me and I love it just hope to be able to charge more consistently.

[MikeF]

There is very little impact, generally, between software and charging circuits so the place to start is probably with the charging cable itself.

With the magnetic setup at the Ionic end, it appears to be hard to get wrongly aligned but have you tried fiddling gently with either end to see if there are any discontinuities in the cable perhaps?

[lightrider]

I am going to call fitbit again tomorrow and ask them to send me a new cable

[CurtisiI]

I had a problem like this and solved it. My issue was gunk but cleaning it with some sort of cleaner was not the answer.  The little oval channel around the contacts fills up with skin, sunscreen, horse feed, god only knows what and after I carefully scraped that out, problem solved.  I used just an ordinary dress pin.  I clean it a bit more regularly now with an old toothbrush and soap and water.

[kiti]

My first Fitbit ionic had the same issue, I returned it to the retailer and the new one charges consistantly once it attached the charging cable.

[lightrider]

here is an update, Fitbit sent me a new cable and it did not charge still.  Now they sent me a new watch. The new watch will arrive on January 2, 2018.