Chosen Solution
About 2 months ago, I was charging my iPhone 7 with one of those knockoff braided lightning cables (I don’t usually do this, I didn’t have my genuine lightning cable on me at the time), and whilst charging my iPhone I noticed something strange this time, that strange thing being that my iPhone was fluctuating from charging to not charging continuously. This continued for about lets say a minute, until suddenly, my phone would not register the knockoff lightning cable. I then unplugged the cable, and plugged it back in again a couple of times, which then got it to register as charging, but then suddenly my iPhone just hard reset out of nowhere. When the iPhone booted up, it would not register the lightning cable at all. I tried the usual re-plugging, hard reset and what-not, and it still would not register the knockoff cable. I shrugged this off, and when I went to use my genuine lightning cable a while later, it still wouldn’t register. I tried hard resetting multiple times, with no success. My iPhone then ran out of battery and died, and I decided to plug in my lightning cable (because why not). To my surprise, the iPhone actually booted up again, and was registering a charge. That surprise didn’t last long, however, as when I entered my passcode and went to my homescreen, my iPhone lost charge, and eventually died again. Then I plugged it back in, and it booted up again with charge. There was however, a notification on my lock screen on boot-up though, which was “Unlock iPhone to use accessories”. That message was not present before, and when I unlock my iPhone as previously mentioned, it stops charging. I also cannot unplug my iPhone while it is charging, as that too stops the iPhone from registering my lightning cable. However, I actually can get my iPhone to charge to 100%, there are exceptions though, which are mentioned in this post. I cannot unlock it, and I cannot unplug it while it is charging. Also, my lightning earbuds stopped registering after this incident. No, I don’t think my iPhone has loop disease, Siri and my microphone work fine. It’s just the lightning port really. I have been basically living with this for 2 months now, and it’s pretty annoying. What do I do? How do I fix this? I want to get this repaired by myself, but if it’s a problem with like the logic board or something that requires micro soldering I’d want get it repaired by a 3rd party repair shop.
Such multiple issues cannot be correctly diagnosed unless you have professional tools and skills. On a DiY basis you can try buying a replacement charging assembly and connect it to be board to see if that fixes the issues you’re experiencing. Symptoms however seem to be pointing to a bad Tristar IC that would require a microsoldering repair, thus be ready to the possibility a replacement dock could be a useless purchase. As a side note, I’d suggest to dispose of cables that are not original of MFi certified.
