macbook pro shut off upon plugging in iphone, blinking orange
My macbook pro (mid-2012 unibody) suddenly shut off last night as I was attempting to plug my iphone into it's usb port.
It would not start up after that. And I noticed that the light on the power supply was pulsing orange. This had never happened to me before.
Via google I found some info and I followed the advise on this and other forums - to try resetting the battery. I opened the back of the computer and disconnected and then reconnected the battery, and voila - the problem was solved!
My laptop started right up after that and thankfully no data was lost.
As far as I can tell, everything is fine with the laptop. What a relief!
I wanted to mention a few possible contributing factors:
1. I was using a cheap iphone cable, as others have described who've had this same problem.
2. I'd been using said cables without incident for weeks, but...one thing that was unique on this particular occasion was this:
I had the cable plugged into the iphone, and then attempted to plug the usb cable into the macbook. It seemed like as soon as I even touched the usb end to the port there was a short or something, and the computer immediately went dark.
I don't usually plug my phone in this way. I usually plug the cable into the laptop, then the cable into the phone.
I'm mentioning this because I noticed someone else noticed this factor in their experience... and because it was an uncharacteristic approach in my case as well.
Still, I'm going to be wary in using these kind of cables now...
Hope this info is helpful for people.