Battery Charge Bars Problem - How To Fix?

My Seven Plus has a minor problem. Suddenly for no reason, the image of the battery shows up on the screen, goes out and the the battery charge bars in the bottom right hand side start flashing in the same way it does when it is plugged into the mains. As Dexcom do not allow non-US patients to have a Seven Plus, they say that they are unable to supply me with a replacement receiver.

When I spoke to technical support, it sounds like it is a known problem. Anyone know what it might be and how I could perhaps get it repaired myself? Long shot I know.

Regards Chris.

Hello Chris. I see you post on the Yahoo CGMS group. I remember seeing you post about this on Yahoo CGMS. Anyway, I had that problem just start this past weekend and called and found out it is a “glitch” when I called. I tried to “reset” by taking toothpick to hole in back - hole is next to sticker with s/n, Dexcom address & phone number, etc. Unfortunately the “reset” did not solve the problem and Dexcom told me that the “reset” would not work. They told me to just charge the receiver for one hour each day. Another weird thing that happened was that two separate times the battery charge bar didn’t scroll - each time I thought “YIPPEEE! The problem went away!” but unfortunately the problem did not go away.

I just got home from picking up my kids from school and I found out FEDEX tried to deliver a package but need a signature. I called FEDEX and found out it came from Dexcom. So now I’m wondering if they overnighted a new receiver?

I wish there was a way to solve the problem of flashing battery charge bar without having to get a new receiver. I fear that if I get another receiver it will get the same glitch as I believe you recently got your Dexcom Seven Plus and the receiver I got with the glitch came last month. I also wish that they would have the receiver “beep” all the time without having to do a snooze feature to get the beep to go off the first time. Even with the problems, I still love the Dexcom and can’t imagine living without it now.

Hope someone can give you better answers than me.

Good Luck!
Gina

Hi Gina,
Small world.

I tried the reset button too.

Well as things stand, I can’t exchange mine, so hope it just keeps working or fixes it’self.
Wonder if it’s a battery issue and if I take it to an electronics specialist, they could change the battery over?

Someone else might know.
Regards Chris.

The FEDEX package was a new receiver. Right after I picked up the package, my current (now called “old”) receiver stopped doing the scrolling when it had been doing this for 4 days straight. I plugged it back in think thinking the scrolling would start up again once it is unplugged and now it is showing full amount of battery charge with no scrolling.

I plan to plug the charger and “old” receiver back into the plug where the receiver start to have the “glitch” to see if the electric outlet had something to do with bars scrolling constantly after being unplugged from charger (I used a different electric outlet that I normally don’t use).

Dexcom is going to think I’m nuts with the receiver working normal again! ARGH!!! I wish I had gotten a video of this receiver doing the scrolling thing for days because now it looks like it has stopped.

Has your Dexcom being doing the scrolling since the first time you charged it? Do you have to get a converter for your electric outlet? (just trying to think of what is causing the scrolling electric bar and why my receiver did this for days and now that I’ve been charging back at my original outlet it has stopped scrolling)

Hi,
Yes it is an intermtent fault. It was fine when I first got it, it developed the problem and then last night I switched the receiver back on (As I’m not using it this week) and the bars are constant and fine.

It did this once before though. It went back to being fine when I turned it on with a new sensor and after 4-hours I pressed a button to see what my sugars were and the big image of the battery flashed up, went out and then the bars started scrolling again!

It might sort itself out eventually or it might get worse!

Regards Chris

Just a quick note to say that my Dex is working as it should again without any flashing/ scrolling battery bars.

I switched the receiver off completely for a week while having a break from it (Making my limited supply of sensors last as long as possible) and when I switched it on again it was fine.

One thing I noticed before when it was playing up, was if I plug the charging lead into the receiver first and then plug the charger into the wall, followed by unpluging the charger from the wall first and then unpluging the lead from the receiver, it behaved itself for a few hours before going nuts again. This time I have followed the above procedure each and every time and it has been fine completely. It might just be a coincidence, but I’d try this if you have a similar problem!

I just started having the exact same issues tonight! My battery was fully charged last night and I just put in a new receiver this morning. Everything had been working great until this evening. When I called Dexcom they said they thought it might be my receiver, but that since it is working right now, I should wait and see if it self-corrects itself tomorrow. If not, I am supposed to call during working hours. My system is quite new, as this is only my second sensor since I upgraded to the Seven. I hope they don’t send me a refurbished one already. I’m definitely seeing a glitch here with at least 3 of us here on this site with the same issue. I see the original post is from almost a month ago. How is everyone’s working now?

Mine is fine again, but to make sure it doesn’t go wrong again, I never plug or unplug a live power cable into the receiver and now always put the charger into the wall after I have the plug already in the receiver/ visa versa when disconnecting it.

I did it like this once when it was playing up and it sorted the problem out for a few hours before before going silly again.

I then took a week off in between sensors and left the receiver in the Shut Down mode. When I powererd it up again 7-days later it was fine. I have since used the charging method as described and it has been fine.

I only now leave the receiver connected to the charger for about 3 or 4-hours. I think I had left the receiver charging all night when I first developed the problem.

So far so good this morning. I did leave the charge overnight, but didn’t have the weird screen happenings until 12 or so hours after charging. Hopefully this was a one time thing.

My receiver now exhibits the charge bar problem for the 3rd day. I called DexCom. The DexCom representative did not probe into it. She just said: “We will send you a new receiver and an envelope to return the defective one.”