Power adapter unexpectedly shown as disabled after connecting but continues to hold charge

[Shnub]

I have now twice run into a strange situation, where after connecting the power adapter with the battery below my set minimum (which is 50 %), the battery does not charge and macOS shows the "plugged in but not charging icon". But the battery does not discharge either – it stays at the current charge level even with continued use, so behaves like when the charge level is within the set boundaries.

Turning to Battery Toolkit's menu, the power adapter is claimed to be disabled, although I definitely didn't disable it, and it cannot be completely disabled given the constant charge level.

If I click "Enable Power Adapter", it is shown as enabled again, but still doesn't charge. If (before or after), I explicitly request charging, it doesn't charge either. The only thing that resolves the situation is disconnecting and reconnecting the charger, after which charging starts as expected. (Not sure if enabling the power adapter before reconnecting is required, couldn't test without enabling it yet.)

I wonder if this might be related to the charge level being only 1 % below my configured minimum, or possibly right on the edge in terms of actual mAh. Though this wouldn't explain why the charger is shown as disabled although it isn't.

This is on a MacBook Pro M4 with macOS 15.5.

[mhaeuser]

Did you disable the power adapter at some point before? There previously was a bug where it would desync, i.e., when you disabled the power adapter and hibernated the machine, SMC would re-enable the power adapter (as expected), but macOS would not issue an event for this. So my question is, what is unexpected, that it is shown as disabled (it should not be, because you didn’t) or that it is enabled (while it should be disabled)?

[Shnub]

Did you disable the power adapter at some point before?

I did recently, when I performed this test. However, as I wrote there, the power adapter was enabled again after depleting the battery, both functionally and according to Battery Toolkit's menu. (I pondered whether that procedure might have triggered the above issue since it hadn't occurred before, but I've successfully connected the power adapter dozens of times since then, including below the charge minimum, and the issue only occurred twice.)

So my question is, what is unexpected, that it is shown as disabled (it should not be, because you didn’t) or that it is enabled (while it should be disabled)?

It should not be shown as disabled because I didn't disable it.

Also, there's the issue of it being shown as disabled but the charge level holding. Unless I've misunderstood, "disabled" means "battery will discharge", which it didn't.

[mhaeuser]

Did macOS hibernate (all open apps closed and state lost) or shut down (all state preserved) when the battery depleted?

[Shnub]

The state was not preserved, though note I have the "Reopen windows when logging back in" option disabled, and that does seem to apply to at least some non-user initiated shutdowns as well (e.g. I don't get a preserved state after kernel panic reboots).

I have this issue as well;
M4 Macbook Air
Sequoia 15.7
Apple's 70W charger (nothing else used, ever)
Fully disabled sleep states (-a)
Apple's own charge optimising disabled before installing BT
Zero changes in software (not even a single update for an app, any app) since installing BT
Zero tweaks past BT installation, zero changes in system or any settings
BT has been uninstalled (sh) and re-installed just in case

To describe this in detail, because BT only does one out of three as it should:
My thresholds are BT's defaults, 75% low and 80% high/top

• If my battery is anywhere below the low threshold, BT functions exactly as should.
  Charger provides power, battery charges, upper limit always respected, both in reaching it and in never topping it

• If my battery is above low threshold but below the high, BT does not allow charging unless i force it to (relevant option from its menu).
  This might be mindset/cultural gap related, aka i've misunderstood its function, but.. if you specify where to charge up to and it does not, i presume it a bug

• If my battery is above the high threshold, i get something like what the OP is describing. BT reports the charging as on hold, MacOS's own battery icon reports likewise, ergo supposedly i'm running from the battery.
  In practice i'm drawing from the charger, because even if i leave the Mac on for a full day, the battery never drops, not a single percent down. No presumptions on this one.

If you need any further info or clarification, by all means let me know.
And again, thank you very much for all the work thus far :)

[Shnub]

If my battery is above the high threshold, i get something like what the OP is describing. BT reports the charging as on hold, MacOS's own battery icon reports likewise, ergo supposedly i'm running from the battery.
In practice i'm drawing from the charger, because even if i leave the Mac on for a full day, the battery never drops, not a single percent down. No presumptions on this one.

I don't think that's an issue, rather that's the correct behavior. Above the high threshold, you are running directly from the power adapter and charging is disabled. It's not supposed to drain the battery in this case, that would be wasting battery cycles. Loss of charge should occur only when disconnecting the power adapter, disabling the power adapter, or (very slowly, over days rather than hours) from idle discharge because Battery Toolkit will prevent micro-charging until you've reached the lower threshold.

Note also the macOS battery icon only knows "battery", "charging" and "not charging". "Not charging" means only that, "connected to power adapter but not charging"; it doesn't mean you're running from the battery. So unless I've misunderstood something, what you're seeing is correct both from Battery Toolkit and from macOS.

My issue above is completely different, it's about Battery Toolkit claiming the power adapter to be disabled when it isn't, and not charging when it should charge.

Thanks for the info @Shnub :)
I wasn't aware it could bypass the battery (when it's still physically plugged inside the laptop), so wrongfully assumed we had an issue! My fault.

And also, my apologies for the needless diverting! Sorry.
(old fart, don't shoot)

[mhaeuser]

@Shnub Sorry for not getting back to this recently. I've run into another person who has the same or at least a very similar issue. Next time you encounter it, i.e., BT says the power adapter is disabled when it really isn't, please follow these steps and post an SMC dump: charlie0129/batt#34 (comment)

[Shnub]

No worries! Luckily it hasn't happened for a while now, but I'll be sure to run the linked procedure when/if it happens again.

I have this bug as well since 1.8 version. Power adapter suddenly displayed as "disabled" and it doesn't charge. Even if I enable it again and request charge, it doesn't charge. Only thing that helps is a reboot or restarting the app/service manually. I did not previously disable the power adapter manually.

[mhaeuser]

Then please create a dump as described above while the condition is happening…

oh sorry, didn't read. Thanks for your great work though. I wish Apple would implement something like this, also on iOS.

[mhaeuser]

@svfrZ To my understanding, they are. The technical stack seems to be there, but there is no GUI. I hope that we will get that next year. Apple’s battery stack is surprisingly sophisticated.