Battery exhausted on Nikon Coolpix S9100?

Try unplugging the camera first. Then open the battery compartment, take out the battery and then put it back in. Close the battery compartment. Now try to turn on the camera.

Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help. I also tried leaving the battery out of the camera for a period of days… I put it back in and get the same message.

Can you borrow a good battery from someone? Maybe at a camera store?

I second what @RocketGuy said. That should pinpoint whether the battery or the camera is bad. If the camera is bad, hopefully it is still under warranty, no?

You charge the battery while it’s in the camera? Doesn’t it have an independent charger?
I could be wrong but I don’t think the camera is designed to pass enough current through a USB cable to charge the battery. That interface is designed for you to transfer pics to a computer.

@dabbler – good point. I never try to charge my camera via cable.

@dabbler and @RocketGuy Some of the newest Nikons don’t some with a separate charger. The battery can be charged on camera via a USB-like cable (Nikon proprietary size). Not my favorite solution, but it works.

It’s certainly possible but seems a lousy charging solution for two reasons. You have to build charge-monitoring circuitry into the camera (wasting space/weight) and the available power from USB ports is wildly various depending on what you plugged into. Charging takes a lot of current to do quickly &/or takes forever to do on a small current.

@dabbler I agree, so I bought my own independent charger and almost never charge the battery on-camera. I did do it maybe twice, and I do know that the system works, but I agree with you that’s not optimal.