Batteries not being used

[Dood]

I use rechargeable batteries in my cameras. In one camera, when the unit says the batteries are low (or fully gone, as today) I recharge the batteries. One unit consistently requires charging sooner than the others.

Turns out that the front two batteries (closest the lens) are still completely charged and only the rear two batteries are drained. The problem repeats itself, regardless which batteries are in which slots - the front two are always full. 

What is the problem and is it fixable or do I just have a bum camera?

[jguerdat]

While it's possible that it's the camera, the usual suspect is that a battery isn't mking contact with the battery door. When inserting the batteries, just place them in their slots - don't push them down. Let the battery door do the pushing. Especially with rechargeable batteries, some are slightly larger than the OEM ones and get stuck down when you pysically push them down.

[Dood]

That may be the issue but the batteries have never been pushed in by anything other than the door.

All batteries fully charged, the system says the camera is at 45%.

Brand new non-rechargeable batteries installed and the system says the camera is 100%.

If I swap one from the front with one from the rear the system says it is at 43%.

Multimeter says all of the batteries are providing enough volts. How does one resolve this? Add a piece of tin foil to the top of a few batteries? 

[jguerdat]

Check the springs in the bottom and the contacts on the door. Perhaps cleaning them would help. If one battery isn't making contact, you should get an immediate battery level indication of ~50%, even with fresh batteries. You could try mixing and matching batteries to see if that helps or a set of OEM-style batteries.

Otherwise, open a case with support here for a possibly faulty camera.

[Dood]

jguerdat, I carefully pried the positive contacts up a bit and the camera now registers 89%! I'll consider that sufficient. 

Thank you for the help! I never would have considered a lack of contact as the problem!