Ok guys I tried factory resetting, turning the spindle clockwise 5 times, pulling the tape up so it sticks out from the cartridge, and maybe a few other things I forgot. None of that worked, but every time I pressed the little white button on the right I could hear the motor. Fortunately I have another one of the same model that fell down the stairs. I'd been meaning to take it apart to troubleshoot so I figured what the heck. No kidding, I disassembled the thing and learned that there are 8 gears that make this baby go. If one of the gears moves too far up its shaft, it doesn't lock with the other gears and the tape won't move. No less than FIVE of these gears have no stopper to prevent them from slipping up on their shafts. (Yes, 63% of these shafts... How did this pass a design review?!) So rather than try disassembling the one that still turned on, I tried tapping it a couple times on the back (where the panels are that open up to the batteries and cartridge). This didn't work at first, but I was...

Hey all- I thought I followed up on this but I don’t see my follow up. I ended up making a Genius Bar appointment using my daughter’s iPad info. There was a step that asked me to specify what was wrong and one of the choices was “Accessories“ or “Peripherals” (can’t remember the exact wording.) I chose that. Her dad ended up taking her so I’m not sure if there were inspection or troubleshooting steps, but they completely replaced the pencil. So bottom line is I’m still not sure what the root cause of the problem is, but hopefully you can do the same and get a working pencil replacement!

I’m having the same issue with my daughter’s pencil. We have several 11 inch iPad Pros in the family. When we connect the pencil to the side of any iPad, the iPads recognize the pencil and can see the status of it’s charge. However, once connected none of the iPads are responding to the pencil in the OS, in Procreate, or in any browser. I know it isn’t a problem with the iPads, because all of the other pencils can be rotated and function with no issues. So it’s definitely an issue with the pencil. We replaced the nib with no luck. I performed a visual comparison between a working 2nd gen Apple Pencil and the subject problem pencil. Nothing stands out as a possible root cause. There are no cracks on the case and all of the conductive material on the tip (under the nib) appears to be intact, including the conductive square on the top. I wish I knew more about the construction of the pencil itself, as I feel this would help me identify root cause. I’ll post again if I can figure anything out.