The contacts may be dirty and you are scraping them clean for better conduction.

I have had a battery operated device fail, rearranged the batteries, and had it work again for a short time. It’s the first thing I do if the batteries are dead. Take them out and put them in again in a different pattern.

Undoubtedly because of what @Espiritus_Corvus said.

I have had things that run on batteries that had two, one ran one circuit and the other was on a totally different one.

The first thinv i do is use a nail file or just a sharp paring knife and scrape the contact points.

This works for the reason mentioned above. If gets rid of any gunk or corrosion and improves conductivity.

But, it only lasts a long enough time for me to go buy some new ones so dont expect miracles with this technique.

A pencil eraser also works to clean the contacts.

What did @Espiritus_Corvus say?

Dude, I was not aware of this, but you just rescued my evening plans!

@Espiritus_Corvus said something along the lines of, the batteries grow tired of their cell mates and rearranging them gives their lives more spark.

If the device spends the majority of it’s time in one position, vertical or horizontal, it may be that gravity is drawing more juice out after repositioning.

Thanks @ibstubro
Why was it moderated? I suppose it must have been an error.

The question is in general. I was just joking around and not really being helpful. Rules are rules.

I check for new questions by clicking my own avatar which brings all the new stuff up on the right side of the page in top-down chrono order, so I rarely am aware of what category the question is in and therefore get popped every once in awhile. No big deal.

Anyway, @ibstubro said it much better than I did.