Probe "No Target" !?

[T-Bouw]

Hi fellow Astronauts!
 

Hopefully you can help me with something that I just can't figure out.

I have this probe in orbit and I want to put it in standby mode. In older versions (currently 1.1.2) I shut down/lock all batteries and abandon the thing.
When I return to it and want to wake it up, I turn on all power.

For some reason I can't get the power back on now.

When I click the power button of a battery (doesn't matter which), I get the message: "No Target".
The probe is clearly the only thing I have "targeted" since pushing the next target buttons does nothing.

I don't get why this is hapening now and this is the second probe that has this problem.
Has anyone experienced this? Is this a bug?
 

Thanks in advance!

Oh yeah, in the pic. you can see a capsule but it's unmanned (rescue ship).

Edited May 12, 2016 by T-Bouw

[Plusck]

Not a bug - a deliberate change in 1.1.

If you don't have a Kerbal to flick the switch, a dead probe cannot turn on its own battery.

This means that the battery-locking trick will not let you send probes without a source of power for them.

[FullMetalMachinist]

This was a deliberate change in 1.1.x.

There was a small handful of things that you used to be able to do with probes with no power that you shouldn't have (extending landing gear was one, I think). Part of the fix for those included not being able to turn on a battery that was disabled.

It makes sense if you think about it. If there's absolutely no power for the probe, how does it know, or be able to, turn them back on? 

I know that previously this was a nice "safety feature" to leave one battery turned off, and if you forgot to extend solar panels you could turn the reserve battery on and get your panels extended. But, alas, no more. 

Now, I see that your ship has a crew pod on it. So if you EVA a kerbal over, they can board and turn the power on, but just the probe core cannot. 

[T-Bouw]

Thanks for the fast replies!

I was afraid it was something along those lines...
Too bad there's no way (yet) to put a probe in a low-power state.

It's still a hasle though as solar panels are hard to obtain in the early carreer.
I have them now, so I guess I'll mount at least 2 of them and keep the smallest battery on.