Didn't take me long to come up with my second issue in my new (to me) 'burb. Today I took it in to a buddy of mine to get the windows tinted. And when I picked it up the battery light was on and the DIC said service battery charging system. When I went out to pick it up, it was running. My thinking is they probably left the truck on (either for music or a/c) and drained the battery. Took them about 3 hours to do the job. Would that error message come on if they had run the battery down and had to jump it or something? Or is that message specifically related to the battery charging system sensing an error? I drove it home just fine. Charge gauge read a steady 14 the whole way. When I got it home I pulled the neg cable, hooked up my battery tester (one of those Schumacher things that uses a resistor) Akd it said the battery was fine. Then I reconnected the neg cable, started her up, and hooked up the tester to see what the charging system read. It actually showed a hair low, but I wasn't too alarmed.

TL;DR- would a dead battery cause this error?

 

I had a similar warning on the OEM battery after running it low. after starting the truck it went a way after a while.

I eventually had to get a yellow top to run the radio while washing the truck.

I got a yellow top back in 2009. 5 years later... stills works 100%.

 

I think your scenario is spot on, they left the radio or something on while doing the work and ran down the battery, if the battery is more then 3 years old I'd replace it, otherwise put it on an automatic charger for several hours...