Old problem.Pedals work with betteries,but not with adapter

[igorBG]

I have two boss pedals. Turbo distortion DS-2 in orange and Chorus in blue color.
I had many pedal in time and always had problem with adapters. Pedals all worked with batteries but not with adapters(we call them adapters, it is thing that you plug in the wall and it converts electric from 220V to 9V) .

Adapters, at least here in Europe, has some cross at the end of cable with two jacks/plugs that you can plug into pedal. Some of them have also additional plug like one inside pedal that is for the battery. So on adapters with that battery-like-plug it always work. You try + -, if it wont work you turn to other side - +, and it works.

But when I try with that cross to plug it in the front of pedal it just wont work with my current gear, I get very weak sound little distorted. When I try to turn on pedal nothing happens

I am sure someone had tham problem also. Please can anybody desribe me what is my problem. Thanks
And sorry for mixing plugs and jacks. Here in Serbia we have same word for both.

[Joe-Bob]

Adapters are famous for going bad. Also, the symbols next to the plug-in for the adapter show the polarity. Also, there are at least two different sizes for those adapter jacks.