2008 chevy cobalt sport

Load testing the battery is a good idea. It may have enough power to run the fuel pump, but might not have enough to turn the starter. Make sure all battery and ground connections are good and starter connections are tight.And have you scanned it to see what trouble codes might be showing up?

Brand new battery so yes. Battery's fine. It does this randomly. Most the time I end up leaving the key in the on position and it fixes itself. However I can't test the code until I get my own reader. The check engine light for this particular issue isn't storing.

Some auto parts stores will read the codes for you at no charge. Maybe check that out. My '06 does weird electrical things like that too from time to time although it always starts. Oddly if I turn the lights on and flip from high beam to low beam it seems to reset everything. In my case it always seems to act up in really damp weather so I'm guessing there's a bit of condensation getting into a connection somewhere. So far the problem's not serious enough for me to go searching. Intermittent problems like that are rally tough to find unless its triggering a trouble code.

Quite often, weird electrical problems are caused by a bad ground somewhere. Also, the more I think about what you wrote, I wonder if the electrical part of your ignition switch is going bad.