[gumby]

I people have been voting this down, but I have seen this very occasionally in the wild. I don't have a good theory; my guess is either some tolerance combined with gunk on a pin or gunk on a bin that is dislodged by removal and re-insertion. But it doesn't happen enough for a good controlled experiment.

[freeflight]

I have the same problem with Anker lightning cables, which I don't consider that "cheap", on both an iPhone SE and an iPad air.

The issue persists even after replacing the iPhone lightning port with a brand new one, across two different Anker cables.

I guess I'll be sticking to original Apple cables, still, it's mildly infuriating.

[m463]

I suspect there is circuitry involved in these cables, and it is either not implemented, poorly implemented or prone to failure.