Sounds like a bad cable from a mystery bin is almost a rite of passage. I once grabbed a random USB hub off a free table at a maker meetup and it worked fine for weeks, then one day it started writing photos as half gray images. Lost a whole shoot from a trip to Sedona before I figured it out. The thing still passed a basic file copy test, which is the sneaky part. Now I just toss anything I can't trace back to a brand I trust, even if it seems to work. Cheap cables lie to you.

Didn't think those kits could handle couch wear, but yours sounds like it actually works.

Dang, I gotta disagree with you there! I've bought plenty of cheap electronics on Marketplace and most folks are just trying to offload stuff they don't need, not run some weird contact info scam.