[itsspring]

Heh, just this week I was struggling to get a device to work with my laptop, until after 90+ minutes I realized there were different types of USB-C, and the one I had (the Apple charger cable) only did charging.

I needed one that transmitted video, so I then went to order a $10 USB-C, only to realize those also only did charging. Finally found what I needed, but I thought USB-C was finally "universal", but turns out much of that is just marketing...

Edit: Turns out the one I just bought ($40 USB-C Apple thunderbolt cable) doesn't even fit into the device because the edges are too thick. Ridiculous

[sq_]

I think it's one of those things where it sounds good as an idea but breaks down in implementation.

"Let's design a port/interconnect standard that does everything" is great in concept, but one manufacturer or another is going to leave out bits in the cable to keep costs down or not implement something in their device-side firmware. You end up with the situation we have now where there's insane levels of fragmentation, and you can never be quite sure whether two things are going to work together or not.

[ip26]

Clear branding would help with a lot of it. E.g. mark dumb cables that only do charging as USB-PWR while full feature cables are USB 50 or USB 100, for example, depending on data rate.

[viraptor]

Fortunately the time will likely sort it out. We had similar issues with the original USB at the beginning. (When you actually needed extra pci card to support it) Now USB connections "just work". Hopefully it will happen to usb-c as well.

[londons_explore]

The solution to this is a "self test" every time a device is plugged in.

Each device should run a full test suite of the cable and the device at the other end, and if any fail, it should refuse to work.

Part of the test suite should be checking that the device at the other end of the cable is also running the test suite.

Everything should be tested - for example if USB can transmit video over certain pins, the test suite should involve sending a frame of video, even if your device is a usb stick and doesn't need video. That way nobody can leave out bits of the spec.

USB is insanely fast, so thousands of tests should be doable in under a second, and in fact if the other device can't pass the tests quick enough that should be reason for failure.

[zantana]

It always seems that the drivers or something could say what the cable did or if it was detecting a signal or something.

I had a ton of octopus cable swag and took a bunch without testing on a trip and found out none of them charged my iphone! Frustrating to say the least!

[iwalton3]

I bought a bunch of Micro USB cables for the same reason. Most of the ones I had on hand didn't have data lines as they were only for charging, which can be fun to troubleshoot as devices connected to the cables just don't show up.

[pantalaimon]

Those are a special kind of evil. I always made sure to properly mark them to not spend time debugging non-working USB connections.

[sackofmugs]

That's strange, I've never encountered a usb-c cable that did not support data at all. My understanding (and the article suggests) that charging and data are fine in general, but just not as fast as the device can support. Basically they will charge or transfer data at regular usb or micro-usb speeds.

[itsspring]

Ya, I found the answer on Apple's site:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208368

> Compared with Apple USB-C Charge Cable The Apple USB-C Charge Cable is longer (2m) and also supports charging, but data-transfer speed is limited to 480Mbps (USB 2.0) and it doesn't support video. The Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable has Thunderbolt logo on the sleeve of each connector. Either cable can be used with the Apple USB-C Power Adapter.

[dogma1138]

The cable that comes with the Mac chargers is only a USB 2.0 + USB-C power delivery the cable and doesn’t support usb 3.0/3.1 data rates or TB.

USB type-C cables that support power delivery can have 2 ground pints, 4 VBUS (power) pins and 1 CC (cable connect/config channel) pin.

[atombender]

The first MacBook model with USB-C shipped with a USB 2.0 cable for its charger that only supported charging. I don't know if this is still true, though (I haven't checked the one that came with my newest one).

[MatmaRex]

I haven't seen one either but I can easily believe it, as there are proprietary magnetic USB-C adapters that do not support data (they only have 5 or 6 pins). I can imagine a "normal" cable behaving the same way.

[kelnos]

I specifically bought a charge-only USB-C cable so I wouldn't have to worry about plugging my phone into an untrusted port to charge.

[gambiting]

I have a somewhat similar problem, where my nvme drive enclosure works with the USB-C port on one side of my laptop but not with the other - but both ports should be identical spec wise. Nothing makes sense any more.

[mycall]

Does this same thing happen in different operating systems?

[jagged-chisel]

I have a MIDI piano that takes USB 2 Type B. I bought a B-to-C cable and it works fine with my laptop and desktop. I decided I needed an extension cable (for connecting a microphone) and I opted for USB-C.

The piano's cable doesn't work with the extension, unless you connect it the right way 'round. USB-C shouldn't need a right way 'round...

[dwaite]

Generalized extension cables aren't legal with USB for several reasons, including this.

[ksec]

And yes, when you get a USB-C that does data, it could also have been a cable that only do USB 2.0 Speed, or USB 3.1 Speed but not USB 3.2 2x2 Speed. And with USB4 there will be additional layer with Thunderbolt 4.

And all these were known since Day 1 in 2016.