Sandisk Clip Sport plus skipping "Transferring" going straight to "Charging"

Here’s a weird thing.  I was able to get it to work, transfer perfectly, but only with a $1 cheapie cable pluggied into my laptop.  I’ve never used my laptop for transferring to the SanDisk before.

Using that cable on my workstation, no good.  No other cable seems to work.

Somewhat solved, but I have no idea what went wrong, or why this particular combination works, when all others did not.