I had a USB-C Xiaomi phone that at some point only allowed being plugged in in one orientation. I guess one side failed, but then again, that wasn't the only failing of that phone, nor even close to the most annoying.
That might not have been a symmetry problem per-say.
It could be that the phone correct determined the orientation but a pin was dirty/broken so it couldn't be used. When flipping the cable around the pin in use changes to one that isn't dirty/broken and so it works fine. USB-C may have a ton of pins but that doesn't mean all of them are needed to charge so flipping it can move a broken pin into the unused pins.
oh, yes, very likely it was a broken or dirty pin (that's what I mean with "failed"). I wouldn't be surprised if it was somehow a software problem as well (apparently for simplicity) some cheap USB-C port setups are wired as two ports.
