....snip...

Silly question, but before any work started, did you try these cables
plugged end-to-end to see if they actually worked?

Yes, but I assumed that when the charge symbol appeared the phone was
actually charging. I didn't leave it connected long enough to see if the
phone actually received a charge.

To be honest, that's probably all I would have done.

I did somethig similar with a Nokia 5800; despite researching I still didn't
twig that to charge if from USB I needed a nokia special "USB to mini-USB +
small plug" Y-cable. Although this model has the standard USB socket which
most companies use for charging, it doesn't charge via the USB socket - doh!
But at least it doesn't "show" it's charging when it's not.

Paul DS