mini-usb stick only recognising when forced in

Hi,

My tablet used to work normally with my usb stick (SanDisk Dual Drive, one end normal usb, one end min-usb) and I would routinely copy data from a laptop onto my tablet and vice versa. I’ve recently found that I really have to push the mini-usb end in quite far and hold it in there tight for the usb stick to show up on the tablet’s MyFiles app (I used to use a more sophisticated file browser but the built in one works fine). Obviously forcing it in is probably not a good long term idea so I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts? I’ve tried a wooden toothpick in the charging port to clean lint out but there wasn’t much in there and it’s still the same as before.

the usb stick works on other phones and the tablet charges fine through the charging port.