This is a sofa with 4 USB ports - one on either end, near the armrests, and two in the center console.
The two center ports no longer charge an iPhone, but I plugged a small USB light into them and this little light of mine does shine. The armrest ports do charge the phone.
I have tried multiple different charging cords and two different iPhones.
My thoughts at this point:
I only have non-Apple cords; maybe I need an authentic Apple charging cord?
Perhaps the port has enough power to shine a little light, but not enough to charge a phone?
Second the compressed air, along with maybe careful use of a toothpick or pipe cleaner. I’ve “fixed” several Type A USB ports where the problem was that dirt and lint in the jack kept the plug from being fully inserted. I’ve also used a sacrificial USB connector to clean jacks using Deoxit, but Deoxit is pretty expensive and I wouldn’t suggest buying some solely for this purpose.
When my son was in grade school I bought him an iPod. He loved that thing. Then one day it wouldn’t charge.
I took him to an Apple Store. The guy took the iPod into the back for a few minutes and returned with a huge grin on his face. He used jeweler’s forceps to remove a wad of the sticky goo used to hold inserts in magazines.
He’d never encountered this before and actually took some pictures of it. No charge. (ETA: actually it did charge). My son was so happy!
The best tool I’ve found for this (and yes, please unplug and turn off any device when cleaning ports!) is a plastic dental pick, ideally one with some form of ridges on the pick end. I have tried ones with bristles, but find they can break off and require more compressed air later to clean out, so I stick with the non-bristle versions in general.
Oh, and if at all possible, get a can of compressed air that is just that, nothing with a bitterant or anything else that leaves a residue. Which will generally be more expensive, but worth it.
And I assume the phone will charge from other power sources? In other words you’re sure it’s the USB ports and not the phone’s Lighting port? Because I’ve had phones not charge because there was dust or lint in the Lightning port.
You can buy cleaning kits for your phone’s Lightning port – I have one of these and it really works great.
ETA: Ah, I see you already stated in the OP that the other USB ports do charge the phone.
Just to confirm what you said there - they no longer charge the phones, as in, they did work at one point? Just wanting to confirm that this isn’t some weird design quirk.