I bought some BTech MURS-V1 radios for my unlicensed family members and two of them have the same issue. I had to apply continuous side pressure on the programming cable connector where it enters the radio to get a successful read from CHIRP. The second replacement radio from BTech still seems a bit iffy in this regards. Need to wiggle it side-to-side after insertion to get a clean connection. So definitely a hardware issue with the Kenwood connector. These radios are Baofeng UV-82 clones with locked down firmware.
(Peter)