I own several devices that won’t work with a C-to-C cable. Somehow something gets confused. You need to use a C-to-A cable and if you have a computer that only has C ports like me, then you need to use an A-to-C dongle. What a mess.
These devices are probably missing the resistors between each of the two CC pins and the ground, which are necessary to tell the computer on the other end of the C-to-C cable "I'm a device and need you to put 5V on the power pins". The C-to-A cable, on the other hand, always has that 5V power (because the A end of the connection always supplies power; that's the reason why A-to-A cables are forbidden, they would short together the power supply of both ends), which means the device gets powered even if it's missing the CC resistors.
That is, it's a manufacturing defect, and the device was probably tested only with C-to-A cables; once C-to-C cables become more common (at least where I live, it took a long time before I managed to even find one, while C-to-A cables were plentiful and many devices came with one), this will become less of a problem.