adb not finding my device / phone (MacOS X)

Question

Doing Android development on a Mac and this very new phone I have doesn't show up in the devices list in adb. Lots of other phones and devices work fine for me so I know my setup is good.

I have debugging enabled (Settings --> Applications --> Development --> USB debugging) on the phone, but it just doesn't show up when I run adb devices

Answer 1

If you have installed the application EasyTether, this can interfere with ADB.

From this page you can execute the command:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/EasyTetherUSBEthernet.kext 

this will unload your EasyTether extension.

If you need to re-enable EasyTether for tethering, I believe you can use:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/EasyTetherUSBEthernet.kext 

This worked on my Samsung Galaxy S2. It's been necessary in my case to execute the kextunload command everytime I reboot.

Answer 2

I switched to a different USB port and that got it to show up in the adb devices list.

That was the only thing that worked for me of all the solutions proposed here. It was proposed by @user908643 in this comment.

Answer 3

Try rebooting (if it was ever detected before and stopped showing up) - the mother of all solutions!

Answer 4

In my case, it was because the USB cable.

I discovered there are two types of USB cables:

• Those that only supply power
• Those that supply power and can transfer data

And it's hard to know what type is a USB cable. Now I make a notch on my cables with data transfer.

Answer 5

With the newer adb version, you have to remove ~/.android/adb_usb.ini

Answer 6

Simply changing the cable and Authorizing the Mac worked for me!