How to solve ADB device unauthorized in Android AD

Question

When I'm using a rooted Android device as ADB host to send adb command "adb devices" to Samsung S4, I received device unauthorized error message. However when I tried adb to Samsung Galaxy Nexus, it is working fine. Can anyone advise how to solve my Samsung S4 problem?

=========================================
# adb devices
List of devices attached
4d00f9169907301b        unauthorized
=========================================

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Found that this problem only happened to Android 4.2.2 and above. The following link explained that Google has implemented some new security features for using adb.

http://nelenkov.blogspot.com/2013/02/secure-usb-debugging-in-android-422.html

Appreciate if anyone can help on this.

Answer 1

• Get the public key from the client phone (adb host)

  cat /data/.android/adbkey.pub

• copy the above public key to the target phone's /data/misc/adb/adb_keys location. (you may need to stop the adb daemon first with stop adbd)

  cat /data/misc/adb/adb_keys

verify both cat outputs match.

try restarting adb daemon on target start adbd or just reboot them.

If you are having problems reading or writing to ADB KEYS in above steps, try setting environment variable ADB_KEYS_PATH with a temporary path (eg: /data/local/tmp). Refer to that link it goes into more details

    "On the host, the user public/private key pair is automatically generated,
    if it does not exist, when the adb daemon starts and is stored in
    $HOME/.android/adb_key(.pub) or in $ANDROID_SDK_HOME on windows. If needed,
    the ADB_KEYS_PATH env variable may be set to a :-separated (; under
    Windows) list of private keys, e.g. company-wide or vendor keys.

    On the device, vendors public keys are installed at build time in
    /adb_keys. User-installed keys are stored in /data/misc/adb/adb_keys"

Answer 2

Experience With: ASUS ZENFONE

If at all you have faced Missing Driver for Asus Zenfones Follow This Link (http://donandroid.com/how-to-install-adb-interface-drivers-windows-7-xp-vista-623)

I tried with

1) Killing and starting adb server at adb cmd.

2) Switching Usb Debugging on and Off and ...

This is What WORKED with me.

Step 1:Remove Connection with Device and Close Eclipse

Step 2:Navigate to C:/Users/User_name/.android/

Step 3:You Will Find adb_key

Step 4:Just delete it.

Step 5.Connect again and System will ask you Again.

Step 6.Ask Device to remember RSA Key when it Prompts. I think its done.

If you Face The Same Problem after couple of days, just disable and enable USB debugging

Answer 3

For me, the emulator could not have Google Play Services enabled. It could have Google APIs or be x86 or x64 but not google play store.

Answer 4

Try this steps:

1. unplug device
2. adb kill-server
3. adb start-server
4. plug device

You need to allow Allow USB debugging in your device when popup.

Answer 5

Have you tried

adb kill-server
adb shell

Sometimes adb gets stuck and first killing adb server and then starting some command forces authorization window to pop-up.

Also please check adb client version on your phone. THis feature is supported from adb 1.0.31 as far as I remember.

Answer 6

You must be prompted in your s4 screen to authorize that computer. You can tell it to remember it. This is for security reasons, occurring in Android 4.4+