ADB No Devices Found

Question

I am attempting to install an Android app on my brand new Nexus 10. I have a .apk file. I have downloaded the Android SDK, installed "Android SDK Tools", "Android SDK Platform-tools", and Google USB Driver. I have checked the setting on my Nexus 10 for "Unknown Sources".

When I run "adb devices" from the command terminal, it doesn't list any devices. I attempted to follow this recommendation, because it was identical to a suggestion I had previously found here on Stack Overflow. After following those steps, "adb devices" still returns an empty list and to make it worse, when I connect my Nexus 10 to my PC, Windows doesn't show any folders within the device.

I have undone the steps in that link, along with everything else I have done so far, as well as uninstalling my Nexus 10 from Device Manager and reinstalling it, but I am still not seeing any folders in the device.

Is there anything I am missing to get my device to show up in ADB devices?

What can I do to get Windows to see the folders within the device?

Answer 1

For the Blu Studio 5.5s ADB drivers, you have to go through this hoop. I am certain it is the same with all Blu phones or maybe for all non-Google mfg phones, I am not sure. First of all if you connect the Blu device with USB cable and USB Debuggin off, you will see that Windows 7 loads a generic driver for you to copy on/off files to the phone and SD storage. This will appear when the USB cable is first plugged in and appears as a device icon under Control Panel, Device Manager, Portable Devices, BLU STUDIO 5.5 S (or the device you are working with). Do not bother getting the hardware ID yet - just observe that this happens (which indicates you are good so far and don't have a bad cable or something).

Go to the phone and switch on USB Debugging in the Developer section of your phone. Notice that an additional item appears as an undefined device now in the device manager list, it will have the yellow exclamation mark and it may have the same name of the phone listed as you saw under Portable Devices. Ignore this item for the moment. Now, without doing anything to the phone (it should be already in USB debug mode) go back to the Portable Devices in Device Manager and right-click the BLU STUDIO 5.5 S or whatever phone you are working with that is listed there without the exclamation mark (listed under Portable Devices). Right click on the icon under Portable Devices, in this example the name that appears is BLU STUDIO 5.5 S. On that icon select Properties, Details, and under the pull down, select Hardware IDs and copy down what you see.

For BLU STUDIO 5.5 S I get:

USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C02&REV_0216&MI_00
USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C02&MI_00

(Note if you do this out of turn, the HW ID will be different with the phone USB debugging turned off. You want to copy the value that it changes to when the USB debugging is ON)

Now do as the instructions say above, of course customizing the lines you add the the INF file with those relating to your own phone, not the Nexus 10. Here is what to customize; when you downloaded the SDK you should have a file structure expanded from the ZIP such as this:

\adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20140321\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver

Find the file named: android_winusb.inf in the usb_driver folder Make a copy of it and name it anything, such as myname.inf Edit the myname.inf and add the lines as instructed above only modified for your particular phone. For example, for the BLU STUDIO 5.5 S, I added the following 2 lines as instructed in the 2 locations as instructed.

;BLU STUDIO 5.5 S
%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C02&REV_0216&MI_00
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C02&MI_00

Note that you add these lines to both the 32 and 64 bit sections, matching how the example in the tutorial reads.

Now go back up to the unknown device that appeared in Device Manager when you switched on device USB debugging and right click on this item (has yellow exclamation mark), right click on it and then select Update Driver Software, and then Browse My Computer, Let Me Pick, click on the Have Disk button and browse to find the myname.inf. Continue to agree to all the prompts warning you it might not be the right driver. As the final step, Windows should have identified the device as Android ADB Interface and once that is done, you should be able to go back, open your CMD window and run the command "adb devices" as instructed in this tutorial and now you should see that the phone is now discovered and communicating.

Now you can go have fun with the adb command.

Answer 2

For my Nexus 6P downloading drivers from Google helped resolved the issue. Here is the URL with documentation. And here you can download the driver itself.

P.S. I saw some people advice to download some drivers from random places on internet. While this might help it's too dangerous in my mind to download unknown drivers from unofficial places. So the one from Google worked well for me :)

Answer 3

Installing Samsung Kies and using their tool to reinstall device drivers, is what finally worked for me with my Galaxy S3 and Tab S 8.4

Answer 4

This situation seems to arise with some ADB drivers. I have encountered the same thing with a couple of Google devices and installing the Universal ADB windows driver has fixed it for me every time.

Answer 5

The device may not be visible for debugging if it is in MTP mode. Some devices only work in PTP mode (or even in "charging only" mode).

This can be changed in Settings > Storage > more > USB Connection.

Answer 6

After downloading the Google drivers via Android SDK Manager (available via Eclipse, Intellij or Android Studio), I had to update the driver in Computer Management > Device Manager > Other Devices > ADB - right clicking and clicking on update driver and browsing for updated driver finally did the trick.

BTW, a total nightmare for me as well. I continue to be bewildered that setting up a dev environment should be the most difficult task imaginable, with each new inexplicable failure leading to another one. Jeesh! Good luck.