241
votes

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?

30
Have you enabled usb debugging in the developer settings on your nexus 10?WarrenFaith
"Have you enabled usb debugging in the developer settings on your nexus 10? " in Android Developing is like the Question "Have you tried turning your Computer off and on again" XDuser2169268
A note to others: The SDK will not install the driver at all! The driver doesn't even have an installer actually. You have to plug in a device and manually tell windows where the driver is.Amaron
The developer settings are hidden in more recent versions of Abdroid.See askvg.com/…. Summary, go to Settings -> About Phone -> Build Number, and tap on it 7 times to make the developer settings visible. Seriously. My phone is Android 4.4.2, and it worked for me.Faheem Mitha
@RenéRamge Save those kinds of comments for reddit, where they belong. New developers come thru here every day, and suggestions that are obvious to your or me aren't necessarily obvious to a beginner. WarrenFaith's comment will undoubtedly be useful to someone, whereas yours isn't useful to anyone.b1nary.atr0phy

30 Answers

199
votes

Windows 8 wouldn't recognize my Nexus 10 device. Fixed by Setting the transfer mode to Camera (PTP) through the settings dialogue on the device.

Settings > Storage > Menu > USB Computer connection to "Camera (PTP)"

134
votes

For Windows 8 users:

After trying every solution given here, with no success, I found this:

Go to Device Manager

Update Driver Software ...


Browse my computer for drivers -> Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer

Choose Android Device and then Android ADB Interface.

Android ADB Interface


Now I have my devices listed at adb devices.

69
votes

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.

55
votes

Use another cable.

Just found out that one of my regular charging cables had Vcc, Gnd pairs, but no Data+, Data-.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Pinouts

44
votes

I have found a solution (for Windows 7):

  1. Connect your Nexus 10 to PC
  2. Go to Windows Device Manager
  3. RClick on ADB Interface -> properties
  4. Details -> Hardware Ids.

You will see two records like these:

USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2
USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&MI_01

5 Open the android_winusb.inf file (I have it in "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver" directory)

6 Create such records in [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections using Hardware Ids from properties of ADB interface:

;Google Nexus 10
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&MI_01

7 Save the file, and update driver for ADB Interface with showing the path to "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver" directory

44
votes

Make sure to Enable USB debugging in Settings -> Developer options

Also, run "adb devices" after getting into the platform tools folder in the Android SDK (unless you have that folder on your system path already), otherwise the command won't be found.

43
votes

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 > Developer Options > Networking > Default USB configuration > PTP.

Also, you'll get a notification on your android device asking you for confirmation about USB configuration setting change and to allow it.

Note: You can turn on developer options by following the link below: enable developer options

31
votes

Sometimes ADB loses connection to the device, and needs to be reset. If you have everything else working (ie USB driver installed, Developer settings enabled on the device), and still can't see your device, you need to reset the ADB process.

This is available in the DDMS Perspective (from within Eclipse), Devices tab (the triangle on the far right includes a menu item to perform the reset).

Otherwise from the command line, you can reset it with the following 2 commands:

adb kill-server

then

adb start-server
14
votes

Enable Developer options in your device. To enable the developer mode, setting->About phone, tap Build number option 8 times continuously

Go to Settings-> Developer options and Turn on USB debugging

From the above steps it didn't work try this step, Go to Settings->Security and turn on Allow Unknown Resources

10
votes

You have to download the drivers from the SDK manager (extras → Google USB Driver)

Then you have to install the USB driver in Windows (it works for me in Windows 8.1):

(Copy and paste from http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/oem-usb.html#InstallingDriver:)

  1. Connect your Android-powered device to your computer's USB port.
  2. Right-click on "Computer" from your desktop or Windows Explorer, and select "Manage".
  3. Select "Devices" in the left pane.
  4. Locate and expand "Other device" in the right pane.
  5. Right-click the device name (such as Nexus S) and select "Update Driver Software." This will launch the "Hardware Update Wizard".
  6. Select "Browse my computer for driver software" and click "Next." Click "Browse" and locate the USB driver folder. (The Google USB Driver is located in <sdk>\extras\google\usb_driver\.)
  7. Click "Next" to install the driver.
7
votes

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.

7
votes

It was a bad USB cable for me. After trying a suite of solutions, I changed to a different USB cable and my device showed up.

5
votes

On my Windows 8.1 64bit (Nexus 5 did not show up), only manually installing the USB driver fixed it: http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html The "Google USB Driver" in "Android SDK Manager" was installed already.

5
votes

I still get this once in a while and it usually works if I unplug it and plug it back in a different port. I'm on Linux but had the same thing happen on Windows before.

4
votes

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

4
votes

I have just solve this problem in my Mac OS X, it is not about device driver or device cable.

You must enable "developer options" and enable "USB debugging"

Please refer CyanogenMod wiki "Device not found" errors and Doc: developer options

3
votes

Normally SDB will download the driver in the **android-sdk-windows\extras\google\usb_driver** path

Here are the steps that worked for me:

  1. Enable USB debugging.
  2. Do to device manager, right click on ADB device and click update driver software.
  3. Select "Browse my computer for Driver Software"
  4. Select "Let me pick from list of Device drivers on my computer"
  5. Click on "Have Disk" option.
  6. Select the driver path **android-sdk-windows\extras\google\usb_driver** (path of sdk) 7.Select 1st driver out of list of drivers shown.

And hopefully, it will work.

3
votes

I tried almost all the suggestions in most of the answers (the most popular), nothing was helping. Finally, I found the reason in my case. I used a bad USB cable. I change to another original USB cable - and it immediately worked!!!.

I hope it helps someone else.

2
votes

Edit: I recommend you DO NOT run ADB under VirtualBox if you are using a Windows Host. Somehow I got VirtualBox to lock the device drivers on the host, eventually making it so that the ADB wouldn't work on the client nor the host for any device I plugged in. To fix, I removed VirtualBox extensions on the host and ran http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html to delete the incorrect drivers. I could not get the correct drivers to load while VirtualBox extensions were installed, and this problem was a complete bastard to diagnose and fix.

Edit 2: Also the following is probably out of date, now that Google have released an integrated ADB extension for Chrome.

What an installation nightmare... Here are the steps I needed to get my Nexus 10 recognised on an XP virtual machine running under VirtualBox:

  • If you get asked to install Nexus 10 drivers, make sure to untick "don't ask again" (you WANT to be asked again!).
  • Plug in the Nexus 10 USB connection
  • Turn on debugging in the Nexus 10 settings Developer menu (tap "About Tablet" 7 times to get that menu).
  • In your virtual machine settings (host), add the samsung Nexus 10 device to the USB Device Filters (important - selecting it from the devices menu didn't seem to work).
  • In guest install java jre (if you don't have java installed). In Control Panel, change Java settings so that java doesn't run in the browser (to help prevent security issues).
  • In guest get the adk zip file and put it somewhere permanent. I needed to delete the .android config directory from the user directory because I moved the directory.
  • Run the SDK Manager.exe - if it doesn't work, try running sdk\tools\android.bat which seems to give better error reporting.
  • From SDK Manager install the Google USB driver package.
  • Unplug the Nexus 10 and plug it in again, and install the Google USB driver package.
  • Restart the guest.
  • running c:>[...]\sdk\platformtools> adb devices finally shows me the device...
2
votes

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.

2
votes

At first Thanks @rmsyk's post.

For my issue and after long time suffering with Meizu C9 Pro witch require just android ADB drivers (no special drivers) referring to manufacturer and it solved in my Windows 7 PC by the bellow steps.

  1. Make Sure to

    • Install latest version of ADB & Fastboot with the needed drivers.
    • Enable Developer options & USB Debugging.
    • Enable Media File Transfer (MTP Mode).
  2. Manually replace C:\Users\USERNAME\.android with the folder included here ,Then kill process 'adb.exe' if found from Windows Task Manager and use adb devices and finally my device listed successfully and just confirm the PC as trusted.

Notes:

  1. Android Studio was uninstalled in earlier time and also i tried to reinstall but was not a solution at all.
  2. Tried adb kill-server & adb start-server but was not a solution too.
1
votes

I had turned all settings in developer mode, but adb was still not showing any devices.

I was not using the cable that came with my phone. Once I switched to it, everything just worked.

1
votes

Confirm you have the correct platform SDK tools

For Windows 10, had to manually download the latest platform SDK tools from Android as the version supplied through Visual Studio 2017 EMDK for Xamarin was not sufficient. Everything else except adb.exe devices worked.

https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools

After the platform tools were manually downloaded, device showed up regardless of USB configuration (charging, MTP, etc.)

Installing an emulator device at this stage is also helpful to see whether the problem is with adb or your physical device.

List of devices attached
12345D1234      device
emulator-5554   device
1
votes

There could be two reasons why adb devices command is not working for you. Either your phones USB drivers are not installed properly or you have not enabled USB debugging mode.

I created a tool that makes installing USB drivers a one click thing.

  1. Just connect your phone in USB debugging mode to PC.

  2. Run my tool

It will detect and install drivers specific to your phone and also install the latest ADB & Fastboot binaries with it.

The tool is available at my GitHub Repo

0
votes

It's so easy, just turn off your Android device, and then hold down both "Volume Down" key and "Power" at the same time. Wait a few seconds till it start in recovery mode, done. Now type adb devices, and you'll see your device.

0
votes

I had the same problem with my Windows 8. The Android/SDK USB driver was installed correctly, but I forgot to install the USB driver from my phone. After installing the phone USB driver ADB works fine.

I hope this will help.

0
votes

Turn on debugging in the Nexus settings Developer menu (tap "About Tablet" 7 times to get that menu).

Freaking Google tricks!

0
votes

Have you had an android update recently? I updated to Lollipop and all the sudden I had no adb devices. Boo! I spent awhile trying a few things to no avail. Then I went into my developer options and lo and behold, "USB debugging" had been turned off. Silly Google. After turning it back on, it immediately showed up and I'm back in business!

0
votes

GoTo DeviceManager, then right click on the android device and click uninstall driver. Unplug and plug the device back...then a pop will come on your device while your pc installs the required drivers. Click "allow" on the popup. You can see your device when you type "adb devices" in command prompt.

0
votes

For Windows, just end all the processes related to Blue stacks or any such emulator if you are using.

Worked for me.