LG G4 not seen/recognized by ADB

4
votes

I can't get my LG G4 phone to show up in ADB on my Windows 10 desktop machine - no devices are found by running "adb devices" or "adb usb" in cmd or checking Android Studio's device manager tab.

Things I've tried:

  • I've toggled USB debugging mode
  • I've rebooted phone and PC
  • I've installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled the following drivers in every permutation/combination/etc:
    • LG's driver (LGMobileDriver_WHQL_Ver_4.2.0 and version 4.0.4)
    • Google USB Driver (via Android Studio); note, I don't actually see any changes whatsoever to my system when I install/uninstall this, so I'm not sure what it's doing
    • UniversalAdbDriverSetup6
    • whatever Windows keeps installing automatically
  • I've tried charge only mode / MTP mode / PTP mode. Most of the time I leave it in PTP mode because that seems to be what other posts say, but that hasn't made a difference for me.
  • I've tried different USB ports on my desktop
  • I've tried "adb kill-server / start-server"
  • I've tried "adb devices / usb"
  • I've unplugged/plugged in my phone repeatedly

So far, nothing gets adb to see it.

Further details:

  • whatever drivers I have installed, I only ever see (under Device Manager) some subset of the following:
    • Android Device > Android Sooner Single ADB Interface
    • Android Device > LGE Mobile ADB Interface
    • Portable Devices > G4 (with a blue phone icon or with a gray phone icon, depending on if I have LG's provided driver installed)
    • Universal Serial Bus devices > ADB Interface
  • there are no "unknown" / "other" fields under device manager, even if I uninstall drivers
  • there are no yellow triangle warning icons in device manager
  • I have automatic driver updates turned off (it was on before, but I turned it off to make sure it wasn't some automatic function breaking things)
    • this doesn't stop Windows from automatically doing whatever it automatically does when I plug in the device - it always auto-installs some kind of basic driver if I've deleted everything else

NOTE:

  • despite what it looks like, this question is NOT a duplicate, as all the other similar questions I've found are either outdated or marked resolved with a "solution" that didn't work for me (which is where I got all of the failed attempts listed above)
  • I also have a laptop (the above attempts were on my desktop), also running Windows 10. Its adb sees my phone; however, once it does see my phone, fastboot can't see my phone. If this happens with my desktop too, I'll make a separate question, but for the meanwhile my goal is to get my phone showing up on my desktop's adb.
3
androidwindows-10adbdriver
i also find these adb problems to be very mysterious. and i hesitate to suggest this because it's a long shot and tedious. but, it's all i can think of, and sometimes it works: uninstall Android Studio, shut down the desktop and the LG G4. start the desktop up and then reinstall Android Studio. start up the phone again and plug it in. it is a long shot and I'm sincerely sorry if this doesn't work. if you know anyone with a Mac you might try connecting the LG G4 to that machine. i've had much better luck with Macs than PCs for connecting with adb. – albert c braun
Also just making sure that you've tried different cable or MTP/PTP works and you are able to see and move files to/from PC from device. – Morrison Chang
@albertcbraun I don't understand what went different but that worked o.O thank you! – mwarrior
Looked into it further, looks like switching to the ADB Driver doesn't activate until after a reboot. For some reason it just doesn't acknowledge this. – mwarrior
@mwarrior that's great. glad you got it to work! i've had many very frustrating/confusing problems with adb over the last few years, especially on windows machines. i finally changed over to a mac (it seems like every Google developer advocate who works on Android is using a mac) and that has worked more reliably, IMHO. again, congratulations on getting it to work on windows. – albert c braun

3 Answers

3
votes

In my case, my error was that I was trying to enable USB Debug on my phone with it connected. I enabled USB Debug while the phone is disconnected and then it worked.

3
votes

You have to set the usb connection option to charging only, then you will get the option for USB debugging

0
votes

This may be a bit late, but could it be the USB cable?

Today I've had the same issue, and after trying all those things you've tried as well, with adb kill/start, nothing worked. Then I've tried another LG G4 (yes, luckily I've had two of those) which was connected to another adb on another PC, working just fine there, but it wouldn't work here. So, it took me a while to figure out to try that same USB cable from the working PC. It seems there are USB cables that do not support the data transfer needed for adb.