“adb devices” returns empty “List of devices attached” on Ubuntu

Question

Based on react native documentation (https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/running-on-device) I wanted to connect to ADB in my ubuntu vm (Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS) but my problem is that i keep getting an empty list.

So what steps I have followed :

1. lsusb to extract mobile model (in my case 2a45)

devnull@greg_server:~$ lsusb

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2a45:2008 Meizu Corp. MX Phone (MTP)

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

2. input this into your udev rules in order to get up and running

echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2a45", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android-usb.rules

3. show adb list

devnull@greg_server:~$ adb devices

List of devices attached

In order to troubleshoot based on

“List of devices attached” is empty on Ubuntu 16.04 using "adb devices"

I followed the below steps :

1. created adb_usb.ini file and restarted adb server

devnull@greg_server:~$ cat ~/.android/adb_usb.ini

0x2a45

devnull@greg_server:~$ adb kill-server

devnull@greg_server:~$ adb start-server;

daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037

daemon started successfully

devnull@greg_server:~$ adb devices

List of devices attached

2. enabled usb debugging and checked again adb devices

In this case I noticed that lsusb doesn't identify my mobile and adb devices command returns again an empty list as shown below

devnull@greg_server:~$ lsusb

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

devnull@greg_server:~$ adb devices

List of devices attached

3. checked android usb file configuration

root@greg_server:/etc/udev/rules.d# pwd

/etc/udev/rules.d

root@greg_server:/etc/udev/rules.d# ls -lst

total 64

4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 71 Oct 24 07:18 51-android-usb.rules

60 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 58549 May 8 06:28 70-snap.core.rules

root@greg_server:/etc/udev/rules.d# cat 51-android-usb.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2a45", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

Any help on what might be the case?

Answer 1

I'm attempting to get ADB up and running on an older version of ubuntu, but my problems are more fundamental (I'm trying to do this in Virtualbox as well).

However - I noticed that this answer didn't contain something which has fixed the issue for others - the USB configuration mode (a developer option which should be under the dev settings somewhere).

On the device I'm using, this was under "Default USB Configuration" - advice from others appears to be that selecting PTP is the way to go.

Hope that might help out.