Mount Galaxy A5 (2017) on Ubuntu via MTP

Question

I have been reading numerous articles on this, but nothing seems to work for me. I have a Galaxy A5 (2017) running on Android 6.0.1. When I plug it into my Ubuntu 14.04 laptop, the phone is recognised and I can browse the folders and see files. However, I cannot open any of the files, nor can I copy anything to the phone.

When I first plug it in, this is the dmesg output:

[ 2168.258890] usb 2-1: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[ 2168.276856] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, idProduct=6860
[ 2168.276860] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2168.276862] usb 2-1: Product: SAMSUNG_Android
[ 2168.276863] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: SAMSUNG
[ 2168.276864] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: d31e7ed99d31e7ed

At this point, "SAMSUNG Android" shows up in Nautilus, with nothing in it. The phone then asks me if I want to allow the connection, which I do. Then dmesg displays the following additional output:

[ 2190.116385] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 9
[ 2190.417923] usb 2-1: new high-speed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
[ 2190.434886] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, idProduct=6860
[ 2190.434891] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2190.434894] usb 2-1: Product: SAMSUNG_Android
[ 2190.434897] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: SAMSUNG
[ 2190.434899] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: d31e7ed99d31e7ed

Another Nautilus window pops up and the contents of the SAMSUNG Android device now contain "Phone". When I open that, it displays the directory structure. Like I said, I can browse through it, but not actually read the files or copy anything to it.

The "Use USB for" setting on the phone is set to "Transferring media files"; "Transfer media files to a PC via an MTP connection.".

When I change this to "Transferring images"; "Transfer images and other files via a PTP connection if MTP is not supported.", then I can open images on the phone, but I am restricted to only directories containing images.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

For users who were out of luck with mtpfs, jmtpfs, go-mtpfs or any other libraries which depend on libmtp; try android-file-transfer.

It does not depend on libmtp and is thus free from inherent bugs, is the most up-to-date MTP library I have seen on GitHub (as of May 2018), and also can be used with FUSE, although I personally recommend to use its own Qt-based GUI to avoid possible FUSE back-front interaction bugs.

Just make sure you DO NOT open your MTP device using any default mechanisms provided by your Linux distro, e.g. clicking on Open when the device-connected notification pops up!

• Github: https://github.com/whoozle/android-file-transfer-linux
• PPA: https://launchpad.net/~samoilov-lex/+archive/ubuntu/aftl-stable

Read about MTP on Linux: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MTP