Droid Explorer does not recognize my HTC Incredible S

Question

Please note that this question is now resolved (March 10, 2015) by new release of DE version 9.0.0.1 with thanks to Ryan.

My phone is Rooted and has BusyBox installed and USB Debugging enabled. Device Manager shows Android USB Devices \ My HTC - device working properly. DE shows blank 'Select Device' screen. I am running DE version 0.9.0.0 (x64) on Windows 7 Pro.

I have done the following..

1. uninstalled all software that included a copy of adb.exe including Android sdk
2. uninstalled DE
3. uninstalled USB phone drivers
4. re-booted the PC
5. installed USB phone drivers by downloading and installing latest version of HTC Sync from the HTC web site.
6. installed latest version of Android Studio
7. installed DE
8. copied android sdk (from the Android Studio installation) to c:\program Files\DE\Android\
9. Updated the sdk path in the DE config file (in folder 'data') accordingly

10. Run CMD.exe and, using the DE copy of adb.exe, killed the server, started the server, listed the devices; my phone was listed......

11. Run DE and DE shows blank "Select Device" screen....

DE Config file....

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<DroidExplorer>
    <PluginSettings>
        <Paths>
            <Path>Plugins</Path>
        </Paths>
    </PluginSettings>
    <SdkPath>c:\Program Files\Droid Explorer\Android\sdk\</SdkPath>
    <Window>
        <Size>
            <Width>0</Width>
            <Height>0</Height>
        </Size>
        <Location>
            <X>0</X>
            <Y>0</Y>
        </Location>
        <FolderView>Details</FolderView>
    </Window>
    <ApkPaths>
        <Path>/data/app/</Path>
        <Path>/system/app/</Path>
        <Path>/data/app-private/</Path>
        <Path>/sd/app/</Path>
        <Path>/sd/app-private/</Path>
    </ApkPaths>
</DroidExplorer>

DE Log.....

2015-03-06 08:27:11,672   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Settings Loaded from file 'C:\Users\Helen\AppData\Roaming\DroidExplorer\Data\DroidExplorer.config'
2015-03-06 08:27:11,720   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Using build tools version 21.1.2
2015-03-06 08:27:11,721   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Checking for adb.exe
2015-03-06 08:27:11,722   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Using build tools version 21.1.2
2015-03-06 08:27:11,722   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Checking for aapt.exe
2015-03-06 08:27:11,828   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Using build tools version 21.1.2
2015-03-06 08:27:11,828   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Checking for adb.exe
2015-03-06 08:27:11,828   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] adb.exe start-server
2015-03-06 08:27:12,093   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] 
2015-03-06 08:27:12,094   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Using build tools version 21.1.2
2015-03-06 08:27:12,094   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Checking for adb.exe
2015-03-06 08:27:12,094   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] adb.exe devices -l
2015-03-06 08:27:12,507   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Using build tools version 21.1.2
2015-03-06 08:27:12,507   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] Checking for adb.exe
2015-03-06 08:27:12,507   [1    ][ DEBUG] [DroidExplorer.Core.Logger] adb.exe devices -l

On March 8, 2015....

I would appreciate receiving advice as to how to solve this problem.

Please note that this question is now resolved (March 10, 2015) by new release of DE version 9.0.0.1 with thanks to Ryan.

Answer 1

Part of the problem here had to do with Droid Explorer. There was a bug in version 0.9.0.0 that did not support when adb devices -l returned the "slimmer" format. This bug was corrected in 0.9.0.1.

I just had a breakthrough. The device is not responding correctly to the adb devices -l because the adbd that runs on the device, in this case the Incredible S, has not been updated to support the newer commands. The -l switch is a newer addition to the devices command. It only knows how to respond to adb devices, not adb devices -l, so it just ignores the -l and responds to the devices request as it normally would.

Since you have an SDK from when Droid Explorer used to install it here is what I suggest.

• Uninstall Droid Explorer
• Go into C:\Program Files\Droid Explorer\ and delete everything.
• You can also delete C:\Users\Ryan\AppData\Roaming\DroidExplorer.
• Open Registry Editor (WIN+R -> regedit -> ENTER)
• Delete any of the following (if you don't have one or more that is ok, but delete all the ones you have)
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DroidExplorer
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\DroidExplorer
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DroidExplorer
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\DroidExplorer
• Reinstall Droid Explorer
• Make sure you pick the location of the Android SDK that you have installed

The SDKPath is no longer pulled from that config file. But I do actually have plans to put it back in the config file in the future.

The reason you have to uninstall is because we are deleting the registry settings, all of them. If you would like to try the Advanced Route, you can try the following:

Instead of deleting all the registry paths above check for one that contains InstallPath\SdkPath. This is probably in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\DroidExplorer, but could be in one of the USER locations as well. Change the value of SdkPath to be your path to where you have the Android SDK installed.