Android phone not recognized when connected to Ubuntu, by 'adb devices'

Question

Upgraded my HTC Slide to Froyo. Connecting Ubuntu 10.10 via USB.

As per instructions here, http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html

    $ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0BB4", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev" 
    $ ls -l /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 72 2011-10-23 20:57 /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
    $ adb devices
    List of devices attached 
    ????????????    no permissions

Answer 1

Had this very issue earlier tonight myself.

The 51-android.rules needs to be world read-execute, and it's probably best to run service udev restart (or reboot) after changing this, then re-plug your device.

If it still doesn't work, double-check the vendor ID you've supplied; with your Android device connected, run lsusb. HTC also use the vendor ID 18d1 on newer devices.

Answer 2

I had this issue myself when rooting my kindle fire and I did:

$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules     
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1949", MODE="0666"

Then in my ~/.android/adb_usb.ini file I added

0x1949

Where 1949 is the vendor id for the kindle I believe.

And after restarting the box, adb devices shows my kindle. Or instead of restarting udevadm control --reload-rules and adb kill-server && adb start-server should be sufficient.

Answer 3

If you only need to work with devices on a very infrequent basis, you can restart the adb server daemon as root.

./adb kill-server

sudo ./adb devices

Please note that it's not a good idea to make the daemon run as root - any security issues in the daemon will now have root access and ANY user on your system who can run adb (not just your user account) can access the devices - as you're basically ignoring all permission settings in 51-android.rules.

As of note, you do not need to be root to shut down the server - just use ./adb kill-server again.