Blackberry Priv won't connect to Windows 7 for file transfer

Question

I posted this question before but it was "protected", so I can't answer it. So I'm reposting it so that I can answer my own question.

I can't get my Blackberry Priv to connect as anything other than charging via USB. My PC isn't recognizing that a device is connected. I've downloaded and installed the Tethering and USB drivers here. I restarted after installing them. On the phone, it never gives a notification that it has connected as a charging device, and I know that's what you'd normally click on to change to file transfer. Also, in the settings options, in Storage and USB, there is only information about device storage, nothing about the USB connection type. I've enabled developer options. In there, I've turned on "USB debugging" and "Allow USB debugging in charging mode". I'm at a loss as to what else would need to be done to get file transfer working, and honestly I'm completely confused as to why it's not showing up in the Storage & USB options. I'm having a hard time finding anyone else mentioning this issue.

Answer 1

This was a hardware issue rather than a software issue. I had the same problem with two different Privs, so I thought it must be something to do with the Android system. But it turns out that, for some reason, my phone didn't like using a USB 3.0 port. That only charges it. Switching to a USB 2.0 port finally got me the charging notification, so I was able to switch. As a side note, setting it to "File transfers" (MTP) didn't work. I had to use "Photo transfer (PTP)" to get it to see the device. And in that case, it only sees the onboard storage, not the memory card. So it's an imperfect solution, but since my photos are on the phone storage, not the card, and I can copy from the card to the phone if I really need to, it works well enough to solve my issue.