Cannot get MTP to work unless USB debugging is enabled

Question

I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9300) running Android 4.4.4 (CyanogenMod 11-20141008-SNAPSHOT-M11-i9300).

If I have USB debugging disabled and I plug it into Windows 7 then:

• I get a connection sound in Windows
• Device manager reports "Google Galaxy Nexus ADB Interface"
• The phone reports "Connected as a media device"
• but the phone is not shown in Windows Explorer.

If I have USB debugging enabled and I plug it into Windows 7 then:

• I get a connection sound in Windows
• Device manager reports "SAMSUNG Android ADB Interface"
• The phone reports "USB debugging connected"
• The phone is shown in Windows Explorer
• and I appear to also be able to copy files to and from the device.

This seems completely backwards to me and, given that I'm doing some development with MTP, I would really like it to work how normal people will have it work (as I seriously don't expect that everyone has to turn on USB debugging just to get it to work).

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Do you have Samsung Kies installed? Samsung phones don't use the generic Google-provided driver for MTP in Windows, but if you install the correct Kies version it'll also load the relevant driver. This post on XDA-forums explains more about the cause, just don't forget to substitute the Samsung driver for the Google one when following the steps.

If you don't want to mess with Kies you can obtain just the Samsung driver portion here.

Answer 2

Typical, I post the question and then immediately find a solution (of sorts).

One way to resolve it is to go into Device Management, right click on "Google Galaxy Nexus ADB Interface", select "Uninstall" and make sure that the tickbox for removing the drivers is selected.

Once that has completed, install Samsung Kies (ugh) and you'll find that it is now reported as "GT-I9300" under "Portable Devices".

If someone has a solution that doesn't involve installing 72MB of software just to get a driver, then I'll mark it as the best answer.