Develop Reference

Visual Studio and Android Device Monitor doesn't detect any devices

I've just installed VS2015 Community with Xamarin to develop some mobile apps. The problem is, I can't achieve debugging Android apps on any device. Android Device Monitor shows empty list. I tried connecting different phones, which I know are detected on my friend's PC. I can explore their files from windows explorer, from there computer sees them.
USB Debugging on the phone is turned on.
USB connection mode is set to camera, no change at all.
I have Google USB driver installed in Android SDK manager.
I tried adb kill-server, adb start-server. Nothing changed. adb devices
shows empty list.
This is device manager while Developers options are disabled on the phone.
And here with enabled Developers options
I also tried updateing driver to google usb driver, but windows said it's up to date.

You most likely did not grant access to the device. Try to go into the developer settings on the smartphone and revoke the USB debugging authorisation. Then connect the phone to the pc and and wait for a popup on the phone which you should accept. After accepting you should see your device with adb devices.
You can also try to set the connection mode to MTP (instead of the camera PTP).
Hope it helps!

Enable the device for development
Goto: Device > Settings > Developer Options > tick USB debugging

Sometimes just restarting Visual Studio might help

Try the this:
1 - Close Visual Studio
2 - connect your device
3 - Restart visual studio with the device already connected by usb (with the device options checked)

This just happened to me. And it seems setting the startup project to your Android project fixed it.

My understanding is that the Google USB Drivers from the Android SDK Manager only work for Google Nexus devices (at least according to https://developer.android.com/studio/run/win-usb.html); annoyingly enough, to use other kinds of devices you'll probably need to download vendor-specific drivers. For example, I definitely had to download Motorola's drivers to use my Droid for debugging purposes. Unfortunately, for whatever reason Windows wasn't able to automatically detect that that's what it needed to download, so I had to download them manually.

I had the same problem, using a Samsung Galaxy A5
Google Drivers Installed
Samsung Drivers Installed
Phone shows up in file explorer
Plugging the phone in while Visual Studio was opened resulted in a pop up asking for permission. After authorising, everything worked perfectly. I didn't have to go into the developer settings on the smartphone and revoke the USB debugging authorisation.

To preface, I had connected my phone (a blackberry which had Android and full Google Play Store access) via Android Studio before so I KNOW it's possible, but when I was trying to do it with Xamarin I was having issues, Visual Studio just wouldn't recognize my device.
Found the problem appears to be the USB cable I was using. When I standardly plug in the USB, blackberry gives me the option to just charge the phone, or to enable File Transferring. But the first cable I was using always just charged the phone and didn't give me options. I tried switching the usb cable and voila, I got the prompt, and I can see the device now in the Start Debugging dropdown. So it looks like there's charge-only usb cables as well as Data cables. Be sure you're using a Data cable else it won't be able to see your Device

I had the same issue after updating Visual Studio found that in recent versions is better if you open VS in administrator mode to properly work, this should fix the problem.

I had previously revoked debug auth on my phone, but my phone didn't prompt me to allow debugging on my PC when I connected it again. Ended-up restarting my LG V30 while connected to my PC and I was prompted to allow debugging.
After that, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10.0 adds my phone to the device list.

Running on Windows 11. Visual Studio 2022. But, I don't think the versions are really relevant here - included for completeness.
Followed all instructions re enabling USB debugging from the device. Also, the USB Drivers for my Samsung device were successfully installed on the Windows machine.
I was running the Duet Display application as I had previously installed it for use with my iOS devices. This appears to have created a conflict when connecting the Android device, as the prompt related to Duet would appear but not the prompt to allow USB debugging from the computer along with the RSA thumbprint. Once I exited the Duet app from my system tray and reconnected the Android device I got the prompt and it immediately appeared in Visual Studio 2022.

Here's some things I check when having an issue with Android device not appearing:
Enable developer mode on the device from settings
Install (e.g. to windows) the manufacturer's* developer USB drivers for the device
Ensure the Minimum Android Version in the AndroidManifest.xml is lower or equal to your device
And as always, try a different lead and restart both PC and Device!!
*Manufacturer Android USB Development driver links I know of:
Sony | Samsung | Google/Nexus | Blackberry

I have just updated from VS2015 (14.0.25402.00 Update 3) to VS2017 (15.7.5).
Amongst other things, I had to migrate a .forms app from 2.3.x to 3.1.x...
As it (according to MS) now should be possible to install also the Xamarin integration software in parallel to older versions of VS, I first (for security reasons) wanted to leave my “old” .forms app under VS2015 and .forms 2.3x and start to update to .forms 3.x with VS2017.
First, everything looked good - I was able to open my “old” .forms 2.3.x project in VS2015 (what was not possible in the earlier migration from VS2013 to VS2015).
But, I was not able to bring my two dev mobiles (both Samsung Galaxy S7) to work under VS2015 again, although, they were showed to my dev-machine (windows explorer) correct.
After wasting about a full day (doing every suggested workaround, I found on the web), I gave up und started to migrate the .forms project under VS2017.
Under VS2017 both mobiles were showed immediately without any problems and I was able to debug to the device.
So.. it seems, as the installation of VS2017 (with Xamarin integration SW) has “destroyed” something in the VS2015 installation regarding the access to the mobile devices...

I wasn't getting the USB debugging prompt on the device to trust the PC it was connected to and it wasn't appearing in the drop down list of devices in Visual Studio or ADB. Tried many things but installing the USB driver for the device (in my case Sony Xperia XA1 from: https://developer.sony.com/develop/drivers/
After installing this device driver by right-clicking the ADB Interface device in Device Manager and choosing the downloaded driver it showed the prompt to allow the PC and now works fine. This was on Windows 8.1 . I don't remember having to do the same for my Windows 10 PC.

I tried all the options but the only way I got it working is to unplug the USB cable and connect it on a different USB port.

After downloading phone specific drivers and restarting computer / restarting visual studio etc etc. What fixed it for me was from developer options
Disable USB Debugging
Enable USB Debugging
This was on a Samsung Galaxy, looks like although it was saying USB debugging was enabled it was in fact not enabled until I retriggered it using the above method.

Android Studio not showing connected physical device

I am using the latest version of Android Studio(2.1.2) at the time of writing this post . The problem that I am experiencing is that the ADB instance used by Android Studio doesn't seem to be able to find my Galaxy Core Prime device (SM-G361F, stock Android version - 5.1.1). It can connect to an emulator just fine.
What I had tried (most of these multiple times):
enabling/disabling developer options
enabling/disabling USB debugging
revoking USB debugging authorization
changing MTP to PTP and vice versa (my device doesn't allow deselecting both options, one must be chosen)
reinstalling the drivers
powering on and off both the phone and the PC
installing Samsung's Smart Switch software
using different USB ports
trying out different Android Studio versions (x86 and x64 with the latest respective JDKs)
This is what it looks like in Android Studio:
I had installed the official Samsung's USB drivers from here.
This is what the Device Manager is showing (Windows 7 64-bit SP1):
Afterwards, I've also tried installing the Universal USB drivers from here.
This is what firing up its installation of ADB looks like:
It has obviously successfully found the device.
My device also politely prompted me to allow the PC to connect to it using a generated RSA key which never happened with Android Studio.
The only thing I've not tried is installing Samsung's Kies software.
I really don't know what is the problem here.
Maybe I should just give up and instead use the emulator but it is a damn shame not to be able to debug on an actual physical device, if you ask me.
Thank you in advance.

Android in general does not support all phones for a debug connection. I have a samsung s6 and for me that works. I don't know about the Core Prime though. However, in most cases(in my experience):
The phone does not support the connection
You did not install all the required files in terms of the android SDK you might have not gotten the latest update that supports more phones
The OS is not supported - Mainly caused because Samsung and a lot of other brands insist on having their own updates. And some times they - on purpose or by accident - forget to support USB debugging for developers.
My tablet did not support the USB debugging connection untill it reached android 6.
The cable is a charge-only cable (yes, those exist for some reason). Try with a different cable
You don't have the necessary drivers. Make sure they're installed
It might be circumstantial that your phone model does not support the connection for some reason, but it is really hard to tell. The only way to get proper help is to contact Samsung customer support, but in my experience it is just a waste of time. They don't know their own products. If you try with another device it might work.

After some continued tinkering I managed to get Android Studio to recognize my device. All I did was adding the path to the ClockworkMod's ADB .exe to the PATH environment variable. That seems to have done the trick as Android Studio now allows me to run the application on my device even though it is still running its own instance of ADB (located in the platform-tools folder).
It might be completely unrelated but I'm not considering undoing the modification made to the environment variable.
Here is the proof:

Android Studio or ADB.exe won't detect device

I have recently bought a HTC Nexus 9 tablet for the purpose of USB debugging in Android Studio. This process works on other computers at university but I cannot get it to work properly from my home system,which is what I require. I have tried every single suggestion I have came across online but none have actually worked.
Steps Tried:
Downloading the latest google USB Driver
Installing it through Android Studio and Manually in device manager
Tried ADB Interface Driver and ADB Composite Interface Driver
Configuring driver inf file by adding hardware ID's
Ensuring usb debugging is enabled on the device
Using different USB ports,3 different cables
Tried connecting in PTP mode,MTP mode,charging only mode
Rebooted device and computer
Re installed android studio
No matter what I do,the device wont be shown in android studio or ADB.exe(under list all devices in terminal,also tried start and kill server). I am officially out of ideas,if anyone could figure this out I would be forever grateful!
I have attached some images of some of the things I have tried without success. Once driver has been installed it is listed as "Android Composite ADB Interface" or "Android ADB Interface". Operating system is Windows 7 64-bit
Device on first plug in
Picking a driver

Download HTC PC suite from following link ,install and give a try
http://pc2.software112.com/getfreesw/231109-1805719/htc-pc-suite-07.html

I personally have had many issues with setting things up for Android. Things you should ensure you do include;
Ensure you obtain the appropriate packages in the SDK manager - for example, I wasn't able to make logcat work when debugging with my phone until I downloaded the files for my specific version of Android (so the API files for a Nexus 9).
I believe you may also have to download drivers for your actual phone to allow connection - you should be able to download this from the HTC website. This might be what you need, although I haven't checked it out, and I cant find where I downloaded my drivers from;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2217396
In general, you want to download lots of things from the SDK manager as you'll need them anyway, so don't hold back on just downloading them.

For those (like me) who is still concerned with this issue. You need to go to win+pause break ->Device Manager->Find "AdbInterface" with exclamation sign->Update driver->Search manually->Specify USB driver downloaded from SDK and enjoy: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\extras\google\usb_driver

Android USB Debugging on Samsung Infuse 4G

I am trying to test an Android application through the Eclipse plugin on a real device. It is a Samsung Infuse 4G. I believe I have followed all steps on the Android page for testing on devices.
First of all, I cannot figure out what the Android OS version is because it does not show up in the settings. I can see that the firmware version is 2.2.1, so I assume I am running that version of Android OS as well.
Next, when I connect the device to my computer (running Vista, 64 bit), I get prompted with three options: Kies (firmware update), Media player, and Mass storage. When I look on the Internet, I see that I am supposed to select "Charge only", but this does not appear in the options with which I am prompted. I have already set USB Debugging to true through Settings > Applications > Development.
Third, I have installed the correct driver from the Samsung site based on my model number (SGH-I997), yet when I do adb devices from my platform-tools directory (I have tried adb kill-server and adb start-server), I still do not get my device listed.
I am not very advanced in terms of working with Android and have been banging my head against the wall on how to solve this problem, so any and all help guiding me through this would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Try installing this PC Suite ...Samsung Kies http://www.samsung.com/in/support/usefulsoftware/KIES/JSP this would help you to get the exact driver for the device and don't forget to check USB Debugging option in settings.

You also need to mark "Allow Mock Locations "in Development Options in Applications settings of your phone.
Also try enabling ,use as mass storage after connecting your device.
You can check if your device is detected in device tab of DDMS in Eclipse.
Even trying all such things ,it does not work try connecting your device 2 or 3 times ,restarting eclipse and enabling USB Debugging and mock locations again

Phone can't connect to Eclipse on debug mode

I have tried connecting the USB debugger on Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It still manages to fail on both devices. At the moment I am using Windows XP and I am running out of ideas.
Here is what I tried:
Installed SAMSUNG_USB_DRIVER_FOR_MOBILE_PHONES_1.4.8.0.exe
Searched and tried to install the drivers on Google drives.
Has anyone have this similar problem and could share a solution?
EDIT* Both devices Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus are able to connect to the PC but not to the debugger. Drivers installed with different variances even done installing Samsung Kias.
I am adding a bounty tomorrow for 50 reps. I really need to test what I am doing on an actual phone.

You need to download Samsung Kies I know that the software description doesn't mention that it is the correct drivers for developers, but it in fact is.

An old issue used to be:
Use the USB2.0 ports on the back of the PC not the 1.0 front facing port.

I feel you have not installed sdk properly. Reinstall the http://dl.google.com/android/installer_r18-windows.exe, the open the adb and update all the things for the particular sdk you want.
Then verify that you have given the exact location of sdk in eclipse>window>preferences>android
Then restart eclipse.
Even you cant open it then set environment variables. For that add following ;E:\android-sdk-window\platform-tools; in PATH. Then restart windows.
After that try adb devices, adb kill-server command in Command prompt.
You will be able to see your device.

Is there any "ADB interface" devices in your PC's Devices Manager?
If you are using DDMS,Maybe there is a console(cmd.exe) window behind DDMS,you can get some log there.

Did you enable the debug mode on your device? This is not listed in the steps you followed.
Go to Settings -> Applications -> Development -> and set USB debugging.

You can use PdaNet software to connect your device for debugging. I was have the same issue and resolve with using this software. Use the following link to download this software:
http://junefabrics.com/android/download.php

I also have samsung Galaxy SII and i face the Same Problem before some days. But now i am able to get debug the app in My SII.
Please follow the steps and make sure that you follow it completely then only you cna able to get debug in your phone.
First select the Option to Install App from Unknown Sources.
You will find that option in Setting -> Applicatios -> Unknown sources. Select it as yes.
then Select the Option like USB Debugging.
You will find that option in Setting -> Development -> USB debugging. Select it as yes.
Now, Install latest Samsung Kias In your PC. Reboot Your PC, Eclipse and may be Phone also
Now, Try with connecting the Device.
Hope you will get debugging your app in to your phone.
If not then let me know which trouble you get.
Enjoy. :)

My phone has this:
Settings -> SD card & phone storage -> Mass storage only (USB connection mode is mass storage only)
Make sure that this option is NOT checked. If it is u can enable USB debugging and unknown sources and it still wont work.

If you just need to connect to the device for install and debugging you can manually select the driver to use when you plug it in.
Don't let windows search for it, choose I will pick the driver from a list, then select android composite ADB interface. It may warn you that this driver doesn't match, but it works!

I also had many problems to get samsumg galaxy S2 work on my pc. If I remember correctly finally I ended up installing Samsung Kias and installed some drivers through there. Then restarted the computer and never launched kias from then on. My phone is still not visible form command line adb devices, but now I can develop in Eclipse and deploy on the device without any problems.
From time to time I lose connection to the device (E.g. if another device was plugged in). Then I need to restart Eclipse and my device becomes visible again.
Some friends of mine also shared that some other mobile device usb drivers were conflicting with the samsung drivers (it was ZTE if I am not wrong). They uninstalled the ZTE drivers and then got the Samsuung running ok too. Try consider uninstalling all other usb drivers before you try the Galaxy S2.

Have you installed exactly the right SDK version for the phone you're using?

Given that you can access the phone on the PC via KIES, I assume that you have all the correct USB drivers installed.
Ensure that debugging is enabled on your phone. This can be done from the Settings preferences.
Install the Android SDK. Add %ANDROID SDK_INSTALL_PATH%/platform-tools to your path.
If everything is working up to this point, plug in your phone and execute the following from the command line.
adb devices
and you should see your device listed.
Install the Android Developer Tools plugin in Eclipse.
Create/Import your project.
Right click your project and from the context menu, select Debug As --> Android Application

I have had exactly the same problem as you, I even gave up on developing for 2 months because of this. I have just started again and really needed to get this working.
I tried all of the above and pretty much every combination of the above and still failed.
I have just got it working by not doing anything different apart from when I uninstall the old USB driver (add remove progs), the next time I installed AGAIN, I used the SAMSUNG USB Driver for Mobile Phones V1.3.450.0 (an older version than ones suggested on other help forums, I just got it by accident somewhere and thought I'd try it). The next time I plugged the phone in, it did all the usual finding CDC etc. that it always did when it failed...but then.... it asked for the ADB Driver, WOW! I got excited. I just selected Install Automatically and away it went.
I still already had the PDANet thing running and that popped up saying a connection is available. I've not used it though because it wouldn't install on my phone anyway.
FYI, I have these settings on the phone:
USB debugging ON (obviously)
Allow Mock Locations OFF
Unknown Sources ON
I hope this helps.
Dan.

This may not help at all since you have probably tried it already but I had huge issues on two different windows 7 machines getting my s2 to connect for debugging.
I ended up getting one working by plugging in the s2 USB connection, un-installing the drivers for it in the device manager, unplugging the USB connection, un-installing Kies, downloading the most up to date version of Kies, installing that and plugging it back in.
The other one was even more painful, it was a while ago now but I did the same as the above but removed eclipse and the Android SDK as well, installed the latest version of Kies first, the eclipse, then the sdk and made sure all of that was done before I plugged the phone in.

I faced same issue which you faced..
I solved this by this way.
1) Right click on my computer and select Manage
2) Then select Device manager..
3) connect your phone (galaxy s2 in my case)
4) I found one device with named "unknown" in sub option I foung my phone name i9100
5) Then right click on that and select update driver software
6) you will see then this..
Tadaa....Done :)
Hope this will help you also..