alexseanchai | (no subject)

I decided today's todos include "figure out why my Android phone and my Kindle Fire only hook up to my Windows 10 desktop—either old or new—as cameras, not as media devices; fix that; change the media selection on each device".

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Windows 10's Device Manager. This screenshot is from trying to get the desktop and the Fire to cooperate when the Fire is set to media device, specifically when telling Windows to search the Internet for updated driver software, but the phone gives me the same error verbatim:

Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device

Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.

MTP Device

A service installation section in this INF is invalid.

Fuck does that even mean?

I did look at this HowToGeek article, but those instructions stall out at the bit where I pick "Android Something" from a list of devices, which is why I backtracked to making Windows search the Net. Also unhelpful: answers.microsoft.com.

ETA: Figured out the magic trick. Thank you,

vass!

I should NOT fucking need to enable developer options in order to connect either of my fucking devices to my fucking desktop.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You might need to temporarily enable adb mode on your phone. You can find that in the developer settings, which you get to from the settings menu by tapping the phone's model number seven times.

...either that's not how or seven is not the magic number.

Hmm. What's your phone's brand and model?

BLU Advance 5.0

*quick search* Aha. You're right: that's not how. Build number, not model number.

Settings > About Device > tap "build number" seven times.

After the first few taps you should get a "you are X taps away from becoming a developer" message, so this is not a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch situation where something ridiculous will happen if you get the wrong number.

Cool. That worked!

...I don't see anything says "adb" in Developer Settings.

And the trick works with serial number on my Fire, and that does have Enable ADB as an option.

YESSSSS I have got into my Fire's file system from my desktop! WOOOOOO! Thank you!

Say. Is "USB debugging: Debug mode when USB is connected" on the phone gonna be the same thing as "Enable ADB: Enable Fire developers to debug over USB" on the Fire? *tests*

HAH YES. Now let us test turning these modes off and trying to connect to the devices again.

...nope, not working. Apparently I have to connect with this mode enabled and run the device manager install-drivers nonsense every time. On either device.

Is Microsoft, or is Google (I doubt it's Amazon's fault, since Fire OS is basically Android), trying to piss off their users?

Edited 2017-02-26 20:34 (UTC)

...YESSSSS I have got into my Fire's file system from my desktop! WOOOOOO! Thank you!

YAY!

HAH YES.

Good troubleshooting. I got as far as the first part of your comment and went to search and then came back to find that you'd gotten there already.

...nope, not working. Apparently I have to connect with this mode enabled and run the device manager install-drivers nonsense every time. On either device.

Sorry, yeah. Mixture of security thing and their just not believing you would want to connect your phone to a computer when you could pay them to stream all the things instead. It is deeply annoying.

Now why might I want music and ebooks I bought and paid for my own copies of to be accessible from my devices and not just my desktop? WHYEVER MIGHT THAT BE. *sulk*

Good work on your part, though.

Well done on getting it to work. The adb drivers are often the tricky things to find and get correct.