adb devices command not working

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit. I have ia32-libs installed along with Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.26.

My problem(s):

1. adb devices >>> ???????????? no permissions
2. sudo adb devices >>>> sudo: adb: command not found
3. adb shell >>> error: insufficient permissions for device

I guess these are all related. Here's the relevant info.

$ echo $PATH
/home/me/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/tools:/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/platform-tools

$ which adb
/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/platform-tools/adb

$ adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached 
????????????    no permissions

$ sudo adb devices
sudo: adb: command not found

$ adb shell
error: insufficient permissions for device

I get the same results with a rooted Moto Droid running CM6.1 and a rooted G-Tab running a CM7-based ROM.

I have reviewed the following related posts:

• http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-522827.html
• http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1164359.html
• adb command not found in linux environment

I tried most (not all) of the suggestions and I have not been able to resolve my issue. The things I didn't try seemed inappropriate. I would appreciate a few more tips and I'll keep troubleshooting.

One thing I didn't try was editing /etc/udev/rules.d/70-android.rules. Is that likely to be the issue? I can't see how that would cause "sudo: adb: command not found". Maybe my problems are not all related. Anyway, at this point I think I need some input from other people because I don't believe I have a path problem or the other common problems discussed in those other posts.

EDIT: SOLVED thanks to EboMike and RivieraKid. This was actually two different problems:

1. Item #2 above (sudo: adb: command not found) was solved by making a symlink as follows:

    $ sudo ln -s /opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/platform-tools/adb /usr/local/sbin/adb 

   That allowed me to then do as EboMike suggested and use this solution . Doing that was required for my Moto Droid. (Running adb as sudo was not required for my Viewsonic G-Tablet, however.)

2. My other two items were resolved by implementing the udev rule as RivieraKid suggested (from this link ).

Answer 1

One thing I didn't try was editing /etc/udev/rules.d/70-android.rules. Is that likely to be the issue?

Any particular reason why you didn't do that? To answer the question - YES! The udev rules are what informs Ubuntu what your device is and allows user-space tools to therefore access it.

You will not be able to use adb without correctly following the instructions .

With that in mind however, you don't say what version of Ubuntu you're using but I had issues with 10.10 - let me know if you need me to post the contents of my rules file.

Don't worry about running adb via sudo, you don't need it. The MODE="0666" from the udev rule allows you to access the device as any user.

---

EDIT:

Don't forget to reload the rules:

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

EDIT #2:

As @Jesse Glick correctly points out, if adb is already running in daemon mode, you'll also need to restart it for this to work:

sudo adb kill-server

I've used sudo here, since that will guarantee that adb will be killed , and it's the officially supported method to stop the server. It will be automatically restarted the next time adb is used, but this time with the correct environment.

Answer 2

You need to restart the adb server as root. See here .

Answer 3

On my Gentoo/Funtoo linux system I am having similar problems:

I gotting always not the correct device description and insufficient permissions:

# sudo ./adb devices
List of devices attached 
????????????    no permissions
# ./adb usb
error: insufficient permissions for device

For me helps the howto from Google. In my case I needed to add the udev rule:

# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules 
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev" 

and setting up the filesystem rights

# chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

After replugging my smartphone the access to the phone was successful, it also appears now in Eclipse' Android Device Chooser:

# sudo ./adb devices
List of devices attached 
3XXXXXXXXXXXXXC device
# sudo ./adb usb
restarting in USB mode

You also have to check the membership of your user to the plugdev -group.

Answer 4

Every answer I've read indicates the SUBSYSTEM=="usb" . However, my (perhaps ancient) udev needed this to be changed to DRIVER=="usb" . At last I can run the adb server as a non-root user... yay.

It can be instructive to look at the output of udevmonitor --env, followed by the output of

udevinfo -a -p <DEVICE_PATH_AS_REPORTED_BY-udevmonitor>

Answer 5

Please note that IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA tend to start their own adb-server.

Even manually killing the server and running an new instance with sudo won't help here until you make your IDE kill the server itself.

Answer 6

restarting the adb server as root worked for me. see:

derek@zoe:~/Downloads$ adb sideload angler-ota-mtc20f-5a1e93e9.zip 
loading: 'angler-ota-mtc20f-5a1e93e9.zip'
error: insufficient permissions for device
derek@zoe:~/Downloads$ adb devices
List of devices attached
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX    no permissions

derek@zoe:~/Downloads$ adb kill-server
derek@zoe:~/Downloads$ sudo adb start-server
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
derek@zoe:~/Downloads$ adb devices
List of devices attached
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX    sideload

Answer 7

I fixed this issue on my debian GNU/Linux system by overiding system rules that way :

mv  /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/99-android.rules

I used contents from files linked at : http://rootzwiki.com/topic/258-udev-rules-for-any-device-no-more-starting-adb-with-sudo/

Answer 8

HTC One m7 running fresh Cyanogenmod 11.

Phone is connected USB and tethering my data connection.

Then I get this surprise:

cinder@ultrabook:~/temp/htc_m7/2015-11-11$ adb shell
error: insufficient permissions for device

cinder@ultrabook:~/temp/htc_m7/2015-11-11$ adb devices
List of devices attached
????????????    no permissions

SOLUTION: Turn tethering OFF on phone.

cinder@ultrabook:~/temp/htc_m7/2015-11-11$ adb devices
List of devices attached
HT36AW908858    device

Answer 9

我刚刚遇到同样的情况，工厂数据重置对我来说效果很好。