Problem syncing Android Phone (MTP)

jim.thornton · 10-10-2015, 11:03 PM

Desktop: Korora 21

I'm trying to mount my LG G3 phone to sync music to it. I was originally going to try and root it and installed the following into /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

Code:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

When I did that ADB was able to see the device.

I DID NOT root my device. I discovered through research because I upgraded to Lolipop that it cannot be done. At least not easily so I gave up on that. My thought was that I was just going to use rsync to do a music sync.

I then was able to access my phone from the file manager. I put on a file .is_audio_player with some text in there pointing to the music folder.

After that I have been unable to re-mount my phone again. I don't know why but it just fails saying that it cannot mount MTP device [usb 001,044]

When I try to mount my phone, my phone beeps indicating that it is mounting. It also shows me my options MTP or PTP or Charging. But it will not mount.

Can someone please help me with this? I've spent way to much time on it as-is.

I have tried installing:
simple-mtpfs

But that does not do it either. Now I'm not even getting the failed message anymore.

ondoho · 10-11-2015, 08:10 AM

when i plug in my kitkat android phone, it connects as media device (mtp) and shows up as "gphoto2://[usb:002,010]/store_00010001" in my file manager.
this works because my file manager uses gvfs, and i also installed gvfs' optional dependencies gvfs-afc, gvfs-gphoto2 and gvfs-smb (that's what the packages are called on archlinux, but you should be able to find them on any distro). i guess it's gvfs-gphoto2 that provides the functionality, but i'm just listing all that i have installed.

edit:
sorry, re-reading your post, most of waht i wrote was pointless.
does it get better when you undo the udev changes?
what output do you get with "adb shell"?
can you explain "I put on a file .is_audio_player with some text in there pointing to the music folder."?
how did you put the file, where exactly did you copy it to, and why/how does it "point" to your music folder? which music folder, on your computer or on your phone?
can you see the file from your phone's file manager?
do you have usb debugging enabled?

jim.thornton · 10-11-2015, 10:41 AM

OK... I decided to take a break and go to bed last night. As I was wrapping up I turned off the music that was playing on my computer, closed the music player and all of a sudden I could mount the phone in the file manager again. So I guess the previous things I did were not a problem.

I can now access my phone via File Manager, but I cannot sync any music to my phone using Banshee, RhythmBox or Clementine. It just fails. In clementine it says "Adding ..." and shows all the tracks, but then when I look on my phone there is nothing there.

Anyone have any idea how to get this working? I love Android, but I really can't believe there is such a major feature that has such crappy support and they have managed to do so well. For a company (Google) that pushes "User Experience" so much, I can't believe they are content with an inferior feature to Apple on this. I hate Apple products, but this is a major drawback.

ondoho · 10-11-2015, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim.thornton

For a company (Google) that pushes "User Experience" so much, I can't believe they are content with an inferior feature to Apple on this. I hate Apple products, but this is a major drawback.

OH, THE ENRAGED CUSTOMER!
(sorry, caps lock got stuck)

but if we talk about solutions instead of nagging:

can you actually copy files to the phone via file manager?
make some searches how banshee, rhythmbox and clementine handle these things internally, maybe you can find out what's going on
workaround: make media players sync to a dedicated folder, then just copy to device from that folder. can even be scripted.
while researching this problem, i realised that i had to kill my file manager before i could use adb. maybe same applies to file manager / media player?
android settings, maybe change Settings => Storage => Default write disk?

jim.thornton · 10-11-2015, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

OH, THE ENRAGED CUSTOMER!
(sorry, caps lock got stuck)

but if we talk about solutions instead of nagging:

can you actually copy files to the phone via file manager?
Yes I am able to write to the phone via file manager. I created the empty file from within the file manager and then was able to save it.
make some searches how banshee, rhythmbox and clementine handle these things internally, maybe you can find out what's going on
I was searching for hours last night and couldn't figure it out. I'll try searching again tomorrow. (family stuff today)
workaround: make media players sync to a dedicated folder, then just copy to device from that folder. can even be scripted
Not following you. I'm able to connect to the phone and copy files onto the phone manually with the file manager but not with the music players. I said Clementine says "Adding... " and shows the songs, but that is Banshee. Clementine says "Organizing files " and then is stuck at 0 with a failure message. When Clementine is open, I can still access the phone. When Banshee is open, the file manager cannot access the phone at the same time.
while researching this problem, i realised that i had to kill my file manager before i could use adb. maybe same applies to file manager / media player?
I'm not trying to use adb.
android settings, maybe change Settings => Storage => Default write disk?
There is only the internal storage on this phone. I don't have an sd card in it. There is no option within Settings > Storage for changing default disk though.

ondoho · 10-11-2015, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim.thornton

workaround: make media players sync to a dedicated folder, then just copy to device from that folder. can even be scripted
Not following you. I'm able to connect to the phone and copy files onto the phone manually with the file manager but not with the music players. I said Clementine says "Adding... " and shows the songs, but that is Banshee. Clementine says "Organizing files " and then is stuck at 0 with a failure message. When Clementine is open, I can still access the phone.

exactly. so you tell your media player to sync to a dedicated folder on your local machine, then just move the files to your phone. still easier than picking them manually from your music collection.

Quote:

while researching this problem, i realised that i had to kill my file manager before i could use adb. maybe same applies to file manager / media player?
I'm not trying to use adb.

no, but your file manager. try unmounting the phone and killing the file manager before opening your media player to sync.

Quote:

There is only the internal storage on this phone. I don't have an sd card in it. There is no option within Settings > Storage for changing default disk though.

hmmm, that could have some bearing on the situation. not so sure about android internals, but it's getting increasingly picky about where one is allowed to write to.