Android Phone Is Not Being seen in "briefcase run android"

[jmdodd95682]

After struggling with the android emulator for 2 days, I've decided it will probably never work. Don't know why. So, now I'm trying to simply load the HelloWorld app onto my phone. I have enabled Developer mode, enabled USB debugging, set the default USB behavior to File transfer. No matter what I try, when I run "briefcase run android" (after creating, and building the app of course), I get the standard prompt:

-- Android device ------------------------------------------------------------

Select Android device to use:

1. Create a new Android emulator

Android device:

It will not show me the physical phone I have plugged in as an option. This worked okay last year, with this same PC and phone. So, clearly something has changed. The phone is definitely visible to the Windows11 PC I'm using. Both the device and the PC seem to be aware the phone is connected. I see in the Device Manager that a USB device has been added called "ADB Interface". So, I'm fairly certain the phone is configured correctly.

Any advice on how to proceed? I'm guessing there is no log file, since there is no error being reported.

[rmartin16]

You can always force Briefcase to create a log with the --log option for any Briefcase command. Additionally, using the -vv option will show much more information about exactly what Briefcase is doing; you can even take the commands and run many of them yourself.

This list of Android devices, though, is just driven by what Google's adb tool returns for available devices.

For instance, on my machine with my Pixel 7 paired wirelessly:

❯ briefcase run android -vv
Using JDK at /home/russell/.cache/briefcase/tools/java17
Using Android SDK at /home/russell/.cache/briefcase/tools/android_sdk
Android emulator is already installed.

>>> Running Command:
>>>     /home/russell/.cache/briefcase/tools/android_sdk/platform-tools/adb devices -l
>>> Working Directory:
>>>     /home/russell/tmp/beeware/helloworld
>>> Command Output:
>>>     List of devices attached
>>>     adb-2A181FDH200FKW-uVpEhc._adb-tls-connect._tcp device product:panther model:Pixel_7 device:panther transport_id:1
>>>     
>>> Return code: 0


>>> Running Command:
>>>     /home/russell/.cache/briefcase/tools/android_sdk/platform-tools/adb -s adb-2A181FDH200FKW-uVpEhc._adb-tls-connect._tcp emu avd name
>>> Working Directory:
>>>     /home/russell/tmp/beeware/helloworld
>>> Return code: 1


>>> Running Command:
>>>     /home/russell/.cache/briefcase/tools/android_sdk/emulator/emulator -list-avds
>>> Working Directory:
>>>     /home/russell/tmp/beeware/helloworld
>>> Command Output:
>>>     Pixel_8_API_36
>>>     beePhone
>>> Return code: 0



-- Android device ------------------------------------------------------------

Select Android device to use:

  1) Pixel 7 (adb-2A181FDH200FKW-uVpEhc._adb-tls-connect._tcp)
  2) @Pixel_8_API_36 (emulator)
  3) @beePhone (emulator)
  4) Create a new Android emulator

Android device: 

So, if adb can't see your device, then I'd recommend Android's docs for adb to try to debug the issue.

[jmdodd95682]

Problem Solved. The issue was the phone. I had it in File Transfer mode (which several other posts on other threads said you needed). On my phone that created an authorization problem. By running adb devices I could see the device was detectable but unauthorized. It seems that when the phone connects to the PC and automatically connects for File Transfer, it does some sort of authorization with Windows11, but adb is not included in this authorization. As soon as I disabled "File Transfer" and moved the phone to "No File Transfer" option, a popup arrived on the phone asking permission to run USB debugger. At that point the phone was now visible to adb and the "beeware run android" worked perfectly.

That was not an issue previously so this is either a change in how Windows 11 is handling authorization or how Android 15 ( my phone) is working.

Thanks again for the help. You pointed me in the right direction!

[jmdodd95682]

Thanks! This was helpful. So, as you would expect, adb does not seem to be seeing the device at all. I'll have to see what the adb docs say. Since I can access files on the phone, it feels more likely to be some Windows 11 issue. It is not presenting the device the right way to OS agents or something. sigh Thanks again for the help.