How to force Linux into mounting Android MTP USB hardware?

[Monica Goel]

When I unlock and then plug my Android 4.3 phone into a USB
port of my Ubuntu Saucy Salamander laptop, sometimes the phone is
automagically mounted, but, oftentimes, the phone does NOT mount.

When I type "lsusb" it only shows up when it's mounted; otherwise
it doesn't even show up at the command line.

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ####:#### Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone
[Galaxy S II], GT-I9300 Phone [Galaxy S III], GT-P7500 [Galaxy Tab 10.1]


MY QUEST:
Is there a way to force Ubuntu to mount new MTP USB hardware?

[John Bokma]

No idea if you've already done this:

http://www.mysolutions.it/mounting-your-mtp-androids-sd-card-on-ubuntu/

or that doing this fixes the issue.

--
John Bokma j3b

Blog: http://johnbokma.com/ Perl Consultancy: http://castleamber.com/
Perl for books: http://johnbokma.com/perl/help-in-exchange-for-books.html

[Monica Goel]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 15:15:15 -0600, John Bokma wrote:

> No idea if you've already done this:
> http://www.mysolutions.it/mounting-your-mtp-androids-sd-card-on-ubuntu/

I followed those instructions, but still failed.

With the phone not plugged in, I followed those instructions.

$ uname -a
Linux test 3.11.0-14-generic ... x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ sudo apt-get install mtpfs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
mtpfs is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

$ sudo mkdir /media/MTPdevice

$ sudo chmod 775 /media/MTPdevice

$ sudo mtpfs -o allow_other /media/MTPdevice
Unable to open ~/.mtpz-data for reading, MTPZ disabled.Listing raw device(s)
No raw devices found.

I got the same error as above, even with the phone plugged
into a USB port and the phone unlocked.

I ran the mtp-detect when the phone wasn't recognized:

$ mtp-detect
Unable to open ~/.mtpz-data for reading, MTPZ disabled.libmtp version: 1.1.6
Listing raw device(s)
No raw devices found.

And, I ran the mtp-detect when the phone was recognized:
$ mtp-detect
Unable to open ~/.mtpz-data for reading, MTPZ disabled.libmtp version: 1.1.6
Listing raw device(s)
Device 0 (VID=04e8 and PID=6860) is a Samsung Galaxy models (MTP).
Found 1 device(s):
Samsung: Galaxy models (MTP) (04e8:6860) @ bus 2, dev 5
Attempting to connect device(s)

On my stock Ubuntu 13.10, there was no /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
file, so, I created the file and added the suggested line:
$ gksu gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTR{idProduct}=="6860", MODE="0666"

I disconnected the Samsung Galaxy S3 Android 4.3 phone & restarted udev:
$ sudo service udev restart
udev stop/waiting
udev start/running, process 4584

The instructions say "Now when you connect your Android phone, tablet,
etc. it should automatically mount for you at /media/MTPdevice.", but,
when I plugged in the Android device and unlocked the screen, it still
didn't mount, so there was no need to run the unmount command:
$ sudo umount mtpfs

Do we have a good set of debugging commands handy?

[Monica Goel]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 21:52:36 +0000, Monica Goel wrote:

> I followed those instructions, but still failed.

I should also mention that I was definitely in MTP mode
and the phone screen was unlocked.

If there were good Linux MTP/USB debugging commands, that would help.

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 21:08:47 +0000 (UTC), Monica Goel
<monic...@synopsys.com> Gave us:

Get a better (NEW) USB interconnect cable, and use a fresh, not beaten
to hell USB port on the computer.

[Grail King]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 15:15:15 -0600, John Bokma wrote:

> No idea if you've already done this:
>
> http://www.mysolutions.it/mounting-your-mtp-androids-sd-card-on-ubuntu/
>

> or that doing this fixes the issue.

I have 3computers running ubuntu 13.10 and all I did was install mtpfs
from Synaptics and I can mount my 2 android phones ( LG and a Samsung )I
can also mount my Nexus7 tablet.

[Jonathan N. Little]

A little more is required for 12.04 as described in the article. I can
confirm because it is what I had to automount my Asus MeMO

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[Grail King]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:47:02 -0500, Jonathan N. Little wrote:

> A little more is required for 12.04 as described in the article. I can
> confirm because it is what I had to automount my Asus MeMO

Must be extra things in 13.10.

[JEDIDIAH]

Probably a newer set of UDEV rules or something along those lines.

"Hey! I know what this is, I'm going to automount it."

--
On the subject of kilobyte being "redefined" to mean 1000 bytes...

When I was a wee lad, I was taught that SI units were |||
meant to be computationally convenient rather than just / | \
arbitrarily assigned.

[bob mullen]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:47:02 -0500, Jonathan N. Little wrote:

> A little more is required for 12.04 as described in the article. I can
> confirm because it is what I had to automount my Asus MeMO

Isn't Ubuntu 13.10 a whole different beast when it comes to MTP?

[Melzzzzz]

My wife recently bought Google nexus 7, when connected with
USB cable every time nautilus opens with content from tablet.
Saucy salamander with kernel from mainline repo, 3.14.0-rc5
currently.

--
Click OK to continue...

[Jonathan N. Little]

I think so because I have 13.10 on my laptop and all I had to do was
plug the table in. It was my wife's system that is on 12.04 LTS that I
had to install fsmtp and create the udev rule.