Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

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cbhihe
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:27 am
Location: Barcelona, Spain

Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by cbhihe »

Hello,
Just upgraded to 3.0 beta.
I run TB 38.0 with Lightning 4.x add-on on a Win XP SP3 PC.
The phone terminal is a Samsung SIII mini running 4.2.4 Jelly Bean Android.

I have not been able to even configure BirdieSync 3.0.
Apparently the PC does not detect my Android phone terminal when I connect it via USB.
I do have the latest Android driver for PC as well as ActiveSync installed and up to date.
USB debugging is enabled on my Android device.
Before 3.0 beta I did not have this problem. Can somebody clue me in ?

Thanks for any suggestion.
-cedric
Laptop: Dual boot Win XP SP3 || Linux Trusty Tahr (LTS)
Cell: OS Android 4.1.2

cbhihe
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:27 am
Location: Barcelona, Spain

Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by cbhihe »

Should I downgrade and forget about 3.0 beta ? Any idea or suggestion ?
I really don't know what is not right in my setup as I think I did everything by the book.
Cheers,
-cedric
Laptop: Dual boot Win XP SP3 || Linux Trusty Tahr (LTS)
Cell: OS Android 4.1.2

Birdy
Site Admin
Posts: 3118
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:43 am
Contact:

Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by Birdy »

Hello Cedric,

So with version 2.x you could connect your Android device without any problem via USB ?
If you open BirdieSync menu "Connection/Android USB driver", is your Samsung Android driver listed ?
When you plug your Android device via USB, you always have "No source is connected" when you plug your Android device ?
What it the result of the "adb.exe devices" command as described at the bottom of this FAQ entry (use version 1.0.32)
After you plugged your Android device, could you generate a log archive with BirdieSync menu "Tools/Archive logs..." and send it to support(at)birdiesync.com ?
Thanks.
Birdy

cbhihe
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:27 am
Location: Barcelona, Spain

Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by cbhihe »

Sorry, this is a long post.
Yes, with version 2.x a USB connection was never an issue. It worked smoothly every time, including directly after 2.x -> 2.y upgrades.

When I open BirdieSync menu "Connection/Android USB driver", I have:

Code: Select all

     Name                                        Version                Date                      Manufacturer
Samsung Android ADB Interface                  2.11.10.0            2014.06.10            Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Android ADB Interface                  5.14.0.0             2010.02.05            Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Android Composite ADB Interface        5.30.14.0            2012.11.30            Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
As I connected via USB this morning I got (for the first time) a "Source Settings" window that tells me:
Android stock app
Name: GT-I8190Android ADB Interface
Along with three buttons [< Back], [Accept] and [Cancel]

Before that, I only got "Device not recognized" AND/OR "Unknown device detected by Windows" or maybe both as I forget the exact message wording.
This change is strange in itself, because I did not change anything to my Win OS in the meantime. In fact, I did not USE my Win OS at all. It was not even switched on. The only action on the part of the system has been to go through a boot cycle, something It had done before without recognizing my Android ph.terminal over USB...

Anyway, now I briefly get "Android device as media volume connected" and a three pronged USB connector symbol in the notification bar at the top of my Android ph.terminal's screen.

Going back to the "Source Settings" window:
- clicked "Accept"
Window changed to something too short-lived for me to remember well: it went along the line of "Processing || Configuring || Detecting...., please wait"
- BirdieSync quit abruptly after 10 seconds and OS asked to send automatic crash report to MS.
- Manual restart of BirdieSync -> main BirdieSync Window opened without any other message or error.
- Clicked on "Configuration" icon:
Below what looks like a greyed out progress bar, I see: "single source connected" and father on the same line "6 configurations issues"
Below are 5 panes arranged vertically:

1) Users: my name shows there

2) Sources: (only one)
GT-I81890Android ADB Interface

Q: How do I set the local PC's TB instance as additional source?
The BirdieSync add-on is correctly installed on TB 38.1. In its config panel, "Server is on this PC" is correctly set.
The additional BirdieSync tool bar on TB is greyed out and displays "Impossible to connect to server 127.0.0.1". After restarting TB, it now shows "Not connected to host".

3) Content:
With my only visible source GT-I81890Android ADB Interface highlighted:
Contacts - Disabled, Never sync'ed `+ red button OFF
I switched that ON (green - "Replace all address books in this source with all enabled address books in other source")
Events - Disabled, Never sync'ed `+ red button OFF
I switched that ON (green - "Replace all event calendars in this source with all enabled event calendars in other source")

Q: I supposed that the above setting is right if I don't want duplicates arising on the next sync. Instead I'd like to conduct the next sync crushing all data on my Android ph.terminal with up to date data from TB on the PC (server) or ideally proceed with a regular two-way sync taking into account the data already sync'd previously via BirdieSync 2.x and still on my Android ph.terminal. Is the latter possible ?

4) Address books (7/28)
First I tried the following address book configuration selecting:
"Each contact group represents an address book".
I got a list of 7 address books.
- two accounts correspond to my skype nickname.
I leave them OFF (red - disabled).
- three correspond to my Google mail address.
I live them OFF (red - disabled)
- one is called BirdieSync.
Previously, with BirdieSync 2.x, I only used the BirdieSync Account to store my contacts on my Android Ph.terminal.
I switch it ON (green - combine this address book). It shows 3007 items as never synchronized. and after a few seconds the fifth pane on the right show the list of all contacts.
- one is vnd.sec.contact.phone. I live it OFF (red - disabled)

Second I tried the following address book configuration:
"Each contact account represents an address book".
I read the help section but I am not completely sure how this modifies the syncing process. This time I get a list of 5 address books.
As before I set BirdieSync ON (green - enabled) and leave the four other address books OFF (red - disabled)
The fifth pane shows the list of contacts. The same applies to calendars.

I could not get past that. I sent you a log archive by email with the name cedric_birdisynclog.zip
Cheers,
Laptop: Dual boot Win XP SP3 || Linux Trusty Tahr (LTS)
Cell: OS Android 4.1.2

Birdy
Site Admin
Posts: 3118
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:43 am
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Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by Birdy »

Before that, I only got "Device not recognized" AND/OR "Unknown device detected by Windows"
Did you have this message in Windows task bar ? Because if you did, it means that there was a problem connecting the Android device even before BirdieSync could detect it. I'm not sure about the reason of this. It could be a problem in Windows or on the Android device itself.
If the problem occurred after BirdieSync was notified about the connection of an Android device, I should see it in the logs (in that case, you should see the Android device in BirdieSync "Synchronization" view, even if just plugged and not yet fully connected).
- BirdieSync quit abruptly after 10 seconds and OS asked to send automatic crash report to MS.
If the problem is reproducible, then it should be possible to investigate. Also maybe I'll find usefull information in the logs.
father on the same line "6 configurations issues"
Very likely because BirdieSync crashed before the first configurations could be validated during the declaration of the Android mobile device.
The additional BirdieSync tool bar on TB is greyed out and displays "Impossible to connect to server 127.0.0.1". After restarting TB, it now shows "Not connected to host".
If you press the little "Connection" icon on the left in BirdieSync toolbar in Thunderbird, you always have "Impossible to connect" ?
If you temporarily disable your firewall, do you still have the same connection problem ?

It is necessary that Thunderbird succeeds in connecting to BirdieSync server to achieve the configuration because in BirdieSync 3.0, 2 address books on Android and Thunderbird are synchronized together if they have an identical name and are both enabled in Configuration view in Android and Thunderbird. Note also that address books which have different names can be synchronized together if they are both set as Main (the gear icon menu at the top right above the address book list).
Q: I supposed that the above setting is right if I don't want duplicates arising on the next sync. Instead I'd like to conduct the next sync crushing all data on my Android ph.terminal with up to date data from TB on the PC (server)
Presently the most important is to check the synchronization mode of the address books and calendars that you enabled to be synchronized. The "Replace" menu in the "Content" column simply apply a "Replace" on all address books or calendars that you've ALREADY ENABLED.
or ideally proceed with a regular two-way sync taking into account the data already sync'd previously via BirdieSync 2.x and still on my Android ph.terminal. Is the latter possible ?
If you choose "Combine" instead of "Replace", then at next synchronization, BirdieSync will examine the contacts present in the 2 address books synchronized together. If 2 contacts are found to be identical, then they will be considered as synchronized together and there will be no exchange between the Android device and Thunderbird. If a contact is found with no equivalent contact on the other source, then it will be copied and created on the other source.
You can try the "Combine" option first with "Preview operations" enabled (icon next to the synchronization progress bar). Be patient during the preparation phase of the synchronization because all contacts need to be examined. You may only enable a pair of address books at a time to check how they will be synchronized in the Preview window. In an ideal world, if your contacts had already been synchronized with BirdieSync 2.x, then they should be considered as identical and no operations should be necessary. But there might still be adjustements needed in this version. So if you see a lot of creation on both sources in "Combine" mode, it means that duplicates will be created. If it's the case, you may cancel synchronization and then use a "Replace" mode instead of the default "Combine" mode to avoid any duplicates.
Second I tried the following address book configuration:
"Each contact account represents an address book".
I read the help section but I am not completely sure how this modifies the syncing process.
BirdieSync 3.0 synchronize address books together. So if you wish to synchronize all the contacts present in Thunderbird address book "Personnal address book" and synchronize it with all the contacts present in BirdieSync account on Android, then the simplest is to choose "Account" mode. This way you'll simply synchronize "BirdieSync" address book on Android (which will contain all the contacts present in BirdieSync account) with "Personnal address book" in Thunderbird.
To synchronize these 2 address books together which have a different name, ensure that they are both set as "Main" (this should be the case by default if you select BirdieSync account as the default account in Android Address book configuration window).

Now if you want to synchronize several address books in Thunderbird (like "Personnal address book", "Family", "Friends", "Work", etc.) on your Android device, then it is necessary to choose "Group" mode because you want to be able to create/have all these groups/address books on your Android device. Inside BirdieSync account, you'd synchronize "Family", "Friends", "Work" groups, with "Family", "Friends", "Work" address books in Thunderbird.

Now regarding "Personnal address book" in Thunderbird, you can either synchronize it with "Personnal address book" group in BirdieSync account on Android, or with "No group" in BirdieSync account which contains all the contacts which don't belong to any group (usually when you create a new contact in BirdieSync account on Android, you may not assign it to any group).
By default "No group" may be set as Main to synchronize it (if enabled) with "Personnal address book" in Thunderbird (set by default as Main), even if they have different names. But you can choose to either enable "No group" on Android or "Personnal address book" on Android depending on which group you wish to synchronize with "Personnal address book" in Thunderbird. Note that if you both enable "No group" and "Personnal address book" on Android, you may have a configuration error, because BirdieSync would not know which one of the two you want to synchronize with "Personnal address book" in Thunderbird.
Birdy

cbhihe
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:27 am
Location: Barcelona, Spain

Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by cbhihe »

Hi Birdy, I really appreciate your quick take and return on this.
Before that, I only got "Device not recognized" AND/OR "Unknown device detected by Windows"
Did you have this message in Windows task bar ? Because if you did, it means that there was a problem connecting the Android device even before BirdieSync could detect it. I'm not sure about the reason of this. It could be a problem in Windows or on the Android device itself.
Yes, I saw the original message above displayed in the Wind XP's desktop's taskbar.
It may have been a USB cable problem (not verified) because when I rebooted this morning for the first time I realized I probably interchanged two identical looking USB to micro-USB cables. (Again I can't confirm but I have a suspicion it might be that lame :oops: ).
- BirdieSync quit abruptly after 10 seconds and OS asked to send automatic crash report to MS.
If the problem is reproducible, then it should be possible to investigate. Also maybe I'll find usefull information in the logs.
- rebooted again (just 10 min ago) and successfully reconnected the Android ph.terminal.
After about 40s, a new window appeared, saying something to the effect of BirdieSync needing/missing a second source to be able to synchronize and quoting "GT-I8190Android ADB Interface" as the only source detected.
- another window appeared, requesting that I select another source for user "my-username".
- clicked [next] and a dialog appeared to let me choose the venue of TB on the PC (server) I would fancy to use as the other source.
- selected the path to my Win XP OS TB 38.1; clicked OK and BirdieSync crashed,
- usual MS Win message requesting permission to issue a crash report followed. Clicked [Send].
- immediately restarted BirdieSync manually and went to main config window. Second pane showed 2nd source as "Default" with TB icon.
- BirdieSync completely froze at this point.
- killed it after 5 minute wait; relaunched as rest of OS seems unaffected by "unfolding drama" :wink: ...
- upon relaunch, BirdieSync seems ok. No freeze and I can configure as needed (i.e. a bit haphazardly given the changes in the GUI and settings depth).

At this point I realized there was a new beta version and I updated from beta 16 to to beta 17.

- selected BirdieSync account on Android source and Personal Address Book on PC's TB (server) source and gave them both attribute "Main"
- in main TB window's BirdieSync toolbar says "Ready to Synchronize" then "Preparing synchronization" while first green then red progress bar moves past.
As soon as my Android ph.terminal's screen dims and locks up (Energy saving + security measure) ("Preparing synchronization" becomes "Synchronization failed". On the same line but on the far right of the BirdieSync window the message "Source disconnected" appears in blue.
This is fully reproducible in my context.
- stopped screen dimming and limitation on CPU cycles for energy saving on Android ph.terminal.
- set automatic lock-up of screen after 30min on Android ph.-terminal
- relaunched Synchronization. (3011 contact items and more than 2500 event item in two calendars)
The wait is extraordinarily long (about 15 minutes). In the end 205 must be synchronized in total.
Final message is "Synchronization successfully completed" with zero conflicts out of 205, whereas I know there was at least one, zero failures and zero error.

- running sync again with "suppress/delete duplicate" set, permits the deletion of 170 duplicates. All are event items, without
- with BirdieSync 2.x I had no duplicate among contact items, I now have about 300 more contact items than before. Apparently they are not duplicates but creations.
- after looking at the history tab after sync'ing, I have 328 perfectly documented, completely new contacts created out of the blue on the first sync.
Sometimes 7 new items are created around one random keyword (can be an email address, a name, or another keyword) perhaps taken from the collected addresses in TB. I did check at random to see that pretty all new contacts item in Personal address book had been mysteriously sucked in during sync from Collected Addresses.
One finds email in lieu of last names, firstnames with non ascii characters, or with extended ascii characters (e.g.%$&!\ ...)
Only fields in the first tab of a contact item are (sparsely) filled, apparently at random (I did not scrutinize that carefully) . Other tab fields in those newly created contact items are always empty.

One qualitative comment is: I find the sync process itself more time consuming that before, i.e. with BirdieSync 2.x.
I cannot quantify that though.

More info as I run along using the beta 17 version.
Another log file is forwarded by email to support @ as file 'cedric_birdiesynclog2.zip'.
HTH. Cheers,
-cedric
Laptop: Dual boot Win XP SP3 || Linux Trusty Tahr (LTS)
Cell: OS Android 4.1.2

Birdy
Site Admin
Posts: 3118
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:43 am
Contact:

Re: Android phone terminal not recognized on USB

Post by Birdy »

Yes, sometimes it's necessary to switch to another USB port, or there might be a connection problem with the Android device plug and the cable.
- selected the path to my Win XP OS TB 38.1; clicked OK and BirdieSync crashed,
I tried to reproduce the problem but did not succeed. If you can reproduce the crash problem, then it may be possible to investigate on this.
- BirdieSync completely froze at this point.
Not sure about what happened here.
As soon as my Android ph.terminal's screen dims and locks up (Energy saving + security measure) ("Preparing synchronization" becomes "Synchronization failed".
While synchronizing BirdieSync is supposed to prevent the Android device from becoming totally asleep. But there might be differences of behavior along with the manufacturers. I'll check that again.
- relaunched Synchronization. (3011 contact items and more than 2500 event item in two calendars)
The wait is extraordinarily long (about 15 minutes). In the end 205 must be synchronized in total.
Was "Combine" mode selected when you synchronized for the first time ? If yes it's necessary to read contacts in detail to compare them with Thunderbird ones and only perform the necessary operations.
It might be possible to improve the performances in the future. After you synchronized a first time, synchronizations should be quicker.
- with BirdieSync 2.x I had no duplicate among contact items, I now have about 300 more contact items than before. Apparently they are not duplicates but creations.
"Combine" mode may have considered that some contacts were not exactly identical on the Android device and in Thunderbird and considered them as different, leading to duplicates (through creation on Android and Thunderbird).
But this point should also have been improved in beta 17, where "Combine" mode should potentially find more duplicates.
Final message is "Synchronization successfully completed" with zero conflicts out of 205, whereas I know there was at least one, zero failures and zero error.
A conflict can happens only when 2 items were synchronized together, and if after this initial synchronization, the two of them were simultaneously modified (so BirdieSync doesn't know which side to keep).
after looking at the history tab after sync'ing, I have 328 perfectly documented, completely new contacts created out of the blue on the first sync.
These contacts should be duplicate contacts created by "Combine" mode which didn't identify identical contacts on both sides.
Sometimes 7 new items are created around one random keyword (can be an email address, a name, or another keyword) perhaps taken from the collected addresses in TB. I did check at random to see that pretty all new contacts item in Personal address book had been mysteriously sucked in during sync from Collected Addresses.
It's a bit weird. If you look at the history (you can sort column by name), can you find these contacts ? Were they coming from Android ?
One finds email in lieu of last names, firstnames with non ascii characters, or with extended ascii characters (e.g.%$&!\ ...)
Only fields in the first tab of a contact item are (sparsely) filled, apparently at random (I did not scrutinize that carefully) . Other tab fields in those newly created contact items are always empty.
It would be necessary to check if these contacts are present on both Android and Thunderbird, or only on one side.
One qualitative comment is: I find the sync process itself more time consuming that before, i.e. with BirdieSync 2.x.
"Combine" mode can presently take a lot of time if you have an important number of contacts. But actually it may take less time than on 2.x which would have transfered and duplicated all the contacts on both sources, and then would have removed the duplicates on each source.
But it's true that usual synchronization is now slower and performances need to be improved. This is under study.
Birdy

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