Visual Studio and Android Device Monitor doesn't detect any devices

Question

I\'ve just installed VS2015 Community with Xamarin to develop some mobile apps. The problem is, I can\'t achieve debugging Android apps on any device. Android Device Monitor

Answer 1

To preface, I had connected my phone (a blackberry which had Android and full Google Play Store access) via Android Studio before so I KNOW it's possible, but when I was trying to do it with Xamarin I was having issues, Visual Studio just wouldn't recognize my device.

Found the problem appears to be the USB cable I was using. When I standardly plug in the USB, blackberry gives me the option to just charge the phone, or to enable File Transferring. But the first cable I was using always just charged the phone and didn't give me options. I tried switching the usb cable and voila, I got the prompt, and I can see the device now in the Start Debugging dropdown. So it looks like there's charge-only usb cables as well as Data cables. Be sure you're using a Data cable else it won't be able to see your Device

Answer 2

Here's some things I check when having an issue with Android device not appearing:

• Enable developer mode on the device from settings
• Install (e.g. to windows) the manufacturer's* developer USB drivers for the device
• Ensure the Minimum Android Version in the AndroidManifest.xml is lower or equal to your device
• And as always, try a different lead and restart both PC and Device!!

*Manufacturer Android USB Development driver links I know of:
Sony | Samsung | Google/Nexus | Blackberry

Answer 3

Try the this: 1 - Close Visual Studio 2 - connect your device 3 - Restart visual studio with the device already connected by usb (with the device options checked)

Answer 4

I had the same problem, using a Samsung Galaxy A5

• Google Drivers Installed
• Samsung Drivers Installed
• Phone shows up in file explorer

Plugging the phone in while Visual Studio was opened resulted in a pop up asking for permission. After authorising, everything worked perfectly. I didn't have to go into the developer settings on the smartphone and revoke the USB debugging authorisation.

Answer 5

I wasn't getting the USB debugging prompt on the device to trust the PC it was connected to and it wasn't appearing in the drop down list of devices in Visual Studio or ADB. Tried many things but installing the USB driver for the device (in my case Sony Xperia XA1 from: https://developer.sony.com/develop/drivers/

After installing this device driver by right-clicking the ADB Interface device in Device Manager and choosing the downloaded driver it showed the prompt to allow the PC and now works fine. This was on Windows 8.1 . I don't remember having to do the same for my Windows 10 PC.

Answer 6

I have just updated from VS2015 (14.0.25402.00 Update 3) to VS2017 (15.7.5).
Amongst other things, I had to migrate a .forms app from 2.3.x to 3.1.x...
As it (according to MS) now should be possible to install also the Xamarin integration software in parallel to older versions of VS, I first (for security reasons) wanted to leave my “old” .forms app under VS2015 and .forms 2.3x and start to update to .forms 3.x with VS2017.

First, everything looked good - I was able to open my “old” .forms 2.3.x project in VS2015 (what was not possible in the earlier migration from VS2013 to VS2015).
But, I was not able to bring my two dev mobiles (both Samsung Galaxy S7) to work under VS2015 again, although, they were showed to my dev-machine (windows explorer) correct.
After wasting about a full day (doing every suggested workaround, I found on the web), I gave up und started to migrate the .forms project under VS2017.

Under VS2017 both mobiles were showed immediately without any problems and I was able to debug to the device.
So.. it seems, as the installation of VS2017 (with Xamarin integration SW) has “destroyed” something in the VS2015 installation regarding the access to the mobile devices...