ADB stopping at <waiting for devices>

Question

I was trying to install some custom recovery and ROM on to my phone when I got to this situation.

(I have my windows update turned off)

ADB or fastboot shows

<waiting for devices>

I tried and saw few solutions. I'm writing a detailed solution to this. this was how I solved it. if you have more suggestions you can answer below.

Answer 1

the only reason for this is that your PC is not recognizing Phone.which is a driver problem.

You have to understand a few things before starting with the solution. you may know this too.

• when you are in your recovery adb gets into something like recovery mode(just framing some terms myself)

• in bootloader, it takes fastload mode.

each of this mode needs different drivers other than what the driver you use with adb when your phone is running on OS.

so what you have to do is.

if you are trying to get into recovery mode or fastload mode.

• open device manager(settings>devices>(more options)Device manager).

• now boot the phone into the required mode using manual or adb method.

• the device manager reloads and a new driver will be shown. either in Android or pointing device or others folder.

• select the driver and update online.(always preferred).

• if you don't find an online driver you have to select manual update here.

  
  select browse my computer.
  
  select let me pick.
  
  select browse.

at last, you have to select the usb-driver provided by the google. in sdk>extras>google>usb-driver

it will show the updatable driver.select and press next to install. press ok now it should work correctly.

Answer 2

For me, I couldn't even see my Android device in Windows 10 Device Manager until I went into Settings/General/Developer options and set Select USB Configuration to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) instead of the default Charging Only, and also found a different USB cable that wasn't a charging-only one. Then, as @sushanthkille indicated above, I still had to install an updated driver, but the way he describes via Device Manager didn't work. For my LG G4, I had to go to https://www.lg.com/us/lgeai/Drivers/pages/mobile-drivers.html (found via googling for windows 10 LG G4 drivers) download the Windows driver, and install it manually. After all that, my G4 finally showed up in Windows 10.

Answer 3

Happened to MACOS Mojave 10.14.6 while trying to install twrp-3.3.1-2-enchilada.img.

Solved it by running:

adb reboot-bootloader

Then, when the phone boot into bootloader,

fastboot boot twrp-3.3.1-2-enchilada.img

worked like a charm

Answer 4

For me it was not turning on usb debugging.

(settings -> developer options(you should activate this if you don't see this option) -> usb debugging.)