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I am using Ubuntu 21.10. I tried to transfer files from my Android phone (Redmi Note 4) to my laptop via USB cable by enabling the file transfer option on the phone. Ubuntu detects my phone, but when I tried to open files in my phone on the laptop, it shows:

Unhandled error message: The name :1.103 was not provided by any .service files

It doesn't open the contents on my phone. Please help.

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  • The variety of phones and other issues makes this a tough one. You are not alone. Have you enabled developer options? {do so by tapping build number 7 times or so.} Watch your phone when you connect and see if you need to allow something or choose what protocol to use. I have battled this for years. I gave up and just use MixPlorer and ftp. Slightly slower but very easy to navigate. Oct 26, 2021 at 4:29

6 Answers 6

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I just had almost exactly this same problem with Ubuntu 20.04 and an Umidigi Android phone. I've never had trouble connecting my phone to the same computer under Windows 10, so I surmised that there was no problem on the phone's end. I was also able to switch the phone's connection to PTP and have it work in Ubuntu, but of course the phone would only transfer photos in that mode.

After digging around I found that Ubuntu doesn't include MTP support by default, which is needed to do general file transfers with Android. I opened a terminal and typed:

sudo apt-get install gmtp

and after I shut down and restarted the machine, I was able to connect my phone and browse its files as I expected.

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    gmtp is just a utility. I think you want to install the mtp-tools package instead. Dec 27, 2021 at 22:12
  • @Berend de Boer Well, installing gmtp solved this issue for me. Perhaps mtp-tools is a dependency of gmtp.
    – Hawkwind
    Jan 11, 2022 at 0:20
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    This solution worked for me initially, then after a certain reboot (in the near-future) this no longer worked. I had to also do nautilus -q to get functionality returned. See: askubuntu.com/a/1360217/756587
    – Kalnode
    Jun 25, 2022 at 15:14
  • Installed 'gmtp' 22.04.1. Rebooted. Worked for me with Galaxy M31. Mar 12, 2023 at 16:55
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On many Android devices, you'll need to drop down the Notifications and select the USB connection, then tell it you want to enable storage or something like that. For security reasons Android defaults to Charging mode when you plug into a computer. Once you've done this, you should see a notification in Ubuntu that a new removable media device has been connected.

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After editing /etc/udev/../rules/files setting my phone IDs (thru lsusb) I managed to workaround this only by selecting at the phone (when asked) to use it to "Transfer Images" not "USB transfer files", and that made the trick, any filetype I'm allowed to write/move/copy/paste from Nautilus...

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I have the same problem, on Debian with LXQT.

The certificate of the connecting device (a PC) has been validated since I can issue adb commands.

I don't have a solution to the problem, but a workaround.


Workaround

If you have developer mode enabled and adb enabled, after connecting the cable, you can transfer files with (these commands are run on the PC):

# from PC to Android
adb push <file> /sdcard/Download/
adb push * /sdcard/Download/

# from Android to the PC
adb pull /sdcard/Download/<file> 
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I solved my problems with transferring files from Android by plugging a thumb drive into my phone.

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On an Android Pixel 2 and Ubuntu 18.04.1, to allow file transfer via a USB cable from the phone to the computer, on the phone, go to Settings > 'Connected devices' > 'USB' > select 'File Transfer'. This worked immediately for me: the phone showed up in Device Notifier and allowed me to download photos with Gwenview. And it also allowed me to delete the photos on the phone from the computer after I had downloaded them.

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