Chrome DevTools Devices does not detect device when plugged in

Question

I cannot seem to get the DevTools Devices feature to work on my Samsung Galaxy S4 even after following the steps outlined at https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/remote-debugging

My device has Chrome v32 and Chrome Beta v33, while my PC has Chrome v33 and Chrome Canary v35.

USB debugging is enabled on my device and device driver has been installed. I have never got the prompt as outline in step 3 from the above link to approve the RSA key fingerprint yet the device does connect to my PC to allow media transfer. I have even revoked all USB debugging authorizations as per the link above.

I don't have any thing extra installed on my PC for Android development which may perhaps be the issue. I wish to utilise this feature to inspect web pages from the devices point of view.

Answer 1

To get the functionality up and running:

• Follow steps at https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/remote-debugging
• Install Windows USB driver http://developer.samsung.com/android/tools-sdks/Samsung-Android-USB-Driver-for-Windows
• Install Android SDK http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
• Install Android SDK Platform-tools http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/adding-packages.html (this step was blocked on corporate wifi so I installed the single ADB package it required https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2317790)
• Use command prompt to run ADB, in cmd go to the install directory of the ADB tools and type:
• adb.exe (might need to start and stop ADB using adb kill-server and adb start-server)
• Connect phone and browse to about:inspect in Chrome on desktop, ensuring a Chrome browser is open on your device

Following the above steps I got the RSA key fingerprint prompt to accept then I saw my device in Chrome.

Definitely not as easy as I thought it would have been but at least it now works.

Update 24 February 2016

So I updated to Windows 10 and now have a Samsung Galaxy S5, devices running Chrome v48.0.2564.116 m and v48.0.2564.95 respectively. Followed the steps from the Google docs and...it didn't work again, no RSA key prompt. So I began to follow my steps as above and thought there had to be a faster way as the Android SDK was over 1GB download.

This time I tried:

• Follow steps at https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/remote-debugging
• Install Windows USB driver http://developer.samsung.com/android/tools-sdks/Samsung-Andorid-USB-Driver-for-Windows (the PC alerted me saying it was already installed but I still did it anyway)
• Install the single ADB package required https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2317790)
• Go to the ADB install folder which for me was C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot\
• Open command prompt and run adb devices (alternatively I could have run adb start-server but the prior gives a more informational response)

Now, with Chrome open on my phone and chrome://inspect/ open on my desktop I can see the inspect options.

Next problem: I need to repeat the same steps each time I reboot Windows. To solve that issue:

• Open a text editor and copy in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot\adb" devices
• Save that file as adb.bat in the Windows Startup folder located at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

Note that the file does NOT need to be called adb.bat as long as it is a .bat file. The command you copied into the file has the default install path which you may need to alter for your set up.

Now I have the Chrome Inspect feature working when I need it.

Bit thanks and shout out to all others who have contributed their answers to this question which helped guide me towards a useful update to my answer. Please give credit to other answers where you find they have helped you too.