The Z2 supports OTG apparently. My question is, can I move files directly from my current Android phone to my Z2 using OTG? Or Do I still have to use my PC as the middleman between the two?
sacredsoul said:
The Z2 supports OTG apparently. My question is, can I move files directly from my current Android phone to my Z2 using OTG? Or Do I still have to use my PC as the middleman between the two?
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You cannot directly connect two phones with a cable and transfer files. The reason is that the phone never exposes its filesystem directly, but uses an MTP client to make files available on a PC. Since the Z2 is not an MTP host, it cannot see the files on the "old" phone.
There could be an exception if your "old" phone is really old. Originally, Android phones used a FAT filesystem for the "SD card", and then often exposed that directly to PC's, and then they ought to work also with an OTG phone as host. I cannot confirm what phones from what manufacturers would work in that manner, however.
Another way to transfer files, if your old phone supports OTG, is to use a USB memory stick as intermediate storage. A PC might still be more convenient, however, compared to using a clunky file manager on yotr phones.
Related
I have a Canon EOS 350D which needs a driver on windows. Canon could solve this with a new firmware but this will not happen. If I have the usb adapter for the SGT is there a solution to copy photo's from the EOS? Or will I have to take the pcmcia card out to copy photo's?(and use a seperate reader).
Is this a strange Q? Or is it simple: If there doesn't exist an android driver for a external usb device you can't connect it?
It annoys me big time, I will own a nice piece of equipment like the tab, but have to carry a usb adapter, a usb cable and a cardreader with me, to transfer photo's from my camera when I'm on the road.(and the hassling with removing cards etc.)
I don't think there will ever be native support for proprietary drivers in Android. I'm no developer so I can't say if you could add support for that camera driver through an app but I don't think you'll get around the sd card reader + USB adapter combo for now.
If you can find Linux/Ubuntu support for it, you MIGHT be able to hack it in with an alternate kernel - but depending on the nature of the support method, the user interface may be suboptimal. (using shell commands to mount, etc.)
Edit: Check Themes and Apps section, new news. There's apparently now a "DSLR Controller" app, not sure how well this will work for you. I shoot Pentax so I can't test it.
Entropy512 said:
If you can find Linux/Ubuntu support for it, you MIGHT be able to hack it in with an alternate kernel - but depending on the nature of the support method, the user interface may be suboptimal. (using shell commands to mount, etc.)
Edit: Check Themes and Apps section, new news. There's apparently now a "DSLR Controller" app, not sure how well this will work for you. I shoot Pentax so I can't test it.
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If I can also copy photo's with it, it will be great. Thanks, I will check it out.
Is it true that Samsung removed USB OTG Host capability from latest firmwares?
"DSLRcontroller" requires USB host and developer is suggesting that Samsung removed the feature.
http://dslrcontroller.com/devices.php
https://market.android.com/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller
Could anyone try or disagree?
Galaid said:
Is it true that Samsung removed USB OTG Host capability from latest firmwares?
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Why would you doubt Chainfire?
http://www.chainfire.eu/articles/103/_SGS2_KI_Samsung_removes_USB_host_support_patches_bootloaders/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1202082
Any official response from Samsung about WHY did they remove the feature that existed on previous 2.3 ROMS?
Is this true ???
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was this:
USB OTG still works (technically) for "identified devices"; those devices being flash drives (and by extensions also usb card readers which appear as flash drives), mouse and keyboard. "Unidentified Devices" ie your DSLR will not activate in the newer firmwares. If Samsung didn't specifically add the device's USB id to their "whitelist" of approved devices, it will not activate. My guess is certain unsupported devices may have been causing issues with the phone?? Not quite sure, but this is the cause of this app not working on the newer firmwares. Before now, any usb otg would work in the sense that the phone would connect and form a link with it, even if it didn't necessarily know what to do with it (be it a webcam, dslr, etc) which is again what we need for this dslr program to work.
Maybe an answer could be to locate and modify the whitelist? My guess is that might be the easiest solution (speaking as a non-developer...)
compuw22c said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it was this:
USB OTG still works (technically) for "identified devices"; those devices being flash drives (and by extensions also usb card readers which appear as flash drives), mouse and keyboard. "Unidentified Devices" ie your DSLR will not activate in the newer firmwares. If Samsung didn't specifically add the device's USB id to their "whitelist" of approved devices, it will not activate. My guess is certain unsupported devices may have been causing issues with the phone?? Not quite sure, but this is the cause of this app not working on the newer firmwares. Before now, any usb otg would work in the sense that the phone would connect and form a link with it, even if it didn't necessarily know what to do with it (be it a webcam, dslr, etc) which is again what we need for this dslr program to work.
Maybe an answer could be to locate and modify the whitelist? My guess is that might be the easiest solution (speaking as a non-developer...)
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Hey,
I am not an expert on this, but I belive that your statement is just partially true.
I just encounterd the same problem, i.e. usb-devices such as mouse, usb-stick, etc are properly supported BUT my own application would not run on my SGS2 (running KI1/KI1/KI1).
The application doesn't try to establish a connection to any unsupported device whatsoever (i.e. it just queries the number of connected usb-devices). Hence there is no special requirement for this application except the presence of the USB Host API, but this application crashes just like any other application which requires USB HOST (e.g. DSLRController).
Best
Good day!
Since version 4.x of the Android mobile phone operating system, Google has removed the USB Mass Storage mode and replaced it with Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). This means that the phone appears as a camera or scanner in Windows Explorer, without a drive letter, and that means that many file types cannot be copied to the phone, no new files created there, many PC based recovery and synchronization programs do not function properly, etc. The feature was removed to take control out of users' hands, because a lot of things would be a lot easier to achieve if one could access all directories and files on the phone from the PC -- a disk/hex editor is a powerful tool. Yes, some people bricked their devices by using them stupidly, but given all the locks and hurdles that manufacturers and carriers increasingly impose on customers who paid a huge sum of money for their little toys with every new version of the operating system, there is a clear tendency to see: milk consumers for all they are worth, but keep in control and decide what they are allowed to do.
To partially remedy the problem, most tutorials recommend to install a WebDAV server on the phone and map it as a network drive on the PC via Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, many of the more interesting operations need to be done before the phone is up and running, before software is installed and before a Wi-Fi network can be configured/established, and other operations can simply only be done via USB cable.
There is a company called Cranking Pixels that produces a PTP as well as an MTP driver for Windows, which bring back the drive letter for file-based (not sector based) operations. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any recent versions floating around in the netherworld, and the price for the software is rather steep, especially when needing several copies. Therefore I would like to ask ...
a.) User experience
Does anybody have experience with the software and can say whether it offers sufficient bang for the buck to justify the expense? This means being able to access all folders & subfolders, create/copy/delete/edit/move all types of files from/to the phone and PC? Can system files be modified/patched so that certain flags that the phone system sets when detecting a rooted phone can be modified in a way that things like OTA updates, secure folders and banking applications still work?
b.) Similar programs
Is anyone aware of similar solutions that do the same or more but cost less?
c.) Alternative solutions
Are there other approaches that bring back Mass Storage USB mode to Android Oreo and Pie, be it flashed files for the phone, be it modified USB drivers for the computer or whatever?
Yes, phones can be rooted and so on, and so on, but it usually requires manual intervention to keep things running smoothly after every update and security patch. There are also many situations when being able to treat the phone like a mass storage device (external hard disk or USB stick) is simply more convenient and quicker or preferable for other reasons.
Any pointers and tips will be appreciated. Thank you for your attention and have a pleasant afternoon.
Hi all!
I have just purchased a new phone (Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro), and I must say that if I had known, I would have stuck with my 3 year-old Huawei P20 Lite for a little longer. The reason why I am so disappointed is that I am using a Samsung portable SSD drive (T5) that I also use with my Windows computer. I went with the exFAT file system because it is supported by both OSes, or so I thought because my old Huawei phone supported it out of the box! But apparently my new Xiaomi doesn't. So it seems that Huawei has actually gone the extra mile to add different file system support to their implementation of Android. From what I remember, I could even use a regular external drive formatted in NTFS, I just didn't do so much because it was such a drain on the battery. So the fact that none of those file systems are supported by my Xiaomi really feels like a let-down.
But I know my complaining about it won't change anything so before I take back the phone (which is otherwise great) to the store, I have one big question: is there a file system for such drives that is natively supported by both Windows and Android? I don't mind backing up the content of the drive, re-format it with a new file system supported by both and copy back everyting on the drive.
Of course I know about FAT32 but it won't cut it (let alone FAT). Its file size limitation is a no-go because some of my files are more than 4GB in size.
I have looked at the Paragon (I think that's the name) app that can provide exFAT support to Android through the Total Commander app, but I don't want to be tied to a specific file explorer, so it's not really an option.
Any idea or nudge in the right direction would be very much appreciated!
Also, are there other phone brands than Huawei that support NTFS or exFAT? E.g. Samsung, Motorolla, Nokia, ...? I'm not even sure new Huawei's phones still provide that support for the same reason Google cannot provide them with their services. If possible of course I'd like to stick with this new phone, but just in case...
Thank you!
Fa
Well, I should have tested a little more before asserting that the phone does not support exFAT or NTFS. In fact it does, even though I get a small message saying it doesn't every time I plug in my samsung drive.
I tested with USB sticks formatted in both NTFS and exFAT, and I can read and write on both just fine using USB OTG. So the issue must be between my Xiaomi phone and my Samsung SSD drive. The phone just crashes and restarts after 30 seconds every time I plug the drive in. The drive is otherwise fine and still works well with another phone, so I'd say the issue lays squarely with this phone, but it's definitely not the lack of support for file systems. It launches the Samsung decryption app when I connect the drive. So far no issue. It's when it starts to scan the content once I've provided the encryption key that the crash happens.
I will now have to test some more. I guess I will delete the whole drive content and try to test both NTFS and exFAT on the non-encrypted drive to see if it makes a difference or if the issue is a matter of hardware incompatibility.
Still looking for input though, so feel free to throw in ideas!
Thanks!
Many instructions tell me how easy it is ... just attach the flash drive and then cool down the menu that is the notification... thats the problem...I get no notification on my phone that the device is attached to my phone... I go to my file manager internal storage where it is allegedly also listed... not on my phone though... no siree which conjures up great disappointment on my part can anybody help this guy who's at the end of his rope? why has life become so complicated?
Hi, nice to meet you. To transfer android phone photos to flash drive, maybe you can do that by using a third-party program from the computer. First, connect your Android phone to the computer via USB cable. If your Android phone can be detected by the computer, you can do that easily. Such program like Coolmuster Android Assistant will scan out all data on your android phone, including photos. Then you can preview and choose photos you want, and export them to the computer. After that, you can transfer them to the flash drive via PC. Hope this will be your help.
Welcome to XDA
What kind of phone do you have?
A Android file manager can be used.
Samsung's come with one but 3rd party ones work too. I use the Samsung one a lot because I like it's layout.