Reputation: 1621

Error "The connection to adb is down, and a severe error has occurred."

I've spent days trying to launch any Android program. Even "Hello World" gives me the same error:

"The connection to adb is down, and a severe error has occurred".

I'm running Eclipse v3.5 (Galileo), Google APIs 2.2.8, on a Windows XP machine.

I've used all the tricks I can find on the web: the command line "adb kill-server", the DDMS "reset ADB", I started the emulator both before and after Eclipse, and searched for ports being used by other programs.

What is going on here? Is there a magic combination of versions of Eclipse, Java, ADB, emulator, and whatever else that works?

Upvotes: 291

Answers (30)

Hamreen Ahmad

Reputation: 568

If you are using the Genymotion emulator:

Make sure that the SDK path used for Genymotion is also the same path used for the Eclipse.

This error also occurs if those two paths are different.

Upvotes: 1

ToyAuthor X

Reputation: 325

I have tried "adb kill-server" and restarted Eclipse too many times. I even rebooted my computer. They don't work.

Finally, I turned off test mode of my phone and turned on again. Then everything looked fine.

Upvotes: 0

jpmaster

Reputation: 77

Close Eclipse

Use this in the terminal:

sudo killall -9 adb

Run Eclipse.

Upvotes: 1

younes0

Reputation: 2302

Another error cause would be the fact you might have set up adb.exe to run with administrator privileges.

Upvotes: 0

Fedir Tsapana

Reputation: 1352

Devices window → toolbar more menu → Reset adb

For displaying the devices window: Menu Window → Show view → Other → Android → Devices

Upvotes: 0

Catalin Stan

Reputation: 79

I had the same problems, and it turned out that my antivirus program (Comodo) sandboxed the adb.exe, and that is why it didn't work. I closed the antivirus, and it worked just fine. Consider that.

Upvotes: 2

Mustafa Magdi

Reputation: 313

For Ubuntu users, you can run the following command:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Upvotes: 0

starnetdev

Reputation: 978

The previous solutions will probably work. I solved it downloading the latest ADT (Android Developer Tools) and overwriting all files in the SDK folder.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Once you overwrite it, Eclipse may give a warning saying that the path for SDK hasn't been found, go to Preferences and change the path to another folder (C:), click Apply, and then change it again and set the SDK path and click Apply again.

Upvotes: 1

Mohammed Yasin

Reputation: 739

Go to the folder platform-tools in cmd folder platform tools available in the Android folder where you have Android backup files.

Type the following

adb kill-server

and

adb start-server

then type

adb devices

adb kill-server

You can now see your device.

Upvotes: 4

Petre

Reputation: 1

I've deleted all my tasks from HTC task manager and now it's working.

Upvotes: 0

Sergio Abreu

Reputation: 2889

Check if your firewall didn't add a rule and blocked the connection to adb server. It uses newdev.dll and your network. It just happened here, I removed the blocking rule from the firewall, and now it is fine.

Upvotes: 0

midiwriter

Reputation: 426

This problem has been plaguing me for days until I finally figured out what was causing it. It got so bad I couldn't even update my apps even after trying all the above suggestions.

HTC Sync also runs a process called adb.exe. HTC Sync is an optional program available when installing the HTC USB driver. I had recently updated my installation of the HTC bundle and apparently hadn't installed HTC Sync before. Checking properties on adb.exe in the Task Manager showed it to belong to HTC Sync, not Android.

As soon as I uninstalled HTC Sync from the control panel the problem disappeared! (It's listed separately from the USB driver so that can stay.) I never saw more than one instance of adb.exe running. I'm curious to know if people having to kill the process from Task Manager, check to see if it's actually the Android process you are killing?

Please read user comments (I too have a HTC Thunderbolt): http://www.file.net/process/adb.exe.html

Upvotes: 3

GOsha

Reputation: 689

Add android-sdks/platform-tools to the Windows PATH environment variable.

Upvotes: 0

blode

Reputation: 1

I got the same error. My resolution is to set the directory platform-tools to the system path and then restart the OS.

Or in a DOS cmd prompt:

set path=%path%;c:\xxx\platform-tools

It works for me.

Upvotes: 0

ilker erikli

Reputation: 1

I found the path of the SDK (Preferences* → Android → SDK Location) was the cause. My SDK path was the following:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk

The spaces in the path is the problem. To get it to work, you must change Program Files (x86) to Progra~2

The complete right path is C:\Progra~2\Android\android-sdk.

Now it should work.

Upvotes: 1

Nolesh

Reputation: 7018

Nothing worked for me, even restarting a computer. I couldn't install an app on my device. But I solved this problem by myself:

Go to DDMS and choose connected device. Now try again!

Upvotes: 0

gnganapath

Reputation: 947

AndroidSDK → Platform Tools → Kill did not work.

But after restarting my computer, it worked.

Upvotes: 0

Gavin Thornton

Reputation: 1897

Eclipse → preferences → Android → NDK

Check the "NDK Location" path is set correctly, and use the browse button to set it.

Upvotes: 0

user929404

Reputation: 2243

It worked for me to start my AVD emulator first (from the AVD manager), and then to run my program. The other stuff mentioned here.

(Restarting the ADB server didn't work though.)

Upvotes: 0

Rory Gaddin

Reputation: 11

I know this question has already been answered, but thought I might add that I found the problem to be folder permissions on my android-sdk directory.

I tested it out by granting Full Control to Everyone (dodgy, I know...), and the problem went away. I am not sure yet what the specific mix of permissions might be that it was looking for, but I assume some or other service in Eclipse didn't have execute permissions on adb.exe. That said, I'm a complete noob to this - just wanted to put it out there in case someone else had some insights into this.

I am running Windows 7, 64-bit, 4.2.0 Eclipse, and 20.0.0v201206242043 ADT.

Upvotes: 4

Ty Harlacker

Reputation: 111

[2012-07-04 11:24:25 - The connection to adb is down, and a severe error has occurred.
[2012-07-04 11:24:25 - You must restart adb and Eclipse.
[2012-07-04 11:24:25 - Please ensure that adb is correctly located at '/home/ASDK/platform-tools/adb' and can be executed

I realized the folder of the project in Eclipse was closed. I expanded the directory and the project launched. I know this may sound like a "no-brainer". I had the .java files open on the workspace, and that was enough to make me think the project was open.

Upvotes: 12

Guy Cohen

Reputation: 759

maydenec is correct (in my case...). The file was moved.

I even found this file:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\tools\adb_has_moved.txt

Which explained this issue.

Suggestions in this file:

Install "Android SDK Platform-tools".
Please also update your PATH environment variable to include the "platform-tools/" directory.

Upvotes: 0

michael

Reputation: 11

The killing of the mysteriously running abd.exe worked. This sudden roadblock stopped me for a long time. I was doing all sorts of command line stuff and removed the lock icon from my user folder, but nothing worked until your simple suggestion of looking for the abd in the running processes of the task manager and killing it.

Another newbie roadblock I discovered an answer to: don't run Eclipse when any file other than the main .java file is active. If you run it when, for example, the main.xml file is active, you will get unhelpful error messages, an odd file created like main.xml.out, and it wont run.

Upvotes: 1

JohnBoy

Reputation: 11

I had a similar problem. I found out that there was another adb.exe running which was started from BirdieSync (Sync Tool for Thunderbird). I found out with Process Explorer from Sysinternals, that Windows was running another incompatible adb.exe. Just put the mouse cursor above the process (in Process Explorer), and you'll see which adb.exe is started.

I had to kill the BirdieSync process as well, because it started the wrong adb.exe again.

Then I could start the right adb.exe, and it worked fine.

Upvotes: 1

Usama Sarwar

Reputation: 9020

Use:

Open Task Manager → Processes → adb.exe → End Process → restart Eclipse

This worked for me.

And:

Open Task Manager → Processes → eclipse.exe → End Process → restart Eclipse

Upvotes: 106

Mina

Reputation: 61

Make sure it's not running in the task-manager processes. If so, end the process and then start it from a command prompt as in a previous answer. This worked for me.

Upvotes: 6

joseph_morris

Reputation: 765

Open up the Windows task manager, kill the process named adb.exe, and re-launch your program.

Upvotes: 24

jwanga

Reputation: 4256

Update your Eclipse Android development tools. It worked for me.

Upvotes: 7

Aakash

Reputation: 11

Go to the tools folder of your Android SDK
Run emulator.exe -avd <your avd>. It will take some time for the emulator to run.
Once you see the homescreen on your emulator, open Eclipse and run your program again...

Upvotes: 1

Guna

Reputation: 1756

Try the below steps:

Close Eclipse if running
Go to the Android SDK platform-tools directory in the command prompt
Type adb kill-server (Eclipse should be closed before issuing these commands)
Then type adb start-server
No error message is thrown while starting the ADB server, then ADB is started successfully.
Now you can start Eclipse again.

It worked for me this way.

Restart your phone as well!

Upvotes: 532

Error &quot;The connection to adb is down, and a severe error has occurred.&quot;

Answers (30)

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Error "The connection to adb is down, and a severe error has occurred."