My Android phone isn't being detected by Ubuntu

Question

This is what I've got from terminal, looks like it can see the phone as a USB device just fine but isn't showing up under fdisk so I can't mount it. It automounts just fine in my VMWare Windows. And Internet tethering works fine while under Linux (haven't tried under Windows).

Here's lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 019: ID 04d9:1135 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05ca:18c0 Ricoh Co., Ltd 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0489:e00f Foxconn / Hon Hai Foxconn T77H114 BCM2070 [Single-Chip Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Adapter]
Bus 003 Device 010: ID 04e8:6860 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 002 Device 012: ID 046d:c315 Logitech, Inc. Classic New Touch Keyboard

And here's sudo fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0001ff06

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048   681845797   340921875    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2   *   681846784   845686783    81920000   83  Linux
/dev/sda3       845686784   968566783    61440000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       968568830   972475081     1953126    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       968568832   972475081     1953125   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: 2000 MB, 2000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243 cylinders, total 3906250 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbe4c2ec7

Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Solution

There is a big difference in the way some Android phones connect to the computer, as I understand it older versions use USB Mass Storage, and newer phones use MTP. MTP allows for you to access files on the phone while the phone does too, but with USB Mass Storage only one device can mount the storage at any one time presenting a problem.

If you have a newer Android phone then you will want to use one of the Ubuntu programs that can speak MTP. I've used gMTP with success myself, there are (or were?) some problems with the MTP library but hopefully those will be fixed soon.

If you have an older phone that uses USB Mass Storage then we may need more info to help you.

The reason it works under Windows 7 (assuming that's what your using) is because Windows 7 has built-in support for MTP while Linux and OSX support isn't quite that well integrated yet.

Comments

[coversnail]

Could you edit your question to include which phone you are trying to connect, which version of Android it is running, and how you are trying to connect (USB mass storage or MTP)

[karel]

While this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.