ADB is not starting (no error message)

Issue

I am trying to run adb. When I run : "adb start-server" it hangs during a while, and then no message.

After that the command "adb get-state" receive the answer "error: protocol fault (no status)" If I run then "adb kill-server" the answer is "* server not running *"

I am using windows 7. An admin has elevated my rights to local admin, but it did not solve anything.

I used resources monitor to verify if any other app is using the ports of adb, but it is not the case.

on https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/remote-debugging the step 3 indicates to "Enable USB Web debugging" under Settings > Advanced > DevTools. But on my test phone, there is no "advanced" category in the chrome settings. I couldn't find out either what is the version of chrome installed.

Somewhere on the web I saw a suggestion to change the rights of "tmp/android/" to allow read & write for all users, but in C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\temp there is no android folder.

So I am pretty desperate now, any help would be immensely appreciated.

thanks

-olivier

EDIT 1: I could't find "Enable USB Web debugging" because it was "android browser" and not chrome (a bit ridiculous yes). I did not know that. Using another device with a proper chrome installed, I could check the option there, but adb is still crashing at startup.

EDIT 2: I did a wild guess that there was some Write issue with the platform-tools folder. So I uninstalled everything using the sdk manager, I deleted the whole adt-bundle-windows-x86_64. Then I unzipped it elsewhere, on c:. Strange thing is, when I launch SDKManager.exe, several packages are already marked as installed :

• Tools>Android SDK Tools
• Tools>Android SDK Plateform-tools
• Android 4.2.2>SDK Plateform
• Android 4.2.2>ARM EABI v7a System Image
• Extras>Android Support Library

I tried deinstall them again, delete the folder, unzip again and re-install, but still same result. It seems that somehow, it is installed wrong, but refuses to uninstall properly. Anyone knows how to force the unistallation ?

EDIT 3 : output of adb start-server after having used set ADB_TRACE=1

C:\adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20130219\sdk\platform-tools>adb start-server
system/core/adb/adb.c::main():Handling commandline()
system/core/adb/adb_client.c::_adb_connect():_adb_connect: host:version
system/core/adb/sysdeps_win32.c::socket_loopback_client():socket_loopback_client: port 5037 type tcp => fd 100
system/core/adb/transport.c::writex():writex: fd=100 len=4: 30303063 000c
system/core/adb/transport.c::writex():writex: fd=100 len=12: 686f73743a76657273696f6e host:version
system/core/adb/transport.c::readx():readx: fd=100 wanted=4
system/core/adb/transport.c::readx():readx: fd=100 disconnected
system/core/adb/sysdeps_win32.c::adb_close():adb_close: 100(lo-client:5037)
system/core/adb/adb_client.c::adb_connect():adb_connect: service host:start-server

Solution

Try setting the environment variable ADB_TRACE before starting the ADB server to see if it can provide any clues:

 C:\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>set ADB_TRACE=1
 C:\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb start-server

Please include the output in your question.

Answered By - Joe