Like many the latest Android update has been a pain.
I’m currently running KDEconnect 1.32.5 on Android 14 (build AP2A.240905.003) on a Pixel 7, and kdeconnect 21.12.3 on Kubuntu 22.04.
These two were happily talking to each other until I lost the ability to send files to the phone a few weeks ago, and lost the ability to send/share files from the phone recently.
Phone and PC are paired (I can ping, send commands, etc…), but trying to share a file doesn’t do anything:
In the Linux->Phone direction:
no progress popup and errors shown when sharing from Dolphin (“Send to {phone}” or “Share > Send to device”)
no message when I use kdeconnect-cli --share (also, rc=0)
no reception icon on the phone
In the Phone->Linux direction:
I still see KDE connect in the options to share
When I select it I get to a screen when I can pick my PC as a target
If I click there KDEconnect exits and I return to the file manager
No emission icon on the phone, no reception popup on the PC
In the app authorizations on Android I don’t see any way to add some kind of disk access authorization.
In the “Apps special privileges” page I see an “Access all files” page and KDEConnect isn’t in it.
Any ideas?
Edit: the plot thickens. Found in the KDEconnect settings on the phone that I had disabled “Share files and URLs”, so re-enabled it. And this fixed… only part of the problem, because I can send files from the phone, but if I try to send a file from Linux, everything looks fine on Linux (progress popup, etc…) but I have a notification from KDEconnect on the phone that says “Unable to receive files from {Linux device}”.
I remember that in my previous attempts to fix this I found a way to give access to specific directories to the app, but I no longer find where… And since I reinstalled the app twice I assume this setting was lost.
Looking at your edits, I think you might want to try two things [If you haven’t already]:
Using remote filesystem browser for sharing Linux to phone:
This is a bit of a workaround for the edit you added, and you can make sure this is setup by:
Going to your phone >> KDE Connect >> Your Device name
The 3 dotted button at the top right >> Plugin Settings
FileSystem Expose [press on the text] & make sure theres a location set
On your PC now, assuming its enabled on both sides, you can drag and drop a file into your phone to a specific location [phone location open on one side, file you’re about to drag and drop on another tab]
However, I think re-setting up share and receive could help too, heres how:
Long pressing KDE Connect >> info >> See More [Or about app on other androids]
Going to Permissions and removing Storage [by pressing Deny]
Going back into KDE Connect, to your device there should be something saying near the middle Share and Receive needs setting up, go through it and select your location again.
[These are pretty generic steps that could try fix your problem, hope this helps, and If it doesn’t, theres more ppl here who can provide more solutions, also sorry for the lengthy read]
Interesting, do you want to try go to the same 3 buttoned menu, and then go to Share and Receive, and set a location [that isn’t inaccessible or your home android folder], and then see what happens when you share with [phone device] again?
If absolutely everything doesnt work, try re-installing packages on your linux host, or also make sure you arent connected to any VPN / VPN-like app on both sides?
That was it… sort of this pointed to a directory (Internal Storage > Download that had become out of bounds). I replaced it by a new directory within my “home” and it appears to (almost) work now: the files are transferred but I also get a notification on the phone that the transfer failed…
And I still have problems with the remove file system browser. This time when I opened the device in Dolphin, on the first try the three configured directories appear but with a small red “lock” icon added. Clicking on one of them elicits "Unable to enter /run/user/1000/{device id}, and indeed:
ls -al /run/user/1000
ls: cannot access '/run/user/1000/9a56e9d8_df07_4e1f_882b_ff7c34e0f228': Transport endpoint is not connected
total 8
drwx------ 15 me me 600 Oct 10 22:11 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 Oct 5 16:04 ../
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? 9a56e9d8_df07_4e1f_882b_ff7c34e0f228/
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 120 Oct 5 16:04 akonadi/
drwx------ 2 me me 60 Oct 5 16:04 at-spi/
srw-rw-rw- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 bus=
drwx------ 3 me me 60 Oct 5 16:04 dbus-1/
drwx------ 2 me me 60 Oct 10 12:24 dconf/
dr-x------ 2 me me 0 Jan 1 1970 doc/
srwxrwxr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 10 21:56 dolphinPdbYFi.7.slave-socket=
srwxrwxr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 9 22:19 dolphinYZTFNp.6.slave-socket=
drwx------ 2 me me 140 Oct 5 16:04 gnupg/
drwx------ 2 me me 40 Oct 5 16:04 gvfs/
drwx------ 2 me me 40 Oct 7 19:04 gvfsd/
-rw------- 1 me me 306 Oct 5 16:04 ICEauthority
srw------- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 kdeinit5__0=
drwxr-xr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 7 11:37 kio-fuse-jGFdOk/
srwxrwxr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 5 19:11 kio_http_cache_cleaner=
srwxrwxr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 klauncherXddAAL.1.slave-socket=
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me 65 Oct 5 16:04 KSMserver__0
srwxrwxr-x 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 kwallet5.socket=
srw-rw-rw- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 pipewire-0=
-rw-rw---- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 pipewire-0.lock
srw-rw-rw- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 pipewire-0-manager=
-rw-rw---- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 pipewire-0-manager.lock
srw-rw-rw- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 pk-debconf-socket=
drwx------ 2 me me 80 Oct 5 16:54 pulse/
srw-rw-rw- 1 me me 0 Oct 5 16:04 snapd-session-agent.socket=
drwx------ 3 me me 60 Oct 6 02:11 snap.spotify/
drwxr-xr-x 6 me me 160 Oct 5 16:54 systemd/
If I retry to open that with Dolphin, I get a notification popup telling me about a sshfs problem (too quick to fully memorize, and cannot recreate).