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A piece of computer trivia that I was happy to learn.

For several months when I was connecting my phone to a computer I was only getting a charging option. I followed the advice to use another USB port without any success. The answer was to use the correct cable - not all (phone to mobile) cables are good for data transfer as well as delivering a charge. It might help you some day and I wanted to share with you.

Rwy in Sight wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:15 pm

A piece of computer trivia that I was happy to learn.

For several months when I was connecting my phone to a computer I was only getting a charging option. I followed the advice to use another USB port without any success. The answer was to use the correct cable - not all (phone to mobile) cables are good for data transfer as well as delivering a charge. It might help you some day and I wanted to share with you.

All of the cables that I have tried have worked.

Ian RiS is right though, some are not data capable. Not sure why but I have a retractable one with multiple adaptors, that is power only.

Pontius Navigator wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:20 pm

Ian RiS is right though, some are not data capable. Not sure why but I have a retractable one with multiple adaptors, that is power only.

In which case they should not be described as USB cables, but simply Charging cables.

When I have time, I'll do a systematic check that all my cables do carry data.

Both of the docking stations that we have, specifically state on the box that they can be used for 'Syncing'.

Ian, if you have any really thin wire types try them first.
When USB first came out I had a couple of 2 m cables giving me a quasi LAN. I think the USB limit is about 5 m. These were quite heavy.
.

ian16th wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:18 pm

Rwy in Sight wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:15 pm

A piece of computer trivia that I was happy to learn.

For several months when I was connecting my phone to a computer I was only getting a charging option. I followed the advice to use another USB port without any success. The answer was to use the correct cable - not all (phone to mobile) cables are good for data transfer as well as delivering a charge. It might help you some day and I wanted to share with you.

All of the cables that I have tried have worked.

I thought the same thing initially - maybe because my android to USB cables were exclusively from phone packages. When I started to add some Bluetooth speakers or headsets on my collection probably the charge-only cable appeared. And as I type that I believe it makes sense: a charge-only cable makes sense for a speaker manufacturer as it might be cheaper but a phone manufacturer needs to provide data transfer capability as well.

Car webcam USB cables are normally 2 wire (power only).

Discovered something else today. Satnav power supply getting unreliable; spent half an hour with glass fibre brush & switch lubricant on contacts on unit and mount. Still intermittent. Must be the power lead, thinks I.
New power lead fitted: thing hasn't failed since.
But wait! I've lost the traffic reports. Obviously the old psu lead was acting as an antenna for the 3G connection. Swapped it out, now works after a fashion, but takes its time to connect.
Every day a learning day

FWIW, a colleague used to do tech support for a local telecommunication company. She warned me not to take too many liberty with the files and directories on the mobile. She believes it is too easy to delete critical files for the mobile.

Jim, my Garmin was hard wired into the car. On holiday I would take a spare lead. The Garmin would report it could not charge from that lead although it did. As I was just using a USB lead and a separate plug in adaptor it was probably getting 12v too.

My earlier PDA with Satnav on one holiday refused to charge in the car. As its battery when Satnav was on lasted only 30 minutes we had to keep switching it off until near our destination.

Rwy in Sight wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:45 am

FWIW, a colleague used to do tech support for a local telecommunication company. She warned me not to take too many liberty with the files and directories on the mobile. She believes it is too easy to delete critical files for the mobile.

You can access the files on a phone from Windows, simply buy connecting to a USB port and switching the phone on.

This makes it very simple to copy/back up files to a PC.

Ian or FIU as RiS says

There is an excellent File Manager app available on Android ('File Manager+') which allows FTP access to a mobile or tablet from the PC. Far more reliable, I find, than a USB connection.

ian16th wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 02, 2021 9:25 am

You can access the files on a phone from Windows, simply buy connecting to a USB port and switching the phone on.
This makes it very simple to copy/back up files to a PC.

Huawei have some tricky protocol or other which means this doesn't work quite as simply as it should. Something to do (I've heard) with their snit with Google/Android a couple of years back. Got offered an upgrade t'other day which I accepted. Going back to Samsung, whose products do at least behave predictably.

I've had HTC, Huawei and now Xiaomi phones. All were the same. Plug them in to the PC, phone asks whether you want to charge the phone or copy files, make selection, and if the latter the PC sees the phone as an external drive. It's as simple as that.

I dare to argue with you OFSO. It seems Huawei isn't using Android Play store so there might be more differences in their OS.

Have you seen the new poco mobiles?

Agree! When my Huawei and everything else was stolen last year I discovered the replacement I bought was, thanks to Donald Trump, barred from Google. I swapped it for a Xiaomi. However, every Android phone has two forms of memory, the internal one (massive on the Xiaomi Redmi) and the plug-in SD card. (My phone has over 100Gb in total). If you do NOT download to your PC the phone-makers proprietary software, which I have always found to be useless, the PC will just see these as two external drives. Of course I am still using XP which might explain why every phone I've ever had connects without trouble!

All - I think all - of the Chinese manufacturers receive huge amounts of cash from the Chinese government to develop their products. They don't depend on sales to finance development. This is why their products are extremely cheap while offering so much. Most of the cheaper offerings seem to come from siblings of Xiaomi.

OFSO wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:28 am

Agree! When my Huawei and everything else was stolen last year I discovered the replacement I bought was, thanks to Donald Trump, barred from Google. I swapped it for a Xiaomi.

Yup. That was the problem - a non-standard Android setup.

Of course I am still using XP which might explain why every phone I've ever had connects without trouble!

Bet you're right, at that.

jimtherev wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:48 pm

Yup. That was the problem - a non-standard Android setup.

It isn't Android! It is a clone.