Category: Howto

Accessing your phone files using MTP on Debian Jessie/Sid

Accessing your files from your android smartphone using debian should be easy : you just need the mtpfs (currently only in sid) and libmtp9 packages.

But for me it was not just that easy. After installing this package and trying to “mount” my smartphone I would get the following error :

user@machine:~$ mtpfs temp/
Unable to open ~/.mtpz-data for reading, MTPZ disabled.Listing raw device(s)
Device 0 (VID=04e8 and PID=685c) is a Samsung Galaxy models (MTP+ADB).
Found 1 device(s):
Samsung: Galaxy models (MTP+ADB) (04e8:685c) @ bus 3, dev 18
Attempting to connect device
PTP_ERROR_IO: failed to open session, trying again after resetting USB interface
LIBMTP libusb: Attempt to reset device
LIBMTP PANIC: failed to open session on second attempt
Unable to open raw device 0

What I had to do to make it work is :

root@machine:~# cp /lib/udev/rules.d/69-libmtp.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

root@machine:~# /etc/init.d/udev restart

Unplug/Replug the phone (and unlock it !) and everything should be fine now :

user@machine:~$ mtpfs temp/
Unable to open ~/.mtpz-data for reading, MTPZ disabled.Listing raw device(s)
Device 0 (VID=04e8 and PID=685c) is a Samsung Galaxy models (MTP+ADB).
Found 1 device(s):
Samsung: Galaxy models (MTP+ADB) (04e8:685c) @ bus 3, dev 19
Attempting to connect device
Android device detected, assigning default bug flags
Error 7: Found a bad handle, trying to ignore it.
Listing File Information on Device with name: (NULL)

It’s a bit slow but at least it works 🙂

Google Reader alternative : use a free Tiny Tiny RSS provider !

As Google is shutting down Google Reader, I’ve looked for an alternative of this great RSS reader.

I had only 2 criteria :

  • free
  • can be accessed from a desktop browser and from my android phone/tablet

I’ve checked some well known “clone” of Google Reader (Feedly for example) but I didn’t like the experience and it was not that close to Google Reader.

But I finally found Tiny Tiny RSS ! It’s a perfect match of Google Reader, you can access it with your browser, it has a very clear and simple interface just like GR. And it has an Android app !

 

The only “downside” is that it’s a web app you need to host yourself. That’s why it may not be too well known, not everybody can host that kind of app. But here’s the good news, there’s a free Tiny Tiny RSS provider here ! You just need to create an account, it’s free and you will instantly receive your password and be able to access your own TT-RSS account and add your feeds.

And then to be able to access your feeds with your android device, it’s a two step process:

  • enable API access on your account. The mobile app need that access to work.
  • download/install/configure the tt-rss app on your android device.

To enable API access: login into tt-rss, go to your preferences (“action -> preferences”, top right corner).

 

Then “Enable API access” and save.

 

First step done !

Second step, download the tt-rss android app : Tiny-Tiny-RSS-1.7. Enter your login/password and your done ! Your feeds are synchronized on your Android device, just like the good old Google Reader days !