USB Mass Storage on Nexus 4 (or lack of)

[muziqaz]

Hi,
last week FINALLY I received my Nexus 4. Boy was it a jump in experience after ancient nexus s. Anyways, I noticed that Nexus 4 does not have USB Mass Storage mode when connecting the phone to the windows PC.
With Nexus S and HTC Desire before that it was so easy. Connect the phone select USB storage and you have it appear as separate drive on your PC and in total commander(which I use). So you can just drag and drop or copy past with keyboard keys, etc. Now I have this super advanced smartphone which has two modes - one with MTP mode and another with PTP mode for photo transfer.
None of them show my phone as separate drive on my PC and obviously total commander does not see it. What is worse that in windows explorer I cannot even copy paste my let's say mp3 files into the phone through MTP mode as it gives me error saying the device been disconnected even though I am browsing it in windows explorer.
So I tried TotalAndDroid plugin for Total Commander and that does not work.
Now I have Windows Media Audio v2 (MTP, PlaysForSure) plugin which acts like my phone is some remote device on network, so everything I copy there is uploaded. And it does not let cut and paste to the device as it is upload, not move between local drives. Also whatever folders I created or any other program created on my phones internal storage I cannot access, they show up as empty files.
And I don't know if it is that protocol, but internal storage is slow as hell in Nexus 4. Moving large files into phone is 8MB/s. I mean they don't let me upgrade the storage on the phone with my own external memory card, and they install some cheap ass card in the phone. Same was with nexus s, which was absolute crap when copying into the device with it's 1.5MB/s speed.
But anyway, I am absolutely disappointed with this kind of decisions. I understand we are going towards of ease of use, but nexus 4 is not for ease of use people. I want to transfer files manually and not through some itunes or some other half baked software.
Sorry for TL;DR rant, but I am sitting here trying to finish off with preparing my new phone for my work week and I am failing and wasting time miserably with this kind of crap. Well at least it took me 10x less time to transfer my nexus s phone settings and contacts to new phone than my friend with his brand new iphone 5 from iphone 4

 

[PWC Realtor]

According to BBQ log the next nightly of CyanogenMod 10.1 is going to include the ability to toggle between MTP and UMS modes.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

 

[muziqaz]

According to BBQ log the next nightly of CyanogenMod 10.1 is going to include the ability to toggle between MTP and UMS modes.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

I am sure custom roms will have this feature, but what can be done for those who don't want to mess about with mods?

 

[MobileMadness002]

I am sure custom roms will have this feature, but what can be done for those who don't want to mess about with mods?

I would imagine learn to use multiple windows. I use TC as well. My GS3 is connected using MTP and I have 0 issues copying from my NAS to the device internal or external memory.,

 

[muziqaz]

I would imagine learn to use multiple windows. I use TC as well. My GS3 is connected using MTP and I have 0 issues copying from my NAS to the device internal or external memory.,

well if windows explorer worked, I would use it, but it does not work. Still doesn't change the fact that they are not progressing with new devices but regressing

 

[donrhummy]

I am sure custom roms will have this feature, but what can be done for those who don't want to mess about with mods?

The only thing I've been able to figure out is:

1. Install Android SDK
2. Turn USB Debugging on the Nexus 4 (to do this you have to enable developer options - google how to do this)
3. Use adb from a command line to push/pull

You can see what's there with:
adb shell
ls /sdcard

And you can get files with (you need to exit adb shell)

adb pull THE _FILE_PATH _ON DEVICE THE_FILE_PATH_YOU_WANT_ON_YOUR_COMPUTER

for example:

adb pull /sdcard/someapp/somefile.xml somefile.xml

 

[MobileMadness002]

well if windows explorer worked, I would use it, but it does not work. Still doesn't change the fact that they are not progressing with new devices but regressing

Windows Explorer does work. But I would have to say by your comment that "your" windows explorer does not work. Maybe something to look into. Progression or regression is a matter of perspective. Being able to access data on the phone at the same time as from the computer to some would be considered progression.

 

[Doc Marten]

The only thing I've been able to figure out is:

1. Install Android SDK
2. Turn USB Debugging on the Nexus 4 (to do this you have to enable developer options - google how to do this)
3. Use adb from a command line to push/pull

You can see what's there with:
adb shell
ls /sdcard

And you can get files with (you need to exit adb shell)

adb pull THE _FILE_PATH _ON DEVICE THE_FILE_PATH_YOU_WANT_ON_YOUR_COMPUTER

for example:

adb pull /sdcard/someapp/somefile.xml somefile.xml

Begs the question, why? Why is there this hassle when other phones have expandable memory. It's not beyond the wit of Google to make it happen. It can't be expense so what is the reasoning for limiting people in this way? If google had 2 versions of the nexus 4, the one we have and one that had expandable memory and could be seen as external storage in windows, how many of the former would they sell?

So what are they making out of this?

 

[boparunsxc]

this may not help the OP, but Mac users need to download Android File Transfer in order to send/ receive files to/from their N4.

 

[wunderbar]

yea, I'd definitely try installing the SDK and see if the drivers that come with that help.

Personally I've used 4-5 Android devices in MTP mode on numerous different Windows computers over the years from XP to Win7 to Win8 and I've never encountered a problem like that. MTP is a tad slower than straight Mass Storage but I've never had a problem.

 

[N4Newbie]

Works fine for me on both Windows 7 & Windows 8. Nexus 4 shows as a drive in Explorer and can drag & drop in either direction.

 

[muziqaz]

Works fine for me on both Windows 7 & Windows 8. Nexus 4 shows as a drive in Explorer and can drag & drop in either direction.

Wonder how. Though I was rooting n4 with auto rooter which used its own drivers. Maybe they are messing things up. Will have to check It out

 

[Bar81]

Works fine for me on both Windows 7 & Windows 8. Nexus 4 shows as a drive in Explorer and can drag & drop in either direction.

Same here for Win7.

 

[N4Newbie]

Wonder how. Though I was rooting n4 with auto rooter which used its own drivers. Maybe they are messing things up. Will have to check It out

Yes, more than likely that is the cause of your problem.

Frankly, these issues are nearly always caused by an app or utility that the user installed. Either because it is simply bad, or because it has not been fully debugged on the current OS release. And, the latter is one of the risks you take when using a device which is amongst the first to get OS updates.

 

[Nonymous666]

Begs the question, why? Why is there this hassle when other phones have expandable memory. It's not beyond the wit of Google to make it happen. It can't be expense so what is the reasoning for limiting people in this way? If google had 2 versions of the nexus 4, the one we have and one that had expandable memory and could be seen as external storage in windows, how many of the former would they sell?

So what are they making out of this?

This has been discussed all over the internet, so just google for it. One of the commom reasons theorized is that they want people to use their cloud services: store stuff in Google Drive, stream videos and music from Google Play, etc. If people have expandable storage, they have less of a reason to do any of that.

 

[Nonymous666]

Works fine for me on both Windows 7 & Windows 8. Nexus 4 shows as a drive in Explorer and can drag & drop in either direction.

Same here. And this is something Google would not disable. It's a developer phone, and without this ability, it would seriously hinder developers trying to do testing debugging and whatnot.

 

[6tr6tr]

Begs the question, why? Why is there this hassle when other phones have expandable memory. It's not beyond the wit of Google to make it happen. It can't be expense so what is the reasoning for limiting people in this way? If google had 2 versions of the nexus 4, the one we have and one that had expandable memory and could be seen as external storage in windows, how many of the former would they sell?

So what are they making out of this?

A lot of Google's own developers use Linux so why not make it work for that too? Can't be that much extra work. Unless the issue is carriers/manufacturers being irrationally worried about "linux users."

 

[greydarrah]

Not sure what's different about my pc (running Windows 7) and yours, but when I plug my phone in, it pops up a windows file explorer window, showing me the N4 hard drive. I can drag/drop or copy/paste all the files I want. If it matters, I have pda.net installed on my computer as well as the Android SDK files found here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/nexus-4-rooting-roms-hacks/224861-guide-nexus-4-unlock-root.html

 

[Doc Marten]

Not sure what's different about my pc (running Windows 7) and yours, but when I plug my phone in, it pops up a windows file explorer window, showing me the N4 hard drive. I can drag/drop or copy/paste all the files I want. If it matters, I have pda.net installed on my computer as well as the Android SDK files found here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/nexus-4-rooting-roms-hacks/224861-guide-nexus-4-unlock-root.html

I just tried mine and windows 7 sees the Nexus 4 hard drive.

 

[6tr6tr]

The reason it's not working on Linux is because of MTP. MTP is not built in to Linux or most Distros.

Use Android MTP on Linux – xda-developers