Help Mac does not see my Captivate via USB

zx81 · Jan 13, 2011

I have a problem with connecting my Captivate to a Mac. I tried all possible settings on the phone including turning USB debugging on and off to no avail. Phone seems to be aware that it was connected and lets me mount the drive but no new drive shows up on the Mac. I have a MacBook Pro. I found out that the computer senses the phone and asks me for configuring a new "network interface" but I cannot get access to the content of the phone. Interesting thing is that Windows7 virtual machine on my Mac connects with the phone and in some configurations of settings I can see the content on the phone but it randomly freezes and does not let me to do anything useful. I tried a number of version of Kies including mini and they either do not recognize the phone or cannot connect at all. I think all this is the result of how Mac is handling the connection. I had no problems mounting the drives on a regular PC with Windows Vista in mass storage mode. Any suggestions?

happycappy · Jan 14, 2011

Make sure it is in mass storage mode, then in debugging mode. plug it in the mac and then slide the notification bar down and click the usb connection. Cancel the window that pops up for the network, and make sure your VM is either off or the settings are set for your mac to recognize USB instead of the VM.

zx81 · Jan 14, 2011

Unfortunately, it still does not work. I shut down the VMware fusion, which runs my Windows VM and set the phone to mass storage and debugging. The phone seems to react correctly, I pull down the notification bar and mount the drive but the Mac still ignores it except for the "new network interface has been detected" notification.

viggy · Jan 20, 2011

zx81 i have the same problem as you. i have a samsung captivate since july 2010. i mounted it and it worked perfectly n my macbookpro. i attached it to my virtual machine and it worked. then suddenly around November it stopped working. it recognizes the network but not the actual drive. it works on other pcs and other macs just not mine. i dont know why. please help

yahoowizard · Jan 21, 2011

Get Windows.

sremick · Jan 21, 2011

Sometimes things can inexplicably be made to work by setting the USB on the Captivate to "ask" instead of "Mass storage". Then choose "mass storage" when prompted.

You may only have to do this once, then be able to switch back.

zx81 · Jan 21, 2011

yahoowizard said:
Get Windows.

Thanks, very useful advice.

sremick said:
Sometimes things can inexplicably be made to work by setting the USB on the Captivate to "ask" instead of "Mass storage". Then choose "mass storage" when prompted.

You may only have to do this once, then be able to switch back.

Thanks, but this does not work either. The "ask on connection" plus "debugging" results in more of the same. The phone does not even ask me. I have the option to mount the drive but it does not mount on the mac. Maybe this is a problem with my Mac configuration, but I never had any problems connecting any flash based mass storage device to this laptop. And yes, I have a standalone PC and the phone mounts in "mass storage" mode and works correctly with Kies mini on that machine. I will have to try with some other Mac to find out if this is specific to my configuration.

magnusalpha · Oct 18, 2011

My Captivate used to mount just fine under both regular Mass Storage mode, and USB Debugging mode. Now my computer does not recognize it in either mode...when I plug it in nothing happens in Finder. The phone recognizes that its plugged in, asks if I want to mount, and shows incoming juice. I have gotten it to mount a couple times since it first stopped working, but I didn't do anything different and I can't get it to mount again.

I'm trying to find answers on the message boards about what causes this, but most answers consist of "enable USB debugging!"

Any input would be appreciated.

zx81 · Nov 2, 2011

Unfortunately I was unable to solve the Mac connectivity problem either. My phone connects to other computers (Windows based) successfully, but not to my Mac.

trev1011 · Nov 6, 2011

I had to go to USB settings and reclick on kies. Unplug the usb, plug it back it when it says so run kies and it should work. I had to do that to upgrade to 2.3 yesterday. Rogers network.

zx81 · Jan 5, 2012

OK, that was easy. After a year of trying and after reading hundreds of posts in various forums I finally found out what it was. Only one of the 2 USB ports supports Captivate on my Mac Book Pro.
Credit goes to "quietglow" on XDA developers forum. Here is what he found and I had the exact same issue:

For those still having trouble even after enabling USB debugging etc:
On my 2 week old 17" MBP, only one of the USB ports (the one closest to the power supply) will allow the phone to show up as mounted -- it's also the only port which will charge an ipad fwiw, so I suspect that it's a power requirement issue.
Bottom line: try all the USB ports on your machine.

Post #13 in the following thread:
Captivate & Mac OS X not mounting drives - Page 2 - xda-developers

Thanks!!

timbuk2 · Feb 10, 2012

yahoowizard said:
Get Windows.

I have windows and it doesn't work either.

Help Mac does not see my Captivate via USB

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