Help getting adb connection to Hisense TV running Android 9

by pepetolueno

Solved it!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/pyo4sk/help_getting_adb_connection_to_hisense_tv_running/hfqvua9/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I'm trying to get adb connected to this TV with the idea to remove some of the pre installed apps (Vudu, Pandora) so I can free up some storage.

The TV (H8G) runs Android 9 (Kernel Version 4.9.125). I enabled the developer menu, enabled the USB debugging option, and installed the adb package (I tried both under Windows and macOS).

I know the IP is the right one and can ping and find the TV with nmap so that's not the issue.

The error I get in macOS is 

./adb connect 192.168.33.16
failed to connect to '192.168.33.16:5555': Connection refused

In Windows I get more details 

unable to connect to 192.168.33.16:5555: cannot connect to 192.168.33.16:5555: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. (10061)

Does anyone has any experience getting these TVs to connect to the debugger?

I don't have a USB cable with two male ends to try a USB connection and I don't feel like trying to find one if it is not going to work anyway.

Let me know if you have any ideas of what could be the issue.

Edit: I should probably add that I don't get a popup on the TV to authorize the connection, and I tried rebooting the TV a couple times as well (hold power until reboot option appears, choose reboot).

pavichokche

I followed instructions similar to these on my H8G soon after I got it and was able to send ADB commands:

https://appchoose.blogspot.com/2018/12/connect-to-android-tv-via-adb-from.html

heybart

In developer options, revoke all USB debugging authorizations, then turn off USB debugging and turn back on again. Then try to connect again

FUHGETTABOUTIT_1

Yep, I am running into the same problem. It's not enabling debug mode. The port is not open, so something is failing to start the debug process. Are you still running into the same problem? 

    nmap 192.168.1.125

    Starting Nmap 7.70 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-10-01 17:34 PDT
    Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.125
    Host is up (0.0072s latency).
    Not shown: 996 closed ports
    PORT     STATE SERVICE
    8008/tcp open  http
    8009/tcp open  ajp13
    8443/tcp open  https-alt
    9000/tcp open  cslistener

    Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.26 seconds
pepetolueno

Solved it!

I woke up this morning with the realization that I don't need a USB male-to-male cable that I will probably never use again (been thinking about that for days), because I have a raspberry pi zero w and plenty of micro USB cables!

  • I flashed a new SD card with raspbian set up as headless (wifi connection and ssh)
  • SSH to the pi, installed the tools (`sudo apt install adb`)
  • Make sure USB debugging is ON on the TV
  • Connect the 2nd micro USB port of the Pi to the top most USB port of the TV (the white one)
  • Run `adb devices`, see the popup on the TV to authorize the connection, check the Always Allow box to save time
  • Follow the regular guides

Once connected, using `adb tcpip 5555` allowed me to connect via WiFi from the MacBook so I guess the very first time you need to use a USB cable for setup in this version of the firmware.

I was able to remove the apps I didn't wanted, and also get some interesting insights from top:

  • A 4K YouTube stream puts the CPU use at ~40%
  • A 4K BD Remux in VLC goes as high as ~130% CPU usage but hovers around 60% most of the time

So I guess the TV CPU is not so constricted as I thought given the slowness of the UI sometimes.