Nexus 4 USB doesn’t connect to computer with Android 4.3 – Use Wireless FTP Transfer for Android

After I got my Nexus 5, I had the task of transferring all my pictures and music off of my Nexus 4 to my Nexus 5. I had thought that it would have been backed up and I could simply restore it on my Nexus 5. Well nothing came over. No Apps but my wireless connection settings did. That was a disappointment.

So, I decided to connect it to my computer to copy the data to it and then back down to the Nexus 5. That didn’t work!

My Nexus 4 for some reason couldn’t connect to ANY of my Windows 7 computers. I tried 3 different computers and at least 3 different USB cables. Nothing worked. It would charge when connected to the computer though…

Every once in a while, it would connect and I could copy some pictures and music over but then I would get a device error and the connection would get terminated. After 2 days of troubleshooting this problem I found a simple solution that works well.

I found a app in the Google Play store called “WiFi File Transfer Pro” which was free. This software turns your Android device into a FTP server on port 2121 and allowed me to use my favorite FTP program (FileZilla) to connect to it and copy ALL my pics and music off of my Nexus 4 over to my computer. Then I can connect my Nexus 5 to my computer (which does work by the way) and copy back to my shiny new Nexus 5 all my music and what pictures I want to transfer over.

The file transfer is still going as I have over 6GB of data to move off of the Nexus 4.

I did call Google Nexus Support at 1-855-836-3987 and got a US speaking support person that did help me but he didn’t have a working solution except to try one of these programs.

Once I get everything off my old Nexus 4, I’m going to wipe the phone to factory defaults and see if it works again after the wipe. If not, Back to Google for Warranty repair 🙁

This phone will then be handed down to my wife and her’ Google Galaxy Nexus will go to my mom! EEEK!!!

 

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