Are you using Genymotion for a virtual device?

if yes this error probably came out because ADB from Genymotion conflicted with your ADB from Android SDK(using same port number), to fix this simply go to settings => choose ADB tab => click on the option Use custom Android SDK Tools and set your SDK folder

after you configure this, try to restart your adb by going into folder platform-tools which adb placed and do this command:

• ./adb kill-server


• ./adb start-server

*tips: You may close the process of Genymotion before running the command above

Hope this help.

I find I occasionally need to explicitly kill and restart the server manually:

adb kill-server
adb start-server

This shock is generally enough to get it back on its feet again, and prevents repeated adb server is out of date. killing... messages.

In my machine (Ubuntu 14.04 and Genymotion 2.5.2) the source of the problem was that, I had 2 adb files of different versions.

(Before, narrowing down this problem source, I already had Genymotion's Settings > "Use custom Android SDK tools" referring to my machine's installed Android SDK directory as advised by Aditya Kresna Permana. I also tried with killing and starting the adb server and few other solutions from around the web).

Then saw, that running adb versionfrom my Android SDK installation directory “~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools” produced - "Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32"

But, adb version command from “/usr/bin” directory produced- “Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.31"

So just followed - http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/74-ubuntu/328-ubuntu-trusty-android-adb-fastboot-qtadb to update the adb in “/usr/bin”

# adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.31
# wget -O - https://skia.googlesource.com/skia/+archive/cd048d18e0b81338c1a04b9749a00444597df394/platform_tools/android/bin/linux.tar.gz | tar -zxvf - adb
# sudo mv adb /usr/bin/adb
# sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/adb
# adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32

And now running adb devices works perfectly as expected.

And it also solved the associated problem that, before my PhoneGap (Cordova) app was not getting integrated with the Genymotion's virtual device. Now obviously that problem solved as well.

Ensure that there are no other adb processes running

There may be more than one adb process running on the system. Tools such as the Android Reverse Tether may use their own version of the adb tool, hence the version in memory may conflict with the version run from the command line (via the path variable).

Windows

In Windows, press CTL+Shift+ESC to access Task Manager, sort in the Image Name column, then kill all instances of adb.exe by right-clicking, and choosing End Process. Note that there are multiple instances of adb.exe below:

Linux (Android)

In a Linux environment, just use the kill -9 command. Something like this worked on an Android device running adb (use ps output, search using grep for a process starting with adb, get the Process ID from the adb process(es), and send that ID to the kill -9 command):

kill -9 $(ps | grep "S adb" | busybox awk 'print $2')

Then, restart adb

Once the adb processes - and thus conflicts - are resolved, then retry running adb from the command-line again:

adb start-server

I just exited HTC Sync, tried again, and it worked.
Notice: Phone went black(locked), I just turned it on, and there was my application running. :)

System: Windows 10

My issue:
Setting Genymotion to point to the custom SDK didn't have any affect. I still received the:

Couldn't start project on Android: could not install smartsocket
listener: cannot bind to 127.0.0.1:5037: Only one usage of each socket
address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. (10048)
could not read ok from ADB Server
* failed to start daemon * error: cannot connect to daemon

What I discovered was there was a difference in ADB versions being used throughout the system. Here is the command I used to find them:

where /r C: adb.exe

This produced the results:

C:Program FilesExpo XDEresourcesappnode_modulesxdlbinarieswindowsadbadb.exe
C:Program FilesGenymobileGenymotiontoolsadb.exe
C:UserskyleAppDataLocalAndroidSdkplatform-toolsadb.exe
C:UserskyleAppDataLocalAndroidSdkplatform-toolsadb backupadb.exe

Navigating to each directory and running:

adb.exe version

Allowed me to see that Expo was running ADB version:

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.36
Revision fd9e4d07b0f5-android

While Genymotion using the custom SDK had version (c:UserskyleAppDataLocalAndroidSdkplatform-toolsadb.exe):

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.39
Revision 3db08f2c6889-android

As a test I took the adb files (adb.exe, AdbWinApi.dll, AdbWinUsbApi.dll) from

c:UserskyleAppDataLocalAndroidSdkplatform-toolsadb.exe

and placed them into a backup folder. I then moved the adb files located at

c:Program FilesExpo XDEresourcesappnode_modulesxdlbinarieswindowsadbadb.exe

into that same location. I killed adb with:

adb kill-server

which caused a restart of the adb server automatically due to having my Genymotion device already running. I hit the "Restart" button inside of the Expo XDE and it immediately began working. Here is the log where I hit the restart button at 1:13:04 AM:

12:45:53 AM
could not install *smartsocket* listener: cannot bind to 127.0.0.1:5037: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. (10048)
could not read ok from ADB Server
* failed to start daemon *
error: cannot connect to daemon
1:13:04 AM
Restarting project and clearing packager cache (Hold shift while clicking restart to avoid clearing cache).
1:13:11 AM
Starting React Native packager...
1:13:17 AM
Scanning 543 folders for symlinks in C:Userskylegitbetalognode_modules (49ms)
1:13:17 AM
1:13:19 AM
Couldn't adb reverse: closed
1:13:20 AM
Project opened! You can now use the "Share" or "Device" buttons to view your project.
1:13:26 AM
Couldn't adb reverse: closed
1:13:26 AM
Downloading latest version of Expo
1:13:28 AM
Installing Expo on device
1:13:33 AM
Opening on Android device
1:13:56 AM
Building JavaScript bundle: finished in 59643ms.
1:14:01 AM
Dependency graph loaded.
1:14:03 AM
Your JavaScript transform cache is empty, rebuilding (this may take a minute).

Conclusion: Genymotion and Expo may need to use the same version of adb so that Expo can properly communicate with the simulated device. Pointing Genymotion to your android SDK location as well as ensuring Expo XDE has that same version will allow correct communication between devices. I moved the Expo XDE version to the SDK location, but you might be able to go the other way (take the sdk ADB files and place them in the Expo XDE resource location).

P.S.
I've been all through the stackoverflow posts related to this issue. Just so you guys know my task manager shows three instances of adb.exe running. If you kill any of them they just come back.

Hope this helps /cheers

It would appear that the ADB daemon on the device (adbd) is disagreeing with the ADB server process on your host computer as to which version of the protocol they are speaking. Which version of the SDK are you running and what is the OS version on the device you are debugging?

What you might need to do is actually downgrade your version of the SDK tools so that the ADB daemon and process are in agreement. I thought the server process was completely backward compatible, but this could be one of those corner cases where it doesn't. Google doesn't advertise the fact that you can get their old SDK tools packages, but they can be found by looking in the archives area at http://developer.android.com.

This is caused because you are running a adb other than the one included in the SDK. If on linux check where is the adb binary located

which adb
Expected Output : ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools/adb

If not pointing to ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools/adb then you are running some old version of adb installed on a different location on the machine.

Nothing wrong running adb other than the one provided with SDK but the downside is it is not updated automatically when the android SDK is updated and that's why you running into this out-dated version issue.

The easier fix and to avoid this issue in future rename the older (misleading) adb binary file to something else.

Follow the steps to resolve this issue.

$ which adb
*o/p /usr/bin/adb - (output will depend on your machine)*
$ cd /usr/bin/
$ ls -lt | grep adb
*o/p -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 160912 Mar 31 2016 adb*
$ sudo mv adb adb_bakup
$ ls -lt | grep adb
o/p -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 160912 Mar 31 2016 adb_bakup
$ export PATH="/path/to/android_sdk/platform-tools:$PATH"
$ which adb 
*o/p <your android sdk dir>/platform-tools/adb* ---> You are all good now

I simply closed the htc sync application completely and tried again. It worked as it was supposed to.

I beat my head against the wall on this one. This started happening when I installed the latest version of HTC sync (3.0.5579). For some reason adb.exe was showing up multiple times in the task manager and I was getting the adb server is out of date killing errors multiple times. I found the adb.exe version in the HTC sync directory and the Android SDK platform-tools directory. I had the path setup correctly pointing at the android SDK directory and didn't see the HTC Sync path (maybe I was missing something, but I don't think so). Anyway, to fix the issue, I simply renamed the adb.exe file in the HTC Sync directory and everything worked again. This may not be the right way to go about this fix, but it worked for me.

Helped for me: stop HTC Sync (in system tray) and rename HTC's adb.exe (C:Program Files (x86)HTCHTC Sync 3.0adb.exe).

First close All the things which use ADB. (Android Studio, Eclipse, Emulator(Bluestack as well))
and then do

adb kill-server
adb start-server

In my case I just got update of Studio.

System: Windows 7, Android Studio.

This error occurred when I ran adb devices from Windows Commandline.

The root cause was that the adb I was running from commandline was not the same adb running from Android Studio.

Solution:

1. 
   

   First kill all running adb processes on the machine.

   
   
   

   taskkill /F /IM adb.exe

   
   



2. Run your app from Android Studio.



3. 
   

   Locate the exact File Location of adb.exe either from Windows Task Manager, OR by running the command below

   
   
   

   wmic process where "name='adb.exe'" get ProcessID, ExecutablePath

   
   



4. On Windows Command prompt, run where adb to locate the adb that runs from command prompt. This path would be different from the one in Step 3 above.




5. Edit Windows system variable PATH. Delete the base path found in Step 4 from it.



6. 
   

   After you have edited PATH, you can see the current contents of this variable by typing below command in a NEW command prompt (don't use old prompt.)

   
   
   

   echo %PATH%

   
   

Now, run adb from command prompt. It should NOT show any "server out of date error"!

Try this:

1. Close the Eclipse application.




2. adb kill-server




3. Restart Eclipse.

Okay, there is another instance of adb.exe distributed with "Lenovo Photo Companion". A friend of mine has a Lenovo Yoga notebook and had this software installed which includeded another adb.exe

Deinstalling it solved the problem.

OS: Ubuntu

There are more than 1 adb are running. Check the current adb:

 which adb
 Expected Output : ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools/adb

Normally the result will be:

 /usr/bin/adb

Delete this older version by:

 cd /urs/bin
 sudo rm adb

Did you try using the SDK version 8. Since the device is in 2.2, and your SDK is at 10, there might be conflict.

Best of luck with ur downgrading efforts!! Hope this solves.

If the device you're trying to interact with is a physical phone connected via USB, you can unplug it and plug it back and and it should work. Sometimes it just gets out of sync I think.

I had this issue on one of my development machines (all run windows 7 x64) while all other machines' adb work normally. The reason I ran into this issue is I have an old version of adb.exe reside in %android-sdk%tools while newer Android SDKs have adb.exe under %android-sdk%platform-tools

remove the older adb.exe from %android-sdk%tools and add %android-sdk%platform-tools to %PATH% solves this issue

or more generally, hunt down any adb executable in your path that are out of date, just use the latest one provided with Android SDK

I went through all the answers on SO and it didn't work for me. When I killed the adb.exe process from Task Manager, it kept reopening it and the reason was that Droid Explorer was working in the background.

Killing the DE process via Task Manager and then killing adb.exe (and running it again from the console through 'adb start-server' worked for me.

This can be useful for many people who have rooted their devices.

Unfortunately I do not have enough reputation to comment yet. But the response marked as an answer sent me in the right direction.

I did not see anything in my path related to HTC Sync Manager, though I had it installed. I'm not working with my HTC device at the moment, and only had the sync manager installed to help with driver issues. Once uninstalling the HTC sync manager this issue went away for me.

Hope this helps someone else.

In my case, the problem was caused by Virtuous Ten Studio, which has the adb.exe in External/ADB directory.

Go there and run .adb.exe kill-server and you'll be good.

I experienced a similar problem where my attempts to use adb such as adb logcat provided this error output:

adb server version (40) doesn't match this client (36); killing...

This solution worked for me in 2018 on Ubuntu 18.04 from Android Studio 3.2.1 using terminal.

The commands are as follows:

adb kill-server
sudo cp ~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/adb /usr/bin/adb
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/adb
adb start-server

You may need to adjust the cp command arguments based on the path to Android/ on your system.

2nd generation kudos to my source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40991118/7015599

As mentioned above, the problem comes due to a conflicting version of adb.exe shipped with HTC Sync. Removing it from PATH won't help, as htcUPCTLoader.exe that constantly runs in the background will still re-launch the wrong ADB version.

One solution would be to completely remove adb.exe from the HTC Sync folder, however this would break HTC Sync.

I've just coded a simple tool that replaces the old adb.exe with a stub that invokes the latest adb.exe from the SDK directory eliminating the conflicts (e.g. version 1.0.25 coming with HTC Sync and 1.0.29 with Android SDK).

The tool can be downloaded from http://visualgdb.com/adbfix

I also had this problem today, turns out I disabled my network drivers because I had WIFI/LAN issues. re-enabling fixed the issue

installing sdk updates (including platform tools) fixed for me!

Since adb server is out of date. killing is now a dupe of this, copy-paste of a solution for Debian-based systems:

It might be that you installed the adb package in addition to the
SDK's. In that case, a

sudo apt purge adb

might solve the problem.

To actually explain what happens:

The ADB executable has two components

• the server, which communicates with the device


• and the client, the command line, which communicates with the server.

When you start ADB for the first time you may notice a message like "starting ADB server". If you updated ADB after that, the newer executable needs to kill the obsolete server and start a new one with matching version.

This can also happen when you have multiple versions of ADB present on your development machine (Genymotion, Android SDK, phone OEM companion apps, various standalone scripts).

This does not concern the ADB installed on your phone/emulator.

The obvious (not necessarily easy) solution is to make sure you use the same version of ADB everywhere.

This was caused in my case by running Visual Studio with an Android Xamarin project on the same machine as Android Studio - each IDE had a different adb server version running. I closed Visual Studio and the error went away.