KDE is great desktop environment and I use it everyday since the time I got introduced to it in 2001. It's free, it's open source, its highly configurable and its really fun to use. Since version 4.10, KDE has inbuilt support of the MTP protocol which most of the smart phones in the market are using nowadays for connecting to PC. Mass Storage has become a thing of the past with MTP offering easier access, in built support in Windows and Linux OS and transfer speeds comparable to mass storage mode.
KDE in Linux offers MTP support using its robust, feature rich and pluggable I/O layer, KIO. It uses a a kio-slave called kio-mtp which is now pretty standard in almost all the current distributions. kio-mtp is supposed to provide a complete and seamless integration of MTP protocol in KDE using whatever file management tool you use. Dolphin is the default file manager these days on all distributions and its a great piece of software for the most part.
Until it comes to MTP. Unfortunately, as per my experience, the MTP implementation in Dolphin is broken and has a multitude of issues. I use distributions based on Ubuntu mostly (Kubuntu, Linux Mint etc.) so this holds true for those only. I have no idea about distros like Fedora and OpenSUSE. Some of the issues that I have faced are:
Then today, I accidentally put my foot over Konqueror and just out of curiosity I switched it to File Manager profile. I tried accessing my MTP devices and viola! everything worked as it should. I am able to copy to and from the device, both single files/folders as well as a bunch of them.
So I think the issue lies in the way Dolphin accesses MTP devices and not in the KIO layer itself. I have marked it as a solution for time being for myself. Just create shortcut for konqueror with command line:
KDE in Linux offers MTP support using its robust, feature rich and pluggable I/O layer, KIO. It uses a a kio-slave called kio-mtp which is now pretty standard in almost all the current distributions. kio-mtp is supposed to provide a complete and seamless integration of MTP protocol in KDE using whatever file management tool you use. Dolphin is the default file manager these days on all distributions and its a great piece of software for the most part.
Until it comes to MTP. Unfortunately, as per my experience, the MTP implementation in Dolphin is broken and has a multitude of issues. I use distributions based on Ubuntu mostly (Kubuntu, Linux Mint etc.) so this holds true for those only. I have no idea about distros like Fedora and OpenSUSE. Some of the issues that I have faced are:
- Not able to connect at all.
- Can connect but waiting forever to show the contents of the device.
- While copying files getting stuck for a long time and then giving error 'MTP Protocol has died unexpectedly'.
- and some more...
Then today, I accidentally put my foot over Konqueror and just out of curiosity I switched it to File Manager profile. I tried accessing my MTP devices and viola! everything worked as it should. I am able to copy to and from the device, both single files/folders as well as a bunch of them.
So I think the issue lies in the way Dolphin accesses MTP devices and not in the KIO layer itself. I have marked it as a solution for time being for myself. Just create shortcut for konqueror with command line:
konqueror ~
You can replace ~ with any other path. Use this shortcut whenever you want to access MTP devices. If you would like to set konqueror as your default file manager, you can do so from System Settings > Default Applications > File Manager and choosing Konqueror there in the list.
One last thing to keep in mind for Android device owners: The KIO based MTP implementation is a bit quirky about USB Debugging so turn that option off on your device when you are connecting for file management tasks.
Let me know in comments whether these worked out for you or not.
Cheers!
