How does Opus play with Bluetooth?

Having bought some new Smartphone, i found, that MTP is working very poorly. In fact, i can't work with it. It's a matter of luck, if i can copy stuff to the smartphone. Mostly, i receive error messages, or the file browsers even freeze (happens with Explorer, too). I don't think, it is Opus' fault in any way, but that MTP might be poorly designed. So maybe buying an USB Bluetooth stick would be the better solution. But i have never used Bluetooth, so my question is, does it work well in Opus?

Isn't Bluetooth slower than the default wireless (802.11*)? I also dislike using MTP, so I make my phone act as an SSH server and connect to it using SFTP.

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I second that. If you have Wifi set up already, using that is easier and more reliable, and often faster.

Bluetooth on Windows varies a lot, depending on hardware and the software that comes with the hardware. On the other hand, Wifi generally just works.

Android has several FTP and SFTP server apps, which Opus can connect to. (SFTP requires the optional Advanced FTP add-on for Opus, but basic FTP does not.)

That sounds too complicated. Why can't users of smartphones just access their data in the common way? I see strange things happening, aside from the numerous freezes. I have some internal drive on that phone, & one micro-SD card. Sometimes i see the folders to be shown as empty, but after a couple of F5s the contens show up. Another thing, i saw subfolders in a folder on my smartphone, which OSMand obviously has created to store the recorded GPS tracks. But in Explorer or Opus, those folders wren't shown at all, no hidden files, nothing. I suppose, this is due to Androids/Linuxs different file system, which probably has some compatibility problem with other file systems. Eventually i managed to copy the whole folder, including the "invisible" parts over to the SD card, & from there to my computer.

I will maybe try to check out, if Bluetooth can solve the problems.

Edit: how does Bluetooth appear in Opus, anyway? As a regular drive?

On my Dad's new tablet (ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 (Z500M)) I was not able to get MTP over cable to work at all. I was using File Explorer at the time but I believe Dopus would have the same issue. It seems to be disabled by the tablet's firmware. This is so that the only way to transfer files is installing the ASUS Windows software which lets you transfer files but with VERY limited options. Like you can only transfer files to one folder you specify in the settings of the application.

If ASUS is doing this then I expect to see this happening on new devices from all the major players. So if your device doesn't work with Dopus, first test with File Explorer. If File Explorer also doesn't work, it's probably the device firmware. Basically, don't post MTP issues on this forum. There are just too many device and Windows issues with MTP, and the Dopus developers aren't going to be able to do anything about it.

I didn't think about using FTP/SFTP. That is a good workaround for anyone with MTP issues.

It's not usually complicated at all. You just download an SFTP or FTP server app from the Android store, run it, tell it the username/password and port, then connect to it from Opus (or another SFTP / FTP client) using the same details.

Doing it any other way will probably end up being more complicated.

  • Bluetooth support on Windows is a complete mess (although better than it used to be, and maybe OK if only sending a small number of files).
  • MTP is great if it works with your phone and OS combination, but that seems to vary greatly between phone vendors and OS versions, and it often never works that great as there are problems in the MTP stack on the Windows side as well.
  • FTP / SFTP are old, well understood protocols, where one piece of software handles everything at one end and another at the other end, without having to worry about relying on broken OS features. They generally "just work", at least over a LAN. They only become complicated when trying to put a server on the internet and having to worry about NAT, firewalls, etc.

That's a question for the mobile phone industry. I have many others for them. :slight_smile:

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[quote="Leo, post:6, topic:25347, full:true"]
It's not usually complicated at all. You just download an SFTP or FTP server app from the Android store[/quote]
Yes, quite simple. I recently tested a few apps and settled with Primitive FTPd.

It's free, rather pretty, doesn't show ads and even has an on/off widget.

BTW: I noticed FTP works best if you navigate top-down and avoid wild jumps within the tree structure.

If you don't want use FTP, don't even think about Bluetooth!

Isn't there a way to get those apps, without having to tell Google my full name, address, age, telephone number, & size of the underpants? :smiley:

At the moment i feel really frustrated, because i can't see certain files & folders on the smartphone side in Windows. That means, i can't copy the newly recorded GPX tracks to my computer. I suppose, this is because of Google's lulz file system. But thanks for the suggestion, maybe i change my mind about the registration. It's not an option for me, to remove the battery every time, to fumble out the SD card for a simple data transfer.

This is how smartphones work. You register an account, then you download software from the app store.

This thread has nothing to do with Opus now so I'm going to lock it, feel free to talk about smartphones in the Off-Topic area: