To Fix USB OTG Issues in Android Devices, In the USB innovation has been around for some time and has played an incremental role in uplifting the ease of use of the smartphone. The USB OTG (On The Go) ability has boosted the smartness of today’s phones a notch ahead. The fact that you can access files by plugging your USB flash drive to your phone is not only cool but convenient as well, if you have a phone with low storage. Furthermore, improvements in technology like the USB Type C format has made accessing files through OTG, a lot quicker. But, there are certain USB OTG problems that several Android users face. Well, we are listing down the various USB OTG issues alongside how you can fix them:

The USB OTG flash drive isn’t connecting to the phone!

This depends on two major reasons – the first one being that you have overlooked the specification sheet of your handset. So, you ought to peruse it back and find out if your phone supports USB OTG functionality or not.

The second reason is that users have guaranteed the compatibility factor but have not delved into technicalities of how USB OTG works. We have broken down these reasons below:

1. Is your USB OTG drive as old as Charles Babbage’s machine?

We frequently prefer to swap our month-old smartphones for the most recent offering yet do not pay attention to our ageing accessories. Older flash drives were designed keeping in mind the gadgets from yesteryears. The older generations of USB gadgets are slower and comparatively, more resource hungry. Additionally, they require a substantial amount of power and voltage to aid transfer of information.

Alternatively, modern day smartphones are technically advanced and are intended to keep running on lower power for optimum efficiency in performance. So, the ports in smartphones give out lesser power to slave gadgets, limited by their manufacturer. New USB OTG devices are designed to work on old, as well as new gadgets. They can adjust to changing levels of power input from USB ports of the host gadgets.

2. Software Compatibility Issues

Since the inception of PCs, the annoying issue of file format compatibility has plagued us, making our lives more unpleasant. Your phone’s equipment may detect the attached peripheral yet the software fails to recognize its file format system.

What’s the solution?

Well, you cannot get rid of them completely. However, there are some workaround solutions for USB OTG issues, that can do the job for the time being.

•  For the first issue

Prefer upgrading to newer thumb drives, particularly from renowned manufacturers like SanDisk. USB OTG drives from renowned makers may be a tad bit expensive but chances are, they will work a ton better with your gadget. They give faster information transfer speeds and are designed to work on low power with smartphones. They won’t affect the health of your phone’s battery and the chipset, thus make sure that the equipment is cheerfully synchronizing with the software.

• For the second issue

If your gadget supports USB OTG and software incompatibility is the issue. I would recommend you to switch to a better file manager app that has clever algorithms to figure out a way to deal with file formats of your convenient gadgets. It will able to detect your new thumb drive or even an old thumb drive. You can discover numerous capable file managers on the Play Store, each with its own advantages.

For example, I plugged in a relatively old flash drive on my new Android phone and the native file manager failed to recognize it. I could access the files simply after I installed a separate file manager like ES File Explorer that can deal with advanced levels of system file operations.

Fix Your USB OTG Problems

The USB OTG functionality is a great feature, which comes in handy for various situations. Therefore, ironing out its issues will help you get the best out of your Android device. However, we recommend you to always upgrade to the latest technology every year. We know that it might be heavy on your wallet but newer gadgets and accessories always deliver a better experience.