How to Fix Chrome “Pending Authentication” Error When Debugging Android via USB on Windows

Debugging an Android website through USB using Google Chrome on a Windows laptop may sometimes stop working unexpectedly. I recently encountered a problem where USB debugging on my Android phone was enabled, the phone was connected to the laptop with a USB cable as usual, but Chrome could not establish a debugging session correctly.

After opening the Chrome page: chrome://inspect/#devices

the browser displayed the following message: "Pending authentication: please accept debugging session on the device"

However, the Android phone itself did not show any confirmation dialog, password request, or RSA authorization window. Restarting both the phone and the Windows laptop did not help. I also tried connecting another Android phone with USB debugging enabled, but the result was the same.

The issue was solved after installing Android SDK Platform Tools on the laptop and restarting the ADB service manually.

What is Android SDK Platform Tools?

Android SDK Platform Tools is an official package provided by Google for Android development and device communication. The package contains several important command line utilities, including ADB (Android Debug Bridge). ADB allows a computer to communicate with Android devices through USB or Wi-Fi. It is commonly used for debugging websites, installing applications, viewing device logs, and executing development commands directly from the computer.

Even if you are not developing Android applications, Platform Tools are extremely useful for web developers who debug mobile websites in Google Chrome.

How to Fix the “Pending Authentication” Problem

After installing Android SDK Platform Tools on Windows, open Windows PowerShell in the folder where Platform Tools are installed and execute the following commands:

./adb kill-server 
./adb start-server 
./adb devices

These commands restart the ADB server and recreate the connection between the laptop and the Android device.

After executing the commands, everything started working correctly again. The phone was detected properly, and Chrome DevTools on the laptop successfully displayed and inspected the website running on the Android phone.

In my case, the issue periodically returns and I need to execute these commands again. The reason appears to be related to the laptop power management behavior. Even after shutdown, the laptop does not completely terminate all background processes and USB sessions. Because of this, the ADB service may remain in an inconsistent state after sleep mode or hybrid shutdown.

If you experience a similar USB debugging issue, your situation may be related to the same cause.

Android SDK Platform Tools can be downloaded from the official Android Developers website: https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools