Sunday, December 2, 2012

Making internet pass-through work after updating HTC One X to Jelly Bean

Update 22 Jan 2013: "HTC Sync" seems to have been discontinued so the download links given below will not work. "HTC Sync" is different from "HTC Sync Manager". For exact difference read on.

I recently upgraded my HTC One X to Jelly Bean via OTA update. After updating I was unable to use internet pass-through which used to work flawlessly before and I already had HTC Sync installed on my PC. I uninstalled, installed, uninstalled again and installed again to make it work. But it simply refused. It gave me error of "Either you do not have the latest version of HTC Sync installed on your PC, or another phone is already using Internet pass-through on your PC." on my phone.


From this discussion on XDA Developers forum I found that there is something called as HTC Sync Manager. This is different from HTC Sync which I had installed on my machine. I don't know why HTC did this but its really confusing. Here's how these two software look.

HTC Sync Manager

HTC Sync
You can download HTC Sync Manager from here while HTC Sync can be downloaded from here. So I uninstalled "HTC Sync" and installed "HTC Sync Manager" (see how confusing this sounds). But my ordeal was just beginning. Now I was getting error of "HTC Remote NDIS based Device #2". AAARRRGGHH!


Heading to Google I found another discussion on XDA Developers forum where a possible solution was provided. So I followed that.

First I started the command prompt and put in these two commands in it.


This would start your Device Manager. In the menu select "View > Show hidden devices". There inside the section "Android USB Devices" you will find (multiple) entries of "My HTC".


Right click on each of the "My HTC" entries and click on "Uninstall".


You we will presented with a confirmation dialog. Do not check "Delete the driver software for this device".


Now in the Device Manager under the "Network adapters" you would find entries of "HTC Remote NDIS based Device", "HTC Remote NDIS based Device #2" and so on.


Remove these entries in the same way described earlier. This should have solved my problem (and possibly yours) if not for my blunder of checking "Delete the driver software for this device". I was still unable to use internet pass-through and was able figure out the root cause for this as my deleting the driver while uninstalling. So I installed "HTC Sync" again as I was able to figure out that if this driver was present on my PC it was the only source where it came from. And finally it worked. PHEW!

So to summarize everything, to use internet pass-through on your HTC One X after Jelly bean update -
  1. Download "HTC Sync" from here and install it. If you have it already installed on your PC then check your current version and the version available on website. If it does not match then download the latest one. Don't rely on "Check update" feature in "HTC Sync" as I found it to be unreliable. Also uninstall previous version before installing the new one.
  2. Download "HTC Sync Manager" from here and install it.
  3. Now try to use internet pass-through. If it does not work then try uninstalling "My HTC' and "HTC Remote NDIS based Device" entries from Device Manager as described earlier.
And yes, your results may vary. If the above steps don't resolve your problem then you may want to see the comments below.

13 comments:

  1. Hi, same problem for me too. how to solve this problem? pls. help me. my mail id is sbg.geootech@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have described the procedure that I went through to resolve the problem. Did you try them?

      Also I don't think putting your email ID for everyone to see is a good idea! :)

      Delete
  2. Hy mate,i just made the steps w u wrote, but sadly it didn't work...also i had not seen any my htc entrie at devmgr, just only one ndis based device entrie was there,i uninstalled how u wrote (i did not deleted the software just the driver), and then the windows automatically reinstalled that when i wanted to use passthrough... now im at the starting pos, htcsync doesn't see the device, the manager does, but i cant use the internet. Tech data: win7(fully updated),no firewall on, no antivirus software active,everything says it works but doesn't, pls if u or anybody has an idea answer here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andras,
      HTC has really messed up this time with "HTC Sync" & "HTC Sync Manager". These steps also didn't work for my friend. What he did was to uninstall all the HTC software using "Revo Uninstaller" including the drivers, if any. He then installed only "HTC Sync Manager" and then tried to use his phone with internet pass-through and it worked! You could try this approach.
      Regards,
      Naveen

      Delete
  3. Hey guys,

    Try removing the whole Internet Pass thru documents, before installing the new htc sync manager, this should be stopped @first from services in order to remove.

    First I tried the steps and it didn't work lateron I uninstalled everything from HTC on my computer, incl. old pass thru service (the old one and the new have the same names therefore try removing the whole HTC folder before installing) and installed the new sync manager and drivers and removed the my HTC entry as described above. Now I have pass thru service again

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aysegul,
      Did you also remove the drivers as I described?
      Rgds,
      Naveen

      Delete
  4. Thanks for pointing out that the Check for update feature is unreliable. I downloaded the latest version from htc and then it magically started working. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been having trouble with internet pass through and also tethering ever since the update. This method worked exactly as described and solved both issues, so thanks a LOT.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I uninstalled both htc sync and htc sync manager, deleted and uninstalled all htc devices from device manager, then installed htc sync only (latest). Plugged my htc one in and voila, internet passthrough.
    Thanks for the tips Naveegator!

    ReplyDelete
  7. hi can any one help me with my prob:i have htc one with 4.3 after updating my phone it is not connecting through internet pass through i have the latest version of sync manager even i was not able to connect its showing that mtp driver is not installed can anyone help me out

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wrote this blog post with HTC One X (that's my device) in consideration. It seems your device is HTC One as its running 4.3 and its not yet available on HTC One X. But the problem seems to be similar. So did you try the steps I described above?

      Delete
  8. it's connecting and showing the connected icon at the top ...but it's not working( I am not able to browse/surf internet ) , no transmission of data packets ..help me out ...please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please try to check if there is anything blocking the software from connecting to Internet. Or try to completely uninstall and then install.

      Delete