Screen Mirroring from Android device

We’ll be using scrcpy in this guide.

Installation

`scrcpy` via `brew` and `apt` on Debian

First install adb with apt:

# use apt to install adb which scrcpy needs
sudo apt install -y adb

Then install scrcpy with brew:

# use linuxbrew to install scrcpy
brew install scrcpy

# add scrcpy to your path if you haven't already
export PATH="$PATH:/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin"
Install via `snap` on Debian

I don’t use the snap store anymore, but if you do, the below guide may be of use (but is no longer tested!)

The snapstore verson of scrcpy installs adb for you, so you don’t need to install it.

Do NOT use the apt package. It is incredibly out of date. Use the snap package.

sudo snap install scrcpy

NOTE: Make use /snap/bin is in your path

Make sure your phone is also in debug mode:

alias adb='scrcpy.adb'

Start the server with adb 

adb start-server

Put your phone in Debug mode and connect via USB

Step One

Settings > About Phone > Software information > Scroll down to ‘Build number’ and tap that box 7 times. If debug mode was already activated previously, you will receive a message that says ‘No need, developer mode has already been enabled’.

Step Two

Settings > Search > Type ‘developer options’ > Select the ‘Developer options’ under ‘Developer options’ (and not the one under ‘Screen reader’) > Scroll down to ‘USB debugging’ directly under the ‘Debugging header’ and slide the switch from Off (left) to On (right) > Press ‘OK’ to confirm you want to enable USB debugging.

Then connect your phone via USB and you will get a message on your phone that says “Allow USB debugging?”. Tap Allow. Finally, you’ll get a “Allow access to phone data?” and you should tap allow for that too.

After that, if it still doesn’t work, you may need to plug the USB kabel from your computer into your phone, and then on your phone, pull down the top menu that’s normally for notificiations, and select “USB for 
” and update the setting to USB for file transfer.

And if that doesn’t work, try using a different kabel, and remove any kabel extenders from the equation. It could be that your phone only works in USB debug mode with branded kabels. This is the case with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G, for instance.

Step Three

List devices and verify their integrity.

# should list a device if your phone is plugged in and working
adb devices

# this will put you into a shell ot verify everything is working correctly
adb shell

In the adb shell, try this:

# check how many processors you have
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -E 'processor|BogoMIPS'

# exit the shell when done.
exit

Connect to your phone via WIFI

Restart the connection on a new port (port number is arbitrary)

adb tcpip 2233

You should get this: restarting in TCP mode port: 2233

Now you need to get your phone’s local IP address. You can check your phone, pihole, or router settings for this. Under pihole or the router, you are probably connected via DHCP, so try there. Once you have the IP address you can do this:

# assuming your phone's IP is 192.168.42.42 and you selected port 2233 above
adb connect 192.168.42.42:2233

That should return: connected to 192.168.42.42:2233 You can verify for sure with this:

adb devices

Which should return List of devices attached followed by something like 192.168.42.42:2233 device

FINALLY, you can now run this to get your phone mirrored:

scrcpy --select-tcpip

and if that fails, you can either upgrade your graphics card drivers, or try this command:

scrcpy --render-driver=software --select-tcpip

:tada:

Troubleshooting

device not showing up in adb?

Try disconnecting your phone and unmounting it via the file explorer. Then restart the server with:

adb kill-server
adb start-server

Then try connecting again and it should work, but you may need to remove all allowed developer USB connections and restart the phone before trying. That’s all I got.

Error: Could not create renderer

If you’re getting this error:

$ scrcpy --select-tcpip
scrcpy 2.1.1 <https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy>
INFO: ADB device found:
INFO:     --> (tcpip)  192.168.50.180:2233             device  SM_G998B
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Cellar/scrcpy/2.1.1/share/scrcpy/scrcpy-server: 1 file pushed, 0 skipped. 1.5 MB/s (56995 bytes in 0.036s)
[server] INFO: Device: [samsung] samsung SM-G998B (Android 13)
ERROR: Could not create renderer: Couldn't find matching render driver
WARN: Killing the server...

This is probably due to your graphics card drivers, and according to this issue comment you can solve this by running:

scrcpy --render-driver=software --select-tcpip