Fastboot commands not working except for devices

All adb ... commands are working. After rebooting the phone into fastboot mode fastboot devices shows that the device is connected but all the other fastboot ... commands are just sitting in the terminal indefinitely (not hanging, because if you unplug the cable, they return an error and the prompt is there again).

And on Windows these commands are working for the phone in question. The version of the “SDK Platform Tools” is identical: downloaded from SDK 平台工具版本说明  |  Android Studio  |  Android Developers on the same day, just 2 different archives: for Windows and for Linux.

(Actually at first I have tried the version from the repo (extra->android-tools), this is where I first run into that problem, so I decided to try the version from the zip archive from the developer.android.com (which turned out to have the same issue) and Windows (which worked)).

To clarify: I have tried different USB ports and was using the cable that came in the box with the phone.

Anyway, I have actually found the solution, but while I was searching for it I found this topic that was closed without a solution, and it seems it was the same issue, so I decided to post the solution. And since that topic is closed and I can’t post it there, I’m posting it in a separate topic.

Solution (from here):

  1. Unplug the phone cable from the PC
  2. Execute the fastboot ... command
  3. Only when it shows “< waiting for any device >”, plug the cable again

I can confirm that this works for me as well.

PS It’s worth mentioning that on other forums people also run into that problem, often mentioning that it exists only on Linux and they have no problem on Windows with the same device.

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did you remember to add yourself to adbusers group?

Yes, I did.