macbook adb cannot open interface

I ran into this error as well, and it turned out that the problem for me was that a Stetho tab was open in Chrome (i.e. a tab at URL chrome://inspect/#devices ), which I guess was causing the device to be in use. Closing that tab, then running adb kill-server, made adb devices work again.

Same symptoms with a Galaxy S7 attached to Mac via USB. In my case, I had the Tizen IDE for Samsung Gear Development open. That also prevented adb working properly. Closing the Tizen IDE immediately helped.

In case you connect the mobile phone the first time, you may already have acknowledged the authorization for the computer on the phone. You have to delete the authorization on the phone and re-connect / re-auth it. Otherwise, the device will show in the device list, but is unauthorized. (I.e. you can't debug...)

If you are using VirtualBox and have a virtual machine opened, you are probably trying to use adb from your host while it is plugged on your virtual machine. The problem is that you cannot have your device plugged on both at the same time.

Solution : Uncheck your device on the bottom right panel if it is detected by your Virtual Machine.