Family member had run out of free space on google, that was why some known pics were not appearing, they freed up a bunch of space, and the phone has now automatically synced to the mothership. No more effort required on my part.

I currently have a mobile phone too, but it is too toxic for browsing, cant stand it, impossible to really scrub those ads from view. so mostly used as a dumb phone.

It is cheaper to by another second hand phone than to replace screen, so it will be scrapped.

job done without messing with adb, thank fcuk

You're welcome.

Been there, done that.
But always steered clear of anything Apple and these days anything Android.
Unless it is mine to screw up if things end up awry.

Far too easy to do and not precisely by chance. In Android, it is all obscured by design.

Odds are (100/1) are that your phone does not have Developer Options / USB debugging enabled, without which adb is useless.
It is, of course, usually done via the touch screen.  8^/

Check this page at XDA forums for that.
There is a lot of very useful data on that site, you have to thoroughly comb through it to find what you need.

Be aware that in many cases you may come up empty-handed. eg: rebranded OEM Android devices for odd brands / unpublished specs and such. And that only sometimes you will get feedback, but don't expect much.

Please let us know the outcome, be it success or failure.

Best,

A.

I will try adb to see where that gets me.

Seems that part is working properly.

But, being a touch thingy, if you don't/cannot [touch] you are in a pickle.

At least with phones running (?) Android > 4.4.4 (aka KitKat).
Note: I have an old Android 4.4.4 phone with no carrier access that does not do this.

That said, when I connect an Android 11 phone to my workstation, dmesg will declare* this:

--- snip ---
[ 1360.748466] usb 6-1: USB disconnect, device number 2
[ 3637.412472] usb 5-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[ 3637.539257] usb 5-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, idProduct=6860, bcdDevice= 2.23
[ 3637.539265] usb 5-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 3637.539269] usb 5-1.2: Product: SAMSUNG_Android
[ 3637.539272] usb 5-1.2: Manufacturer: SAMSUNG
[ 3637.539274] usb 5-1.2: SerialNumber: RXXRXXXXXXX   
[ 3637.594388] cdc_acm 5-1.2:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[ 3637.594978] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[ 3637.594983] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

* make sure your USB cable is sound, a bad cable may/will not work properly and the file manager will complain about missing/bad data.

At the same time, in [Places] my file manager shows two icons:

mtp and SAMSUNG Android.   

Attempting to list/access the phone's files gets the phone's screen to show a pop-up:

So that is the catch ... 
If you don't touch Allow, you will not see anything in the file manager.

There is probably a way to access the phone via adb, at least the files that do not require rooting the device to acess them.
ie: Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41, find it in the Devuan repository.

eg:

~$ adb devices -l 
* daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
* daemon started successfully
List of devices attached
RXXXXXXXXXX            device usb:7-6 product:a02ub model:SM_A022M device:a02 transport_id:1
~$ 

I think that you can (?), if you know how to use it, do some [not-root rquired] file transfer/recovery:

~$ adb help
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version 29.0.6-debian
Installed as /usr/lib/android-sdk/platform-tools/adb
--- snip ---
file transfer:
 push [--sync] LOCAL... REMOTE
     copy local files/directories to device
     --sync: only push files that are newer on the host than the device
 pull [-a] REMOTE... LOCAL
     copy files/dirs from device
     -a: preserve file timestamp and mode
 sync [all|data|odm|oem|product|system|system_ext|vendor]
     sync a local build from $ANDROID_PRODUCT_OUT to the device (default all)
     -l: list files that would be copied, but don't copy them
--- snip ---

For the rest [of whatever you may be able to do] you'll have to look up the pertinent instructions on the web.
I don't know more that this at the moment.

I don't like Android.
As far as I am concerned it is a POS on wheels, a Google infested meta-harversting device.
Unfortunately, these things run on it.

Good luck with your phone.
Please let us know how you fared with this, it may be useful to others in your situation.

Best,

A.

mtp://SAMSUNG_SAMSUNG_Android_R58N515N63A/

It is empty below that, not sure what to add or configure to get access to the phone,  phone display has died, but it can be made to ring remotely, so hopefully only a dead display to contend with.