However, my actual bug was worse than this: the phone didn’t connect through Windows as well! When I plugged in my phone on a Windows machine, an empty Explorer window similar to below comes up and nothing else. Does that mean my phone is dying, progressively loosing functionalities? Probably.
I didn’t atempt any Google search about this. It is worthless. I will find forum posts about people replacing the cable, doing factory resets, sending their phone for repair or replacement, etc. The phone hooks up, something is detected by the computer, so why a new USB cable would help? Yes, I can do factory resets after factory resets, that will probably fix it, but what’s the point of doing this if I know I will have to redo it a few months later, for no reason, unless I install NOTHING on the phone? And how I am getting through technical support are no-go solutions or offers for a new phone that will force me to switch to a more expensive plan with my provider or buy something from nowhere with an old version of Android.
Before accepting this conclusion and starting to look if I could get a Google Nexus phone from Google rather than going through Fido and affecting my phone/data plan or get something somewhat correct from DX.com, I tried with a different cable: same effect. Then I saw the home screen on the device and remembered I set up a PIN recently to protect my Google account for any tampering by somebody who may get back my phone if I loose it, or steal it from me.
I entered my PIN and saw with surprise and relief the following window on my computer:
Tada! This time, the solution was simple! This was just a normal data protection! So my USB connection is still working!
Note that locking the phone doesn’t shut off the USB access, until the cable is disconnected. The PIN also doesn’t prevent me from answering a call, so this is not as problematic as I feared it would be.