"Unable to open log device '/dev/log/main': No such file or directory"

I am new to Android development and bought a cheap Huawei Sonic (U8650 apparently) so I could test my first attempts at making an app on an actual device.

However, whenever I try to use 'adb logcat' or 'adb shell' then 'logcat' on the device I get:

Unable to open log device '/dev/log/main': No such file or directory

I have already enabled Usb debugging in Settings -> Developer.

I just don't know enough about Android to know if this is something I can even fix.

I have found two other questions with similar problems:

/dev/log/main not found

??-?? ??:??:??.???: INFO/<unknown>(<unknown>): Unable to open log device '/dev/log/main': No such file or directory

...but they both turned out to be using some kind of non standard kernel that had logging disabled. Mine is a stock phone out of the box.

It's a very cheap but snappy Android 2.3 phone, so hopefully it wasn't a total waste of money.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Dial this: *#*#2846579#*#*
Service menu will appear.
Go to "ProjectMenu" -> "Background Setting" -> "Log Setting"

Open "Log switch" and set it to ON.
Open "Log level setting" and set the log level you wish.

Reboot the phone.


  1. Open: /system/etc/init.d/××× (not the same file on different ROMs, find the right file)
  2. Find the line that says: rm /dev/log/main
  3. Change the line to: # rm /dev/log/main (comments out the line, rm = remove, in case you were wondering)
  4. Save and reboot

I'm sharing my case and solution:

My cellphone had a jellybean version oriented to performance (To be exact a Slim Bean ROM) with a Semaphore kernel (You can recognize it because when the cellphone is starting, the semaphore logo is shown). These kind of ROM have by default disabled the logging so I had to download the Semaphore Manager application (You can download it from here). After that, in the section "Modules" I had to turn on the Logger option as it is shown in the picture

enter image description here

Restart and the logcat should be working now!