Skip to content

Remote Device Owner Setup

Granting Device Owner status to a screen over Wi-Fi, with no USB cable and no factory reset. Use this for a screen that's already running Fortu Player and is reachable on the network, but was never provisioned as Device Owner.

When to use this

Setting up a brand new device? Use Set up new hardware instead — a factory reset plus USB is simpler and more reliable when you're starting from nothing. This guide is for a screen you already have running, in place, that you now want to upgrade to full kiosk mode remotely.

Step 1: Install adb

On your computer, not the device. One-time setup.

brew install --cask android-platform-tools

Confirm it installed:

adb version

Step 2: Connect to the device over Wi-Fi

The device must already be network-debuggable. If it was ever connected over USB before with adb tcpip 5555 run against it, it may already be listening — try connecting directly first:

adb connect <device-ip>:5555

Note

Get the device's IP from Settings → Wi-Fi → tap the connected network → Details. If the connect above succeeds immediately, skip to Step 3.

If that fails, the device needs Wireless debugging turned on first — Android 11 or newer only.

  1. On the device: Settings → About → tap Build number 7 times to enable Developer options.

  2. Settings → Developer options → Wireless debugging — turn it on.

    Tap the words "Wireless debugging" itself, not just its toggle, to open the detail screen — the pairing option below only appears there.

  3. Tap Pair device with pairing code. It shows a 6-digit code and an IP:port.

  4. From your computer, on the same Wi-Fi network:

    adb pair <ip>:<pairing-port>

    Enter the 6-digit code when prompted.

    Using zsh? Quote any glob-like argument ("FortuPlayer:*" later in this guide, for example) — zsh expands an unquoted * itself and fails with "no matches found" before adb ever sees it.

  5. Go back to the main Wireless debugging screen — it now shows a second, different IP:port. Use that one to actually connect:

    adb connect <ip>:<connect-port>

Android 10 or older

Wireless debugging doesn't exist on these versions — there's no way to enable network adb without touching a cable at least once. Connect the device over USB and run adb tcpip 5555 once, then unplug. It listens over the network on port 5555 until the next reboot. From there, connect with adb connect <device-ip>:5555 as in the first box above.

Step 3: Remove any accounts on the device

Device Owner can only be granted to a device with zero accounts — Google, Samsung, work, anything. This is the single most common failure at the next step.

Check what's there:

adb shell dumpsys account | grep "Account {"

If anything is listed, remove it on the device: Settings → Accounts → tap each account → Remove account.

Step 4: Grant Device Owner

adb shell dpm set-device-owner \
  com.fortu.player/com.fortu.player.kiosk.DeviceAdminReceiver

If this fails

IllegalStateException: Not allowed to set the device owner because there are already some accounts on the device means Step 3 wasn't complete. Remove the remaining account and retry — no reboot needed.

Step 5: Restart the app

Kiosk features check Device Owner status at startup, so an already-running instance won't pick up the change on its own.

adb shell am force-stop com.fortu.player
adb shell monkey -p com.fortu.player -c android.intent.category.LAUNCHER 1

A reboot works just as well, if that's easier.

Step 6: Verify

Long press anywhere on the screen to open the diagnostics overlay. Confirm it reads device owner (full kiosk), not not owner (screen pinning only).

Note

From here on, silent self-updates and automatic recovery after a power loss both work the same as a device provisioned via factory reset + USB. Device Owner status cannot be removed with an adb command — to reuse this device for something else later, factory reset it.