Ok so adb talks to the phone and the UIDs go in the log. So the problem must be the server not starting adb properly.
Try this when the server is running: ps ax | grep adb
You should see something like this:
321564 ? Ssl 0:20 adb -L tcp:5037 fork-server server --reply-fd 4
404603 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/adb shell logcat -c&&logcat -v brief log:I NativeNfcTag:D StNativeNfcTag:D *:S