Vodacom with a Huawei E220 and wvdial

[Paul Greeff]

I'm trying to get my E220 Vodacom modem to work using wvdial.

On my laptop it connects fine when I use Ubuntu's network manager. However, on my server I only have access via ssh. My cellphone connects fine with wvdial, however, this little modem pops up with a message I've never seem before and as such never gets to start ppp.
---
...
--> Sending: ATDT*99***1#
--> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT*99***1#
^BOOT:45660211,0,0,0,6
---

Obviously my dial string could be wrong, however, this ^BOOT message stumps be. Never seen that before.

Any ideas?

My latest wvdial.conf (probably completely wrong at this point):
[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init4 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP",""
ISDN = 0
Carrier Check = no
Stupid Mode = on
Phone = *99***1#
Dial Command = ATDT
Dial Attempts = 2
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Baud = 460800
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Username = internet
Password = internet

Regards
Paul

 

[Ockie]

mmm lets see:

Change it as follows:

1 AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","internet"
2 Username = LEAVE BLANK
PASSWORD = LEAVE BLANK

 

[Paul Greeff]

Thanks for the advice ocleroux. Didn't make a difference.

However, after rebooting the machine the modem disappeared completely. I had to move it to the low speed USB ports before it would come back. It's an old machine with an addon USB 2.0 PCI card.

After that my wvdial.conf worked without a problem.

 

[Paul Greeff]

ocleroux, apologies. Adding "internet" as you suggested is necessary. Otherwise pppd would disconnect. So that is where I would've gotten stuck next. It doesn't look like the username and password is necessary.

 

[Paul Greeff]

Looks like I was too optimistic. It worked for the whole night, and then died on me this morning. Same problem. So we know wvdial.conf works. However, now I can plug the modem into any USB port and it will always respond with

^BOOT:45660211,0,0,0,6

after wvdial attempts to dial.

Has anyone seen this response from the e220 and what does it mean?

Regards
Paul

 

[Paul Greeff]

^BOOT:45660211,0,0,0,6

Still the same, no matter what I try. Unless, I use it via the unity frontend. Then it works without a problem. What is different between the mobile broadband dialer on the frontend and wvdial?

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

^BOOT:45660211,0,0,0,6

Still the same, no matter what I try. Unless, I use it via the unity frontend. Then it works without a problem. What is different between the mobile broadband dialer on the frontend and wvdial?

Have the same problem, on Debian 6, but I don't have the luxury of a "graphic" frontend on the EeePc 700 2G Surf .... , just the console ....

But I now have a "pap-secrets" file, I did not have before, and googling seems to indicate that this might be the cause, tho I don't see anything that needs changing, so for now I don't know ...

Now got other s**t to sort out, my brothers daughter f***ed up her computer somehow and it has landed up here broken off panel lights, loose screws in the case and all, and now the BOSS'ess computers HDD has died, just got of the phone with him ... <sigh>

Why can't I bugger of and go live on the Moon, Mars, or somewhere remote enough that nobody will bother me on my Saturday off ... <sigh>

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Solved!

Hmmm ... , so I am reading the Cell-C router thread, and see this

Quote Originally Posted by ajax View Post
I have permanently disabled the CD-ROM on my stick using AT^U2DIAG=0.
Can be re-enabled using =1.

That's the command for Huawei devices.

For ZTE's it is AT+ZCDRUN=8.

This gets me to thinking ... , so I try AT^U2DIAG=0 on my E220 - and now it works ...

Interfaces ttyUSB0,1,2 are also now detected ... , and it works as advertised on ttyUSB0 ...

 

[Paul Greeff]

Interesting. It looks like your problem might be slightly different to mine though. ttyUSB0 and 1 do exist. I can communicate with ttyUSB0 however the above error message occurs.

I've come to believe my initial theory is correct. It must be a power issue. I'm now using Data USB connection on my PCI USB 2.0 card and the power connector is connected to the on board USB port. Turns out my one USB port on the PCI USB card is dead due to bad soldering on the board. Now it works ok. Even though for some reason the connection drops every now and then, it works like a charm.

I agree though, on the GUI (on my laptop) there aren't any issues. However, on my server without GUI I have to work on command line. wvdial was always my favourite.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Interesting. It looks like your problem might be slightly different to mine though. ttyUSB0 and 1 do exist. I can communicate with ttyUSB0 however the above error message occurs.

You must, it seems, have, ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2 for a E220 modem ...

I've come to believe my initial theory is correct. It must be a power issue. I'm now using Data USB connection on my PCI USB 2.0 card and the power connector is connected to the on board USB port. Turns out my one USB port on the PCI USB card is dead due to bad soldering on the board. Now it works ok. Even though for some reason the connection drops every now and then, it works like a charm.

Mine has yet to drop connection ...

I agree though, on the GUI (on my laptop) there aren't any issues. However, on my server without GUI I have to work on command line. wvdial was always my favourite.

wvdial, is also what I use ... , works like a charm ...

 

[Paul Greeff]

Cool, looks like I'm sorted.

Power was definitely the cause of the problem described above. Looks like the modem restarts and goes into some kind of loop when not enough power is supplied.

The connection dropping was a bit of a pain though. Only by unplugging and reinserting the modem would it dial and connect again. Not ideal if I'm away from the server. I ended up writing a script that suspends, i.e. powers down, the USB port via the command line and brings back power, waits for sufficient time to get signal and then dial again. Looks like its working without too much pain now.

Thanks for the response.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Cool, looks like I'm sorted.

Power was definitely the cause of the problem described above. Looks like the modem restarts and goes into some kind of loop when not enough power is supplied.

The connection dropping was a bit of a pain though. Only by unplugging and reinserting the modem would it dial and connect again. Not ideal if I'm away from the server. I ended up writing a script that suspends, i.e. powers down, the USB port via the command line and brings back power, waits for sufficient time to get signal and then dial again. Looks like its working without too much pain now.

Thanks for the response.

Not an ideal situation tho, is it not worth getting some new hardware ... ?

Or is that problematic all on it's own ... ?

 

[Paul Greeff]

Not ideal, thats for sure. But it's only a backup link in case my internet decides to disappear again. Then I can fail over to the 3G modem. However, fail over only works if the damn thing stays up... This will do nicely. It will only be down 30 seconds every couple of hours so it should suffice.

Later I will get one of those nice 3G routers. But that'll have to wait till I get a reason to drive to JHB again. That will be best, then my firewall can decide where the traffic should go.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Later I will get one of those nice 3G routers. But that'll have to wait till I get a reason to drive to JHB again. That will be best, then my firewall can decide where the traffic should go.

Currently don't have a firewall, the local municipal electricity supply company "buggered" it up, but I am awaiting quotes on a Intel Atom mobo, that I can use to fix that deficiency, and then a WI-FI router is also on the shopping list, but with Vodacom/MTN/Cell-C getting ready to go to 42MB/s connections it means new modems, so I'll "Hang 10" for awhile ... , allow the routers to catch up with the new modems, that is ...