Network Manager not giving 3G Ericsson F3507g Mobile Broadband enough time to initialize in Jaunty

[Jerone Young]

Binary package hint: network-manager

Network manager is not giving Ericsson F3507g Mobile Broadband Minicard Network Adapter enough time to fully initialize and make a connection to the 3G network. It looks to take about a minute for the card to completely initilized and then connect to the 3G network.

Currently it takes up to 2 or times of trying to connect to get it to connect. I seem to average around 3.

I've attached a video of the user experience, in this case it only took 2 times. This could have a bit to do with how long I waited and signal connectivity in the area.

So some observation is once the card is up and going. The 2nd time you have to connect it works just fine.

It's mainly just the first time. The first time the 3G card has to be cut on and then connect to the network. After that it will keep a connection to that network, so when you want to connect a 2nd time then it just connects.

This is using network manager version 0.7.1~rc4.1.cf199

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

is this after powercycling the device?

Please set reboot and:

sudo su
export NM_SERIAL_DEBUG=1
NetworkManager --no-daemon 2>&1 | tee /tmp/nm.log.txt ...

reproduce and attach both syslog and nm.log.txt.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Alex
   Yes. The device is not on initally. But on power up it takes about ... what I guess 30-40 seconds (need to measure this better) for the device itself to power up (about 7 seconds) and then connect to the Wireless network.

   But if I connected once, then disconnect. The device remains on. So if I try to connect again then it will just work, because the card didn't loose it's cellular association to the network. Not sure what whould happen if I could join multiple networks (that would require more time).

I'll get you a full log tonight. Figured the fix is as easy as setting the timeout to 60seconds or so.

Will get you a log this evening.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

I've attached a log. I am connected to wifi access point "AustinJava". It took 3 tries this time to connect to the AT&T network.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Actually the post above never actually gets a full connection. Looks like it's not getting a gateway. I'll try again later.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

trying with network manager 0.7.1~rc4.1.cf

I am not able to make a full connection. But here is me trying 4 times.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i don't think its a registration timing issue. there is something missing for you.

check this patch, which will make the CREG phase really long (40*2 seconds)

diff --git a/src/nm-gsm-device.c b/src/nm-gsm-device.c
index cc83d1a..a0c3798 100644
--- a/src/nm-gsm-device.c
+++ b/src/nm-gsm-device.c
@@ -373,7 +373,7 @@ schedule_automatic_registration_again (NMGsmDevice *self)
        if (priv->pending_id)
                g_source_remove (priv->pending_id);

- priv->pending_id = g_timeout_add_seconds (1, automatic_registration_again, self);
+ priv->pending_id = g_timeout_add_seconds (2, automatic_registration_again, self);
 }

 static void
@@ -392,7 +392,7 @@ automatic_registration_response (NMSerialDevice *device,
                 * each CREG request. Some cards (ex. Option iCON 225) return OK
                 * immediately from CFUN, but take a bit to start searching for a network.
                 */
- if (priv->reg_tries++ < 15) {
+ if (priv->reg_tries++ < 40) {
                        /* Can happen a few times while the modem is powering up */
                        schedule_automatic_registration_again (NM_GSM_DEVICE (device));
                } else {

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

the other odd thing is that it just works for me with my f3507g thing here. Will check again when i have a chance to get rid of modemmanager, but 2 weeks ago it just worked TM ;).

Are you sure that you have provided APN etc. correctly?

The other idea would be to remove all configured connections and remove the libmbca0 library (so no broadband wizard) to get "Auto Connections". Those have a bit of a different code path when activating, so please check that too.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Alex
     Yes I do have everything correctly. I even show it connecting in the video I attached. I did an update the same day to the newest network manager and it stopped working.

    I'll try out the patch.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Might have been something with the ATT network yesterday. It is connecting fine now. Will post logs shortly.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Alex
      The patch you posted worked! Connected the first time, it takes a while. It was the fact that it wasn't given enough time. I'll create a video to show you exactly what happens.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Alex
        So with the patch you connect on the first time. It takes about 60 seconds to get a full connection. Video is attached.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

dont know why, but i cannot watch that. please reboot and attach a syslog of the first connect attempt _with_ the patch i made.

(also of a 2nd attempt after manually disconnecting)

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Alexander
     Odd you can't see it. Try it in totem, works fine for me.

    For the 2nd attempt it works in seconds. It's only the initial attempt where the card has to power up and initialize it takes a full minute to get going.

    I'll give you a log shortly. Can't shutdown my machine for a bit to get a cleaner log.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Here is a log for an initial startup. Looks like most of the time is spent powering up:

Apr 15 14:12:50 laptop NetworkManager: <info> (ttyACM0): powering up...
Apr 15 14:13:24 laptop NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: completed -> associat

Notice takes 34 seconds to power up.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Here is a log with a manual disconnect, then I reconnect. This is very fast to connect.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Actually nix that statement I made on the first post. I realized that that the power the next entry was for the wifi card.

Apr 15 14:12:50 laptop NetworkManager: <info> (ttyACM0): powering up...
Apr 15 14:13:41 laptop NetworkManager: <info> Associated with network: +COPS: 0,0,"AT&T",0

... actually 51 seconds .. which is the exact amount of time in the video I made. It's pretty consistent on an initial startup.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Actually nix that statement I made on the first post. I realized that that the power the next entry was for the wifi card.

Apr 15 14:12:50 laptop NetworkManager: <info> (ttyACM0): powering up...
Apr 15 14:13:41 laptop NetworkManager: <info> Associated with network: +COPS: 0,0,"AT&T",0

... actually 59 seconds .. which is the exact amount of time in the video I made. It's pretty consistent on an initial startup.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

ok considering this for SRU after release. AFAIK, the f3507g shouldnt take that long - except for the very first connect after inserting a SIM and the module needs to be properly shut down so it has a quick network registration even after power-cycling.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Well on the Lenovo x301 I have the f3507g is completely powered down till the initial bring up. Which is the long one. After that the device stays up and on the connecing a second time it works really quick. I think it would be the same on a reboot, as the card doesn't power down (you can tell by the green indicator light).

So only on the first try when the card has to come on does it take forever (aka 1 minute) to startup.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Jerone, you are correct and that is a known issue. However, thats fixable once we have modemmanager because the module really needs this minute just for the very first connect after changing the SIM. after that - if done properly - even after powercycling the module will connect faster.

Anyway. so we should tune this to 1 minute - ouch. maybe we can special case this for certain devices.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

That is not the case. In the cases I show I am never changing out the SIM card. It is the case though that on the initial power on of the card it takes 1 minute for it to get fully initialized.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Actually I misinterpreted "powercycling". But yeah we need something.

This maybe a problem with the driver or initialization string being used. I remebmer first using the card under Windows Vista to ensure it worked, and it did not take nearly as long to get connected.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

After updating my Lenovo Thinkpad X301 with the latest bios update released April 27, 2008
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-70466

Oddly after this things are now working without issue. Connects in 15 - 17 seconds now.

I'll mark this bug as invalid now that things appear to be working after the update. Not sure why with no info regarding it in the bios errata (though most manufacturers don't list everything they do).

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Instead of marking invalid so quickly. Should probably make the time out at least 30 seconds as connecting fully will depend on the connectivity in the area.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Fri, May 01, 2009 at 07:27:07PM -0000, Jerone Young wrote:
> Instead of marking invalid so quickly. Should probably make the time out
> at least 30 seconds as connecting fully will depend on the connectivity
> in the area.
>

Note that we are not talking about overall connect time; we talk about
network registration time; that alone should be ok as it is.

 - Alexander

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

Now that I've had some test time. I'm going to go ahead and mark the bug invalid. After the firmware update it seems to have no problem with registering to the network within 15 - 25 seconds.

If someone is having problems please reopen this bug.