GSM connected, but no data plan - should report disconnected

[Michał Karnicki]

Steps to reproduce:
1. insert SIM card with data plan that has run out/expired
2. notice NetworkingStatus reports connected, but there's "no Internet"

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ nmcli d
DEVICE TYPE STATE
/ril_1 gsm connected
/ril_0 gsm disconnected

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ system-image-cli --info
current build number: 205
device name: krillin
channel: ubuntu-touch/ubuntu-rtm/14.09-proposed
last update: 2015-01-21 10:06:15
version version: 205
version ubuntu: 20150121
version device: 20150113-2a2e4c5
version custom: 20150112-494-23-173

[Antti Kaijanmäki (kaijanmaki)]

Connectivity-api relies on NM to inform when we have Internet connection.

We need more info.

I've never used a SIM where your data plan can "run out". Could it be that the mobile broadband connection actually success to activate (device gets an IP, maybe even a DHCP record), but no data is being routed through..

If above is in fact what happens, then only way to detect the Internet connectivity is to enable Captive Portal detection in NM and use that info inside connectivity-api to signal the actual "online" status.

 @cyphermox, could you take it from here to continue to investigate.

[Tony Espy (awe)]

@Michael

Tsk, tsk... no image information, nor device listed. Please update your description.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

There isn't much we can do with NetworkManager for this: different providers implement their plans differently. Here in Canada, many providers will still let you stay connected (or successfully create a new connection) even if your "plan" as run out, but you'll be charged extra credit on a prepaid plan, or charged differently (and much much more) on a monthly plan -- connectivity checking here would most likely only incur additional costs.

I don't have anything better to offer right now than to keep thinking about it, and that users unfortunately will need to keep track of data usage on their own until there is such a facility to give data usage stats on the device itself (which itself may be wrong, but better than nothing).

[Michał Karnicki (karni)]

I'm less worried about "keeping track of data" and more worried on apps defining their behavior based on connectivity state (enabled parts of the UI, etc).

[Antti Kaijanmäki (kaijanmaki)]

@mathieu-tl

this bug is not about informing the users that their data plan has ran out or that there might be additional costs to data connectivity.

This bug is about Connectivity API telling the applications that there is network connection available, but still no data is moving in or out.

First thing to figure out is that is the establishing of mobile connection actually successful on technical point of view, or is there a bug in either NM or ofono that they report a data connection being connected when in fact on the technical level there is no data carrier.

If ofono and NM are behaving properly and from their point of view everything is up and running (there is an IP assigned through DHCP and DNS server being assigned by the operator) but the operator is simply dropping all of the traffic on their end, then this becomes a (feature) bug about enabling higher level "Are we connected to the actual Internet" detection which can either be dealt with enabling Captive Portal detection in NM or we cook up some other detection mechanism.

[Tony Espy (awe)]

AFAIK, there's no way for ofono to know that "credit has run out". ofono is responsible for attaching to the GPRS network and ensuring that the correct ConnectionManager DBus properties are exposed ( 'Powered' and 'Attached' ). Likewise ofono exposes one or more GPRS contexts which NM may choose to activate.

If the operator responds to an context activation request with valid IP settings, then NM will use them to configure the data connection.

If packets on this new interface are dropped, we currently lack any kind of network heartbeat mechanism to detect this situation. This is no different than being in an area that has borderline signal quality. This is quite similar to the case where an Ubuntu desktop is connected to a WiFi AP, but the the ISP that the AP is connected to is having issues.

@Michael - in order to confirm the ofono state, could you please include the output of ofono's 'list-modems' and 'list-contexts' scripts ( which can be found in /usr/share/ofono/scripts on the phone )?

[Michał Karnicki (karni)]

list-modems
http://paste.ubuntu.com/9810922/

list-contexts
http://paste.ubuntu.com/9810930/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for connectivity-api because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for network-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]