Network-Manager-Applet asks for PUK and PIN of only up to 4 digits long while these codes can be up to 8 digits long

[AM]

The seriousness of this bug can be discussed. Besides preventing the device to function, the SIM card will lock up and become unsable after several unlock attempts (10) with a wrong private unlock key (PUK).

The PIN and PUK keys seem to be entered and handled the same place in the source code, as far I can see the executable and source the entry field is limited to 4 digits:

Fragment of code found in applet-device-gsm.c
...
 *out_secret_entry = GTK_ENTRY (w);
 gtk_entry_set_max_length (GTK_ENTRY (w), 4);
 gtk_entry_set_width_chars (GTK_ENTRY (w), 4);
...

I discovered this problem since my mobile broadband pccard Huawei E600 cannot be used with network-manager 0.7 although it otherwise works in GNU-Linux.

[Mads Chr. Olesen (shiyee)]

As a work-around you can use the SIM card in a mobile phone enter the PUK-code there, and set a new PIN-code, then use the SIM card without problems.

[mlx (myxal-mxl)]

One can also "enter" the PIN manually (once every time the modem is connected to the computer), assuming you know the serial port used for configuration and that the modem supports standard AT commands:

echo -e AT+CPIN=\"####\"\\r > /dev/ttyUSB$

where #### is your PIN and $ is the number of the corresponding port. On my Huawei E1550, it's always the first port.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Looking at this, it seems to me like PINs longer than 4 characters should now be supported in network-manager 0.8 (lucid and later). Could someone please confirm this works for them so we can close this bug? Thanks!

[Wolfgang Silbermayr (silwol)]

On my lucid installation (with proposed and backports repositories disabled and everything updated) it is still only possible to enter 4 characters. Mathieu, do you have proposed or backports enabled? Is the change in an update that is delivered there?

[Mike Martinez (ubuntu-martinez-mail)]

My Lucid installation with NetworkManager version 0.8 still only allows 4 character PIN.

A workaround, for reference follows.

I was able to reset the SIM card using the PUK by doing the following:

> sudo dbus-send --system --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=org.freedesktop.ModemManager /org/freedesktop/ModemManager/Modems/0 org.freedesktop.ModemManager.Modem.Gsm.Card.SendPuk string:"########" string:"####"

where the '--print-reply' is not strictly necessary, and I'm not sure if I needed the '--type=method_call' either. I guessed as the '--dest' to send to and verified by using '.GetImsei' to see when it worked.

The path was taken from the /var/log/syslog message where the modem was initialized. The method is from the spec.html document provided as docs with NetworkManager.

Once I sent this message, I was able to use the modem with the PIN again.

Whew!
MIke
#%^P