USB Modem ZTE MF626 does not work fine sometimes

[Santiago Roland]

ZTE usb modem MF626 does not work fine every time. In the network applet appears twice and the lower one is the one that connects. After plugging in, the Mobile Broadband wizard appears twice. i send screenshot. This modem has a slot for micro SD card that i have filled with a 2 GB one. Sometimes when plugging in, the 2GB card mounts itself but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes only one connection appears as expected

In addition to this, i figured out that when i have the USB mouse plugged and try to plug the ZTE modem, it can't connect to internet, and network manager does strange thing... like trying to connect after pull out the modem... it keeps trying to connect and you can see the animation of the network applet. If i work with the touchpad and no usb modem plugged, the modem connects fine.

[Sergiu Bivol (sergiu-bivol)]

Confirming that two entries appear with ZTE MF637, using both nm-applet and plasma-widget-network-manager.
nm-tool shows:
===========
- Device: ttyUSB1 --------------------------------------------------------------
  Type: Mobile Broadband (GSM)
  Driver: option
  State: disconnected
  Default: no

  Capabilities:

- Device: ttyUSB2 [Orange] ----------------------------------------------------
  Type: Mobile Broadband (GSM)
  Driver: option
  State: connected
  Default: yes

  Capabilities:
===========

ttyUSB1 should not be there. When NM detects the modem, it says:
===
<info> (ttyUSB0): ignoring due to lack of mobile broadband capabilties
===

It should also ignore ttyUSB1, because only ttyUSB2 (the last one) has broadband capabilities.

[Sergiu Bivol (sergiu-bivol)]

Confirming the first part of the bug.

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

sometimes, network manager shows only one device... and sometimes shows 2. If i unplug the modem and plug it back, it is not detected well and the device cant connect. when unplug and wait like 30 sec and replug it back the device is detected and i can connect... this is strange behaviour... is this device fully supported by the kernel?

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

I can confirm that too, ZTE MF 626 on Ubuntu 9.04

[kernel_script (kernelscript)]

Me too, confirming bug, ZTE MF626 on Ubuntu 9.04

[Tim Cole (timothy-j-cole)]

ZTE MF627 on Ubuntu 9.04.
Sometimes two entries appear, sometimes one as in comment #4.

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

The problem regarding device appearing twice is fixed in Karmic.

[leonardo rosario (lrosario)]

U get error after a time connected in internet? when i use this modem.
The Green Led power off and crash my system.

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

USB Modem ZTE MF626 still does not work in ubuntu and it is not fixed in Karmic... In this case, the ubuntu version is Karmic Koala amd64 up to date... It stills appearing as 2 different modems sometimes. When trying to connect to Broadband connection the connect animation (the spinning line) does not spin as usual, it spins like crazy fast and the CPU load reaches 100%, this is the 2 cores at 100% (i have AMD Turion X2 dual core processor...) i send a screenshot that the connection animation appears as nornmal but it is spinning at several times per second... not the usual speed.

[ 1608.320164] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 17
[ 1623.470071] usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 1638.731369] usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 1638.960115] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 18
[ 1654.111396] usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 1669.371379] usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 1669.600133] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 19
[ 1680.040118] usb 1-1: device not accepting address 19, error -110
[ 1680.170205] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 20
[ 1690.600123] usb 1-1: device not accepting address 20, error -110
[ 1690.600216] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
[ 1690.990130] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 7
[ 1691.174106] usb 3-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
[ 1691.192276] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1691.205473] option 3-1:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 1691.205773] usb 3-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 1691.206086] option 3-1:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 1691.206309] usb 3-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[ 1691.241092] scsi7 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 1691.242936] option 3-1:1.3: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 1691.243054] usb 3-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[ 1691.244488] usb-storage: device found at 7
[ 1691.244492] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 1694.021265] ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: force halt; handhake ffffc9001108c524 0000c000 00000000 -> -110
[ 1696.242079] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 1696.251030] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access ZTE MMC Storage 2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[ 1696.252883] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 1696.277878] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
santiago@hyperion:~$

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

As an additional comment i have to say that my journey of making this modem to work had make me google for almost any solution and i remember long time ago, i read a post of how to make it work using wdial or something like that... in that post there were one step in which the modem was plugged to a Windows machine and through the windows Hyperterminal a message was sent to the modem in order to avoid automounting of the 16MB flash disk that contains the windows broadband software installer. This was in Intrepid but then i abandoned this way and upgraded to Jaunty in which the modem started to work (but not some times) and inspired this bug report. In karmic the thing it seems not to work again and as a final comment to my last one is that when the modem gets stupid, i have to restart my system in order to get connected... but no hang of any kind i detected.

Regards,

Santiago.-

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

My modem works on Karmic amd64.
Can you verify that you are using the Karmic kernel? (2.6.31)

[21004.262656] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
[21004.425940] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[21004.579112] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[21004.579498] scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[21004.579803] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[21004.579810] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[21004.590027] usb-storage: device found at 14
[21004.590032] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[21004.599240] usb 1-1: usbfs: process 10549 (usb_modeswitch) did not
claim interface 0 before use
[21004.620712] usb 1-1: usbfs: process 10550 (usb_modeswitch) did not
claim interface 0 before use
[21004.622713] usb 1-1: usbfs: process 10552 (usb_modeswitch) did not
claim interface 0 before use
[21004.634712] usb 1-1: usbfs: process 10549 (usb_modeswitch) did not
claim interface 0 before use
[21006.538652] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 14
[21006.850145] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
[21007.013504] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[21007.015684] scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[21007.015927] usb-storage: device found at 15
[21007.015932] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[21007.108354] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[21007.108354] USB Serial support registered for generic
[21007.108380] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[21007.108383] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
[21007.131774] USB Serial support registered for GSM modem (1-port)
[21007.131834] option 1-1:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[21007.132026] usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[21007.132026] option 1-1:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[21007.132026] usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[21007.132026] option 1-1:1.3: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[21007.132138] usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[21007.132208] usbcore: registered new interface driver option
[21007.132208] option: v0.7.2:USB Driver for GSM modems
[21012.013999] usb-storage: device scan complete
[21012.016170] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access ZTE MMC Storage
  2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[21012.017263] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[21012.037507] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[21058.659069] PPP BSD Compression module registered
[21058.694913] PPP Deflate Compression module registered
azrael@laptop616:~$ ifconfig ppp0
ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
          inet addr:188.33.250.223 P-t-P:10.64.64.64 Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:13 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
          RX bytes:234 (234.0 B) TX bytes:249 (249.0 B)

azrael@laptop616:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 015: ID 19d2:0031 ONDA Communication S.p.A.
(I don't know why it's displaying like that)

azrael@la...

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

santiago@hyperion:~$ uname -r
2.6.31-14-generic

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

Sorry... this is it.

santiago@hyperion:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"
santiago@hyperion:~$

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

Other thing that i discovered. The crazy fast spinning thing that i was talking about before droved me nuts, so i started to explore and i did this: when it was crazy fast spinning, i changed the connection to connect to the other ZTE recognized connection... then the spinning stopped for a couple of seconds and then i move the mouse casually over the nm-applet and the yellow info box appeared, and just then it started to crazy spinning because it was trying to connect to this other connection... and noticed that 2 different yellow info boxes started to blinking at speed of light! ... crazy blinking... and i started to take lots of screenshots so i could read the text in it... i send 2 screenshots with the 2 info boxes that started to crazy blink at the same time that the spining symbol of getting connected started to crazy spinning... it seems that nm-applet or so is trying to do 2 different things at the same time... this may help a bit.

[Santiago Roland (santiago-roland)]

This odd behaviour still continues the same way and is a fact that when modem is somehow corrupted and the 2 states of the modem (i assume this 2 states according to the 2 fast blinking messages boxes that i was able to record via screen captures)... the modem it is not able to connect anymore in that session. The only way to connect it again using the registered connections ir restarting the system, BUT i discovered that it the modem is corrupted, there is a way to get connected again like nothing happened and it is done by deleting existing connections in "Edit connections"... If all broadband connections are deleted, and a new one is created, the modem connects just fine, like nothing happend. just i wanted to share this because it may mean something.

regards.

[Shahar Or (mightyiam)]

Perhaps this is bug #433438 ?

[madbiologist (me-again)]

I have some good news. This modem is now included in usb-modeswitch-data (20100221-1) upstream:

From the changelog:

* New upstream release.
    + New devices
      [12d1:101e] Huawei U7510 / U7517
      [198f:bccd] Beceem BCSM250
      [19d2:2000] ZTE MF626 and others

Now we just have to wait for this to be included in Ubuntu. Keep an eye on bug #564695 for that.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Is this fixed in Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"?

[David (ochoadavid)]

Hi!

I'm not using it anymore, i've just changed my internet provider, but i was
using it with 10.10 (386 and 64bit) and worked and connected every time
without problems, except random disconects. Those were the same as in WinXP
so i think that those must be hardware or network related.

The only thing i didn't like of 10.10 (and 04) was the long initialization
time (was shorter in 9).

David Ochoa

2011/4/21 madbiologist <email address hidden>

> Is this fixed in Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"?
>
> ** Changed in: network-manager (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/378496
>
> Title:
> USB Modem ZTE MF626 does not work fine sometimes
>
> Status in “network-manager” package in Ubuntu:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> ZTE usb modem MF626 does not work fine every time. In the network
> applet appears twice and the lower one is the one that connects. After
> plugging in, the Mobile Broadband wizard appears twice. i send
> screenshot. This modem has a slot for micro SD card that i have filled
> with a 2 GB one. Sometimes when plugging in, the 2GB card mounts
> itself but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes only one connection appears
> as expected
>
> In addition to this, i figured out that when i have the USB mouse
> plugged and try to plug the ZTE modem, it can't connect to internet,
> and network manager does strange thing... like trying to connect after
> pull out the modem... it keeps trying to connect and you can see the
> animation of the network applet. If i work with the touchpad and no
> usb modem plugged, the modem connects fine.
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/378496/+subscribe
>