Dial-up modem in Network-Admin not functional in Feisty

[Michael Losonsky]

Binary package hint: gnome-system-tools

Running Feisty i386 (March 19 build) live. The Dial-up modem configuration in System->Administration->Network still does not work. I say "still" because this is a problem in the Edgy I have installed and it was recognized as a bug to be fixed in the next edition. But apparently it is still in Feisty.

The modem is not enabled, it does not connect and instead it resets the network connection. Except for the box to enable modem, there is nothing for trying to activate the modem. Adding the modem applet does not help. Also, after closing and reopening, all the Properties are still there except that Tone is changed back to Pulse (as was the case in Edgy).

This is not a modem issue. Wvdial recognizes the modem and I can dial out that way.

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

Tried a more recent build of Feisty:
daily-live/20070320.1/feisty-desktop-i386.iso
md5sum: b9f4ddfac35fbc67c54122f83667a5d7

Same condition as in other builds (and Edgy).

The network connection is reset every time I
configure the modem in admin->network.

If I try to configure the modem too often, then
none of the applications open up -- not even
the terminal -- and I have to reboot.

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

Here is an earlier bug report involving Edgy and before. It was confirmed and its importance was high. But the bug is not fixed. Many people still use dial-up modems.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/22119

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Would be nice if one of those modem users could work on the bug then and send a fix, most of the distribution team has no modem to work on that and already lot to do

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

I think that part of the problem is independent of a modem. The fact that it changes Tone to Pulse is a bug in the configuration code. Also, I remember this part working in 6.06, so wouldn't that be a good place to start. Finally, where is the script for the modem part of network-admin, the interdace to ppp0. I think that's where the problem is.

Maybe it would help to confirm this bug?
Michael

[Michael Kofler (michael-kofler)]

I can confirm the problem as of 2007-04-16 with all updates installed;
also, modem_applet is unable to control the connection

> Would be nice if one of those modem users could work on
> the bug then and send a fix, most of the distribution team
> has no modem to work on that and already lot to do

I have full understanding for this; however, it makes no sense
to ship a broken tool for such a basic function; if it is
broken and cannot be fixed, drop it from Feisty

as ISDN support is broken an well, the conclusion is:

Feisty is for LAN/WLAN users only

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

>it makes no sense
>to ship a broken tool for such a basic function; if it is
>broken and cannot be fixed, drop it from Feisty

I strongly support that. It would be better to include
gnome-ppp or at least direct user to the appropriate
HowTo page than let new users be tormented by something
that does not work.

[Michael Kofler (michael-kofler)]

I just re-tested with Feisty final.

Basically, it is possible to connect to the internet with network-admin using an analog modem. It is painful, but it works.

No comfort at all: No feedback whether the connection is alive or not, no feedback how long the connection is on, no way to connect for user without admin rights etc.

modem_applet does not work. (It did when I last tested it in Ubuntu 6.06.)

The tone/pulse settings are not saved, but network-admin dials in tone-mode anyway, which is correct for almost any modem.

I agree with Michael Losonsky that gnome-ppp would probably be a better choice for those who still need to use an analog modem.

[glaroc (glaroc)]

I have to deal with this issue and it is a major pain in the @*&%*@. I simply cannot believe that such a major issue has made it to the final release of Feisty. Yes, I know, computer geeks nowadays don't know what to do with a modem, but there are still a lot of areas where high-speed is not an option or for people like me who spend only a limited amount of time in areas that require dialup, or for people who are not willing to spend 40$ a month to check their email. Ubuntu seems to assume that everybody in the world is connected through DHCP. On a given day, I can use DHCP, a static ip, a dialup connection and a wireless connection. Both network-admin and network-manager are just not adaptable enough for this and their is completely useless for dialup users. This, added to the fact that my wireless card is unsupported, makes my Ubuntu experience that much less enjoyable. It really frustrates me to have to boot to windows every time I need to go on the internet.

Just my two bits,

GL

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

carpex, Ubuntu doesn't assume anything, there is over 3000 desktop bugs open now (and some thousands which as been closed as duplicates for fixed) and the desktop team is pretty small, that's not bad willing, we just can't work on everything with the ressources we have at the moment, any extra hand is welcome though and if you have a modem and think you can help the team to make the user experience better feel free to get in touch with the desktop team to work on the that and get things working out of the box for gutsy

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

I share your concerns, carpex, but you do not need to boot to MS to connect
to the internet. Please search in www.ubuntuforums.org for wvdial and
gnome-ppp. Also please see DialupModemHowto/SetUpDialer.

[glaroc (glaroc)]

I apologize if my previous comment sounded somewhat rude. I think Ubuntu is a fantastic OS, and I am very glad I did the switch. But after having to fight with the Dell 6400/Ati bug, with my windows partitions not being recognized, with a gdesklet bug, with a Beryl bug, with my wireless card not working, and with countless other small bugs, I finally got around to getting my modem to work after having to purchase drivers from Linuxant. And after 2 hours of playing with wvdial, network-manager and network-admin, I simply could not connect to the internet, hence the frustration. I will give gnome-ppp a try.

GL

[Paul Helbert (paul-helbert)]

The new Fiesty CD just came in the mail yesterday. That was sure a lot faster than expected. Great work. I live miles form any high speed internet connection. I can get Fiesty to fire up the modem in at least two ways: the pon/poff command line method or by deselecting the wired connection and setting the dialup modem as default in system-administration-network (in which case I hear the modem dial as Fiesty boots up).

But even though I hear the modem dial out and even though plog shows connection has been made, Firefox does not seem to be able to find anything on the internet. (I usually ask it go to the Google homepage). This may be a bit off the topic of this discussion, for which I apologize, but I suspect it is something common to other users as well. I hope I can get help from someone here. Either suggestions as to what needs to be reset to get the dialup modem to be recognised as the correct way to the outside world or a suggestions as to where I might find such information.

I'd be perfectly happy to use any of the above mentioned connection methods or gppp, kppp or other, but first I have to get connected or I can't even get such programs or any updates.

Tnx, PMH

[glaroc (glaroc)]

Paul, actually, I have the same problem. I got it to work the other day, but after connecting to other networks at work, it stopped working. Wvdial or gnome-ppp dial and connect properly but no program can see the connection.

GL

[Paul Helbert (paul-helbert)]

Thanks GL Carpex,

I am able to keep going through Dapper (and even had Edgy working) and will watch this in case someone comes up with a solution. If this turns out to be a common problem, then I think its importance will rapidly rise as the distro CD's begin to arrive in the mail to those of us who live outside the high speed areas of the world. There will be a whole lot of folks loading the CD and not being able to go any farther for lack of internet connection. So this is a plug for assigning high importance to this issue.

And I think the lack of communication once the dialup MODEM is on line is probably a different problem from the one first reported and the subject of this thread. Is there a discussion somewhere of this second problem?

PMH

[Paul Helbert (paul-helbert)]

GL Carpex,

Do you remember what you did to get it working? I am encouraged that you had it working. It seems that we have an issue of correct settings rather than a bug. (Of course the original bug of this thread, that of the network-admin not allowing connect and resetting to pulse from tones, still exists).

The fact that it reverted to not letting the communication go via the dialup MODEM after you had it hooked up to a wired LAN is evidence that there is a setting which favors the wired connections. Apparently it is easily (or automatically (?)) reset to some set of defaults which do not allow communication with the internet via the MODEM.

We need to figure out what this is so we can write a howto for dialup users. I'd be glad to write it up, but need help figuring out the cure to the problem.

PMH

[Adrianus (adrianus-kurnadi)]

I had dialup working in Edgy using gnome-ppp and sl-modem
When I upgraded to Feisty it stopped working, but I got it fixed by downgrading the sl-modem-daemon to edgy version.
I am wondering if the sl-modem-daemon package is upgraded in Feisty without testing to ensure it still works ?
I assume that almost every new notebook now includes a "winmodem", and in my part of the world, it is still used a lot.
I have just make the networkmanager dial-up feature work after reading this :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2819655

I didn't use Cingular, so I only do step number one, and the name of the provider is ppp0
I fill the setting in network admin and in the Options tab of settings for interface for ppp0 I checked
"Set modem as default route to internet" and "Use the internet service providers name server" then I can connect, and submit this comment.
But the applet still shows as if I am not connected AND the setting keep reverted back to pulse.
I assume at least the settings that keep reverted back to pulse part can be checked in the code without a working modem ?

[Florian Pressler (airflow)]

Hi,

well I wouldn't put it so drastically, I think the function for dial-up in the network-manager at least usable. If you want to connect to the internet via modem, you can use it (follow instructions from Adrians post, it's easy).

What really bothers me is the fact that the tool is not aware of the actual status of the dial-up connection and because of this the tool can't show it to the user. This also has a big consequence/drawback - as the tool doesn't know about the status of the connection, the icon above is shown as "not connected" --> and then you also can't start a VPN-connection!

This is really a broken design of the tool. A common use-case is the following: I'm travelling with my laptop and have a UMTS/GSM PCMCIA-Datacard with me. I connect to the Internet (with the DIal Up Functionality of network-manager) and then want to start VPN to establish a secure tunnel to my company. I can't do that, because network-manager doesn't let me start VPN (it's greyed out), because it doesn't know about the dial-up status and thinks it's not connected. If I were at a wireless-hotspot, network-manager does check the status and offers me to connect via VPN (works perfectly, by the way).

Perhaps I'll find a workaround by using some scripts to manually start the VPN-connection, but I would rather like to see this fixed. If i can help/test/do anything (except programming, which I can't), I'll gladly do it.

Best Regards,
airflow

[Adrianus (adrianus-kurnadi)]

Just want to add one thing. I found out that one problem that makes the network manager seems not to be able to dial is that it keep reverting the setting back to pulse.
I assume this kind of bug should not be difficult or take a long time to be fix by the maintainer ?
I am aware that there are a lot of bugs, so if this one is not so difficult to be fixed by the person who knows the source code (the one who create it in the first place or modify it) I strongly hope this will be fixed at least when Gutsy came out (in other word, please put it in higher priority than other more difficult bugs)
Connectivity (wifi, LAN, dialup, bluetooth) is basic function which has high priority in modern desktop.

[Youssef Eldakar (youssefeldakar)]

I just wanted to say I ran into the same issue and ended up using pppconfig.

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

Edgy, Feisty, and Gutsy are EOL.
Also, network manager has replaced network-admin around Gutsy.
Does this bug still appear in the latest Ubuntu release? (9.10 Karmic Koala)