Connecting prevents Huawei E398 4G-modem to work rebooted into Windows

[Christopher Forster]

Hi, connecting 4G-modem Huawei E398 to the Internet in Lubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) as well as in Lubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) prevents the modem from working in Windows which will certainly affect the hardware in some way. Cannot connect to the Internet and Windows has a problem: "The device has been disconnected or is unavailable." I had to unplug the modem, replug the modem and it connected to the Internet in Windows; after that redialing works.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: modemmanager 0.6.0.0.really-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-18.29-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-18-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Nov 9 18:45:44 2012
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-10-20 (20 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.1)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: modemmanager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

Well, this is probably a bug in the windows driver. I guess Ubuntu leave the modem in a state that the windows driver does not expect. Probably either that it is switched from driver CD mode or that it is powered down, or that it is initialized.

[Bjørn Mork (bmork)]

Yup, this is most likely due to how Huawei are using different "Linux" and "Windows" modes. Different mode switch commands will make the Huawei modems appear differently, and even use different device IDs. The problem is that there are no Windows drivers for the Linux mode. Not much we can do about that. We cannot fix Windows....

Linux can however support both Windows and Linux modes, so if you often reboot from Linux to WIndows without unplugging the USB modem then it might make sense to always run the modem in "Windows" mode.

Try putting something like this in /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1\:1505
[code]
TargetVendor= 0x12d1
TargetProductList="140b,1506,150f,150a"

## Linux Default:
#MessageContent="55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000"
## Windows mode
MessageContent="55534243000000000000000000000011060000000100000000000000000000"
[/code]