Comment 36 for bug 868034

I too have this problem with a Huawei E220 USB modem. I had no problems with Ubuntu versions 9.10 thru 11.04 but am seeing it now that I have installed 11.10. The problem also occurs if booting from the 11.10 ISO disk, so it is not due to a corrupt installation. I can use the sakis3g script to make a connection so there is no problem with the modem or ISP.

I have enabled logging in /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf which produces a single log file (/var/log/usb_modeswitch.log - attached) that is written at the time that I plug in the USB modem.

What looks interesting to me is that there is a list of USB devices in this log, but the modem is not listed (there is only one connected device which lsusb reveals to be the built-in webcam) and therefore usb_modeswitch concludes that there is nothing to do.

So despite the fact that the running of usb_modeswitch appears to get triggered by my plugging in the modem, the modem does not appear in the list of USB devices. Could it be that it takes some small time for the device to initialise and that usb_modeswitch is running before this has happened?

There are two other bugs/poor behaviour related to this issue but they don't bother me sufficiently to raise separate bug reports:
1. usb_modeswitch does not appear to run (there is no log file) if the modem is plugged-in before booting
2. If I bring up the link using some other method (e.g. using the sakis3g script) network-manager does not realise that a connection has been made so it grays-out the menu options to make my VPN connections unavailable.

Mark.