Comment 9 for bug 1276699

@Ian

Thanks for debugging this :-)

I was able to reproduce the problem you saw and found the same thing: the number of operators was 0. Which in fact is what is happening: the query for available operators sent to RILd is returning an empty list. That triggered the (misleading) error message about a memory allocation problem. This probably needs to be corrected to make oFono return an empty list instead of an operation failed error.

Interestingly, this does not happen for all SIMs and phones. I have done some research about this, using 2 SIMs, one that is roaming (foreign SIM) and a local SIM. Result are as follows:

maguro, roaming SIM -> scan-for-operators works
maguro, local SIM -> scan-for-operators works
mako, roaming SIM -> scan-for-operators works
mako, local SIM -> scan-for-operators does not work*
OEM phone**, roaming SIM -> scan-for-operators works
OEM phone, local SIM -> scan-for-operators works

* Occasionally I have seen it returning a list of operators.
**[OEM phone brand cannot be revealed yet to the public :-)

Then I switched to Android 4.2.2 for both mako and maguro. I saw that the results were the same, including that mako returns an empty operator list for the local SIM, although sometimes it returns a valid list, exactly as with Ubuntu. This can be either:

1.- The modem decides to return an empty list in case all networks but the one you are currently registered to are forbidden (usually, for local operators you can only register to your home network). Of course, choosing a network can be done only when you have more than one option, so it might be reasonable to return an empty list. But why does it occasionally return a valid list?

2.- A FW bug. It probably would be interesting to see if newer mako Android has this behaviour.

Therefore, I suggest to try with a roaming SIM in mako or test in maguro with any SIM to see if you get the same results as me.