ZTE 3G USB dongles are recognized as storage devices instead of network device

[Vivekanandan]

ZTE 3G dongles (MTS Mblaze in India) are not recognized as network device, instead it is getting recognized as storage device. Also when an USB device is plugged in, it is not getting recognized automatically (hot plugging).

[nadrimajstor (ipejic)]

It would help to know ID of that device.
Could you start terminal and issue
lsusb | grep ZTE
while the modem is plugged in.

[Vivekanandan (vivekanandan-mariappan)]

Product id and vendor id - "0x19d2" "0xfff5"

[nadrimajstor (ipejic)]

Judging by the contents of /lib/udev/rules.d/40-usb_modeswitch.rules this model should work out-of-the-box.
Could it be that NetworkManager Applet isn't showing Mobile Broadband items despite modem being present?
(Mine is ZTE 19d2:0017 and I experience this behavior: Caja is showing storage device, NetworkManager applet does not show Mobile Broadband device. However as I've removed PIN lock and went trough the applet's "Edit Connections...", Added new Mobile Broadband, opted for autoconnect, and it does work/connect despite not being shown in the applet's context menu. Updating system packages does bring newer Network Manager applet which is more consistent - not perfect but far better.)

[Vivekanandan (vivekanandan-mariappan)]

Let me details the steps that I followed and also specify which steps are the defects (which used to happen automatically in earlier Ubuntu versions).
1. I have to manually create 19d2:fff5 modeswitch conf file. Then only the system recognized the device and I will be able to create a mobile broadband connection. [Earlier this used to happen automatically]
2. Once the system recognizes the device I am able to connect to internet.
3. When I remove the device and boot the system and then plug the device, the device is again getting recognized as storage device. I have to keep the device plugged in and then reboot the system. [Hot plugging of the USB should also get fixed]

My system was uptodate with no new packages available for update!

[Vivekanandan (vivekanandan-mariappan)]

After updating with the latest modeswitch data, this issue got resolved.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

I've backported usb-modeswitch 2.4 and usb-modeswich-data 2017-01 from Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty) to 16.04 LTS (Xenial), you can update packages from ppa:baltix-members , see
https://launchpad.net/~baltix-members/+archive

Please reboot after installing usb-modeswitch 2.4 and usb-modeswich-data 2017-01 from ppa:baltix-members , test if your USB modem works correctly with updated packages and write a comment here in any case (works or not).

Thanks,
Mantas Kriaučiūnas
Developer of Baltix GNU/Linux Ubuntu derivative