RaspberryPi 2 with Huawei E398

[John Whitmore]

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 09:29:11AM -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-05-15 at 16:11 +0200, Aleksander Morgado wrote:
> > On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 10:28 AM, John Whitmore <arigead at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I'm trying to put together a system which uses 2 Huawei E398 USB Dongles with
> > > two different operator SIM's so that if one modem has no coverage the other
> > > takes over.
> > >
> > > I've followed the debugging information on [1] to try and get my hands on the
> > > logs but not sure where the NetworkManger is sending its logging info. I do
> > > have the output from ModemManager, which I'll attach to this email.
> > >
> > > I'm not sure that the logging from ModemManager will be of any help at all as
> > > it might not be the issue. What is happening is that I can establish a
> > > connection but as soon as I start to do a ping test from the command line the
> > > whole system freezes.
> > >
> > > This is with one 4G Dongle in place, I was hoping to be able to manage both
> > > connections.
> > >
> > > I'm using raspbian 2015-05-05 with kernel 3.18.13
> > >
> > > If I can send on anything else please let me know. I'd really like to get this
> > > system working. Unfortunately I've only got two E398 Dongles so I can't try
> > > with a different modem at present. I'll try and get my hands on another.
> > >
> > >
> > > [1] : http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ModemManager/Debugging/
> > 
> > 
> > Ouch; ModemManager 0.5.2 is way too old... Could you setup
> > ModemManager 1.4.8 with libqmi to try?
> > 
> > Also, just to make sure, you are using an external *powered* usb hub
> > to connect the modems to the RPi, right? The RPi cannot handle the
> > power consumption of 1 single modem in connected state.
> 
> Good point; even some laptops cannot power modems adequately, hence they
> ship Y cables with modems that pull power from 2 USB ports :)  Always
> good to check this out when the modem crashes while connected.
> 
> Dan
> 
> 

Oh dear!!! I never thought of software versions at all. I believe that there
is a version of Ubuntu for the RPi so I'll give that a go and get back to
you. If I can get Ubuntu it usually has more recent packages.

Thanks for your help with that I'll let you know.

John