RaspberryPi 2 with Huawei E398

[poma]

On 18.05.2015 18:22, poma wrote:
> On 18.05.2015 17:33, John Whitmore wrote:
>> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 03:54:36PM +0100, John Whitmore wrote:
>>> 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
>>
>> It's a funny old Linux world. Raspbian had an old unsupported version of
>> ModemManager in place so I tried out the RPi Ubuntu Mate distro for a later
>> version of the tools. 
>>
>> My first problem on Ubuntu is however that usb_modeswitch is refusing to eject
>> the device. That's funny as Raspbian 2015-05-05 was ejecting it
>> automatically. A quick look at the udev rules showed that Raspbian has a line
>> for each modem, so for the modem I'm using the line is:
>>
>> # Huawei EC156, Huawei E372u-8
>> ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1505", RUN+="usb_modeswitch '%b/%k'"
>>
>> The Ubuntu Mate version of the udev rules has a more generic Huawei rule for
>> all devices:
>>
>> # Generic entry for all Huawei devices
>> ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", ATTR{bInterfaceNumber}=="00", ATTR{bInterfaceClass}=="08", RUN+="usb_modeswitch '%b/%k'"
>>
>> So maybe that generic udev line ain't working for me so I copy and paste the
>> more specific line into Ubuntu's udev rules, and remove the generic line. So
>> now when I insert the modem, again nothing. 
>>
>> A quick look at dmesg and it appears that usb_modeswitch was trying but scsi
>> was telling it to get lost!  "rejecting I/O to offline device"
>>
>> [  468.804298] usb 1-1.4.5.5: new high-speed USB device number 12 using dwc_otg
>> [  468.906295] usb 1-1.4.5.5: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1505
>> [  468.906357] usb 1-1.4.5.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
>> [  468.906376] usb 1-1.4.5.5: Product: HUAWEI Mobile
>> [  468.906393] usb 1-1.4.5.5: Manufacturer: Huawei Technologies
>> [  468.908509] usb-storage 1-1.4.5.5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
>> [  468.909352] scsi host2: usb-storage 1-1.4.5.5:1.0
>> [  469.905485] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI   Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
>> [  470.025146] sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 0x/0x caddy
>> [  470.026182] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
>> [  470.027015] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
>> [  470.135151] scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
>> [  470.135191] scsi 2:0:0:0: killing request
>>  
>>
>> It's hard to know which route is easier. Raspbian can eject the devices but
>> has an old version of NetworkManager and ModemManager, where as Ubuntu has
>> later versions of the tools but can't eject a CD device. Maybe I need another distro.
>>
> 
> These are different operation modes, as far as I understand.
> 
> http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch
> 
> 
>> Man USB modems are aything but Universal Serial Devices!


Besides, you can subscribe to the "Discussions about the Fedora ARM Project"
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
and see if you can, by talking with folks there, improve the overall experience in using your favorite toy.

Good luck.