Posted on 2009-04-27 21:00:00
Tags: Huawei E169, FreeBSD, Networking, 3G
The story so far... An upgrade to FreeBSD 7.2, X not working, something goes wrong in the IPCP layer, a non-working MacOS/X upgrade and in need of a firmware upgrade.
When I put the E169 in the first Windows machine I found, it kind of died a horrible way: it kept telling me that it had found new hardware and when I was lucky enough, I managed to run it before it decided that it had found new hardware again. Flashing it to a new firmware version was a little bit optimistic for that machine!
Today I took it the E169 modem with me to work and during lunch I put it in a Windows machine there. It installed without an itch, it connected to the Virgin network and it downloaded at a wopping speed of 150 kbps. Now why did it work there and how did it achieve it?
I found a program called Advanced Serial Port Monitor which kind of puts itself between the Windows COM port drive and the Windows kernel and displays what is being said between the client and the hardware.
The client program said "AT+CGMM?" and the modem said "E169". The client program said "AT^CARDLOCK?" and the modem said "^CARDLOCK: 2,10,0" (any idea?). The client program said "AT+CIMI" and the modem said "5050299062636465". And the client program said "AT+COPS?" and the modem said "+COPS: 1,0,"YES OPTUS",2". And a lot of other AT commands were issued, but unfortunately the client program didn't want to dial out while the monitor was running...
Unfortunately, none of the AT commands helped me from getting a proper CONNECT string (CONNECT 7200000 was the one I was looking for) and getting the IPCP part of the PPP initialisation working.
None of this helped. I kept looking and looking and suddenly I saw this one being executed instead of the "YES OPTUS" one: "AT+COPS=1,2,"50502",2". It didn't make much sense, but never tried is always miss. And I ended up with a CONNECT 7200000 and a full PPP handshake session. Bingo!
So, at the end, we ended up with the following configuration on the modem (just in case it differs from yours and it doesn't work):
and the following ppp.conf:ati Manufacturer: huawei Model: E169 Revision: 11.314.17.00.261 IMEI: 351029385479124 +GCAP: +CGSM,+DS,+ES at&v &C: 2; &D: 2; &E: 0; &F: 0; &S: 0; &W: 0; E: 1; L: 0; M: 0; Q: 0; V: 1; X: 0; Z: 0; \Q: 3; \S: 0; \V: 0; S0: 0; S2: 43; S3: 13; S4: 10; S5: 8; S6: 2; S7: 50; S8: 2; S9: 6; S10: 14; S11: 95; S30: 0; S103: 1; S104: 1; +FCLASS: 0; +ICF: 3,3; +IFC: 2,2; +IPR: 115200; +DR: 0; +DS: 0,0,2048,6; +WS46: 12; +CBST: 0,0,1; +CRLP: (61,61,48,6,0),(61,61,48,6,1),(240,240,52,6,2); +CV120: 1,1,1,0,0,0; +CHSN: 0,0,0,0; +CSSN: 0,0; +CREG: 0; +CGREG: 0; +CFUN:; +CSCS: "IRA"; +CSTA: 129; +CR: 0; +CRC: 0; +CMEE: 2; +CGDCONT: (1,"IP","VirginBroadband","0.0.0.0",0,0) ; +CGDSCONT: ; +CGTFT: ; +CGEQREQ: (1,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(2,2,0,0, 0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(3,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(4,2,0,0,0,0,2,0, "0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(5,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(6,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0 E0",3,0,0),(7,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(8,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0, 0),(9,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(10,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(11, 2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(12,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(13,2,0,0, 0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(14,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(15,2,0,0,0,0,2, 0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0),(16,2,0,0,0,0,2,0,"0E0","0E0",3,0,0) ; +CGEQMIN: ; +CGQREQ: ; +CGQMIN: ; ; +CGEREP: 0,0; +CGCLASS: "B"; +CGSMS: 1; +CSMS: 0; +CMGF: 0; +CSAS: 0; +CRES: 0; +CSCA: "+61411990010",145; +CSMP: ,,0,0; +CSDH: 0; +CSCB: 0,"",""; +FDD: 0; +FAR: 0; +FCL: 0; +FIT: 0,0; +ES: ,,; +ESA: 0,,,,0,0,255,; +CMOD: 0; +CVHU: 1; ; +CPIN: , ; +CMEC: 0,0,0; +CKPD: 1,1; +CGATT: 1; +CGACT: 0; +CPBS: "SM"; +CPMS: "SM","SM","SM"; +CNMI: 0,0,0,0,0; +CMMS: 2; +FTS: 0; +FRS: 0; +FTH: 3; +FRH: 3; +FTM: 96; +FRM: 96; +CCUG: 0,0,0; +COPS: 1,0,""; +CUSD: 0; +CAOC: 1; +CCWA: 0; +CCLK: ""; +CLVL: 4; +CMUT: 0; +CPOL: 0,2,"",0,0,0; +CPLS: 0; +CTZR: 0; +CTZU: 0; +CLIP: 0; +COLP: 0; +CDIP: 0; +CLIR: 0; ^PORTSEL: 0; ^CPIN: , ; ^ATRECORD: 0; ^FREQLOCK: 12805096,13050984; ^CVOICE: 0; ^DDSETEX: 0
virgin:
set mru 1440
set device /dev/cuaU0.0
set speed 115200
set phone *99\#
set authname VirginBroadband
set authkey VirginBroadband
deny chap
disable deflate
disable pred1
disable vjcomp
disable mppe
enable dns
accept dns
set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 5 \
\"\" AT OK-AT-OK ATE1Q0 OK \
AT+COPS=1,2,"50502",2 OK \
AT+CGDCONT=1,\\\"IP\\\",\\\"VirginBroadband\\\" OK \
\\dATDT\\T TIMEOUT 40 CONNECT"
set ifaddr 10.0.0.1/0 10.0.0.2/0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
add default HISADDR
This only brings up the issue with X: Starting X with the E169 modem
plugged in did make it start the X graphical screen but it failed
to start the window manager and the mouse was unresponsive. Taking
out the modem resulted in going back to the console.
Starting X without the E169 modem plugged in started everything up
but after plugging in the modem the whole system became unresponsive.
Taking out the modem and everything worked again.
I got a hint from Callum on #bugs that I should try x11-servers/xorg-server without hald support. A recompile later and X and the mouse works with the modem plugged in, but the keyboard didn't work yet. Adding these four lines to my xorg.conf overcame the problem:
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "False"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
EndSectionShort version: The E169 modem works with FreeBSD 7.2 out of the box, Xorg 7.4 works with four extra lines in the config, the XFCE window manager works, everybody is happy!
| Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter| From: | Edwin Groothuis |
| URL: | |
| Posted on: | 2009-04-28 07:03:15 |
| Comment | To automatically load the u3g.ko driver, add this to your /boot/loader.conf:
u3g_load="YES" |
| Reply | - |
| From: | Aivis |
| URL: | |
| Posted on: | 2009-09-18 20:34:54 |
| Comment | In case you are in other country/network, here is what will need to be changed: In ppp.conf these 2 lines: AT+COPS=1,2,"50502",2 OK \ AT+CGDCONT=1,\\\\"IP\\\\",\\\\"VirginBroadband\\\\" OK \ "50502" in first line is PLMN of the network. Here is the list of many country codes: http://www.mwconn.info/wiki/index.php/Standard_settings "VirginBroadband" in second line is APN, it can be looked up in the same resource. |
| Reply | - |
| From: | Aivis |
| URL: | |
| Posted on: | 2009-09-19 00:00:30 |
| Comment | update on my previous comment: to determine PLMN and available APNs you can do following: connect to the modem with cu command and issue these two commands: AT+CGDCONT? and AT+COPS? the modem will tell you the PLMN and APN, something like this: # cu -l /dev/cuaU0.0 Connected AT OK ATE1Q0 OK AT+CGDCONT? +CGDCONT: 1,"IP","data.tele2.lv","0.0.0.0",0,0 OK AT+COPS? +COPS: 1,2,"24702",2 |
| Reply | Also handy, "AT+COPS=?" to see all possible providers. |
| From: | Peter Jeremy |
| URL: | |
| Posted on: | 2010-10-01 06:24:10 |
| Comment | The trailing ',2' in 'AT+COPS=1,2,"50502",2' is optional on the E169 and must not be specified on the E174. Once that change is made, the same dial string works with both the E169 and E174 modems.
Note that the E174 is a "high-speed" (USB2) device, rather than a "full-speed" (USB1) device. |
| Reply | - |