Public bug reported:
Starting with Ubuntu 15.10 (wily) my USB webstick does not work any
longer. It used to work with Ubuntu for several previous versions.
My stick is a Huawei E173s-1 with a usb-vendor/-product id 12d1:14d1 before and
12d1:14c9 after 'modeswitch'.
The - or at least one - reason for not working any longer is, that modemmanager
uses the 'generic' plugin, instead of the 'huawei' one. The behaviour does not
depend on my software-configuration. It happens from a plain 15.10 live-version
up to my installed up-to-date-patched notebook (amd64 architecture, but from
what's written below, I don't think it is architecture-specific.)
Using the --debug - option from 'modemmanager' and tracing with gdb after
loading the -gdb .deb-package, I came to the following conclusions:
The 'huawei' plugin is filtered out in the 'pre' phase, already, the reason
being vendor-/product-id mismatch.
The vendor-/product-ids 'detected' instead by the "get_device_ids"-function in
"mm-device.c" are 8068:3b34 for the Intel USB 2 ehci host controller, which
actually is a 'child'(??) device of the stick. The problem arises, when
checking the first of the ttyUSBx (x being 0, 1, 2, and 3) devices for the
stick in "find_physical_device", which calls "get_device_ids" later on.
As far as I can tell, the error originates in the
"g_udev_device_get_property" call for ID_VENDOR_ID and ID_MODEL_ID in
the 'lib_gudev' library, which returns the false ids. It might even come
from 'udev'. A 'udevadm info' display of the USB-tree shows the
correct(!) vendor-/product-ids for the whole tree, though!
Once the 'generic' plugin has been (wrongly) chosen, the debug info
shows the correct ids (12d1:14c9) for the 'selected' device (again). It
however won't configure my stick, telling me that the device is not
capable of taking ipv4/ipv6 information.
So far for the facts.
Now allow me some speculation and a proposal:
I would assume, that the whole mess comes from the very faulty, buggy and
problematic 'systemd', which controls 'udev' in 'wily'. The "lib_gudev" is also
a split-off part from it. With 'systemd' it is no longer possible to manually
interfere with wrong or questionable decisions, as could be done with standard
'udev' via rules or 'sys-v-init' by changing (ba)sh-scripts.
Now my proposal (and wish) would be to install some mechanism in
'modemmanager' to overwrite/force a plugin selection from the outside,
as is e.g. done for selecting ports with the "77-mm-huawei-net-port-
types.rules" (ID_MM_HUAWEI_MODEM_PORT and similar). Any other mechanism
would be welcome, too. With this, one could correct any poor choice made
by a binary program or library. And it would not hit ordinary or
inexperienced users. Thank you.
And thanks for the good work!
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: modemmanager 1.4.10-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-23.28-generic 4.2.6
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-23-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Jan 15 17:37:09 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-07-08 (191 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
SourcePackage: modemmanager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to wily on 2015-10-23 (84 days ago)
** Affects: modemmanager (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug wily
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1534678
Title:
huawei plugin not used on for USB webstick E173s-1 [usb:
12d1:14d1/14c9]
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