qinternet on 11.4 - no modem

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I’m still stuck on 11.2. I’d like to use 11.4 and have created partitions for 11.3 and 11.4. Fortunately, I did that rather than upgrade or my modem, parallel printer, and seems like something else wouldn’t work right. This way, I can switch between the two and try things out, but still have a working (semi-working = no line-in sound) 11.2 system. Unfortunately, I went to install some software and noticed 11.2 repositories don’t seem to exist any more. :frowning:

I figure it’s about time to get serious and figure out the issues. I guess the important issue is getting the modem to work since I can’t download anything for the other issues. At least not easily since I could switch to 11.2, download something, and then switch back only to find I need something else it depends on. But, there might also be updates to some of my issues I don’t know about.

In 11.3, I had problems with getting qinternet to work, so found kinterent (what I’m using on 11.2) and installed that. I don’t see that on 11.4. Guess qinternet is what I should use for dialup and get with the program? I have an internal modem set on /dev/ttyS4

So, here’s what I’ve done to the best of my short term memory. I managed to add the modem and providers, set smppd runlevels to 3 & 5, and I think add myself as a modem user. I see the icon in the system tray, click on dial, and it looks like it’s going to dial, but then gives up. I’ve seen something about the modem not found. Here’s part of the messages log if that’s useful:

Jun 29 07:36:32 xxxxx pppd[6656]: Plugin passwordfd.so loaded.
Jun 29 07:36:32 xxxxx kernel: 230.034885] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
Jun 29 07:36:32 xxxxx pppd[6656]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0
Jun 29 07:36:43 xxxxx pppd[6656]: Script /usr/bin/wvdial --chat --no-syslog --config /var/run/smpppd/chat-modem0.conf smpppd finished (pid 6660), status = 0x1
Jun 29 07:36:43 xxxxx pppd[6656]: Connect script failed
Jun 29 07:36:44 xxxxx pppd[6656]: Exit.

Anything else to try or other logs to show?

#2

Some additional information:
I noticed there’s no /var/run/smpppd config file. There is in 11.2 – when I’m dialed in. I thought I’d check when not dialed in, and there is none. Executing the command:
/usr/bin/wvdial --chat --no-syslog --config /var/run/smpppd/chat-modem0.conf
gives
Cannot read `/var/run/smpppd/chat-modem0.conf’

the same as in 11.4.

Typing just plain wvdial gives:
→ WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
→ Warning: section [Dialer Defaults] does not exist in wvdial.conf.
→ Initializing modem.
→ Sending: ATZ
→ Sending: ATQ0
→ Re-Sending: ATZ
→ Modem not responding.

Which is probably what I tried and where I got the no modem found.

So to me, since 11.4 acts the same as 11.2 which works with kinternet, there is something in the setting up and generation of chat-modem0.conf which is not taking place in 11.4 in qinternet.

In the working 11.2 kinternet messages log:

Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: Script /usr/bin/wvdial --chat --no-syslog --config /var/run/smpppd/chat-modem0.conf smpppd finished (pid 6203), status = 0x0
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: Serial connection established.
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: using channel 3
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx kernel: 4811.070602] ppp0 renamed to modem0 by pppd [6202]
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: Renamed interface ppp0 to modem0
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: Using interface modem0
Jun 30 18:24:56 xxxxx pppd[6202]: Connect: modem0 <–> /dev/ttyS4
Jun 30 18:24:57 xxxxx pppd[6202]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x3acc001d> <pcomp> <accomp>]

Don’t know if that’s useful information.

#3

It is ages since I had to play with dial up, so I’m not sure that I can really help you, but that won’t stop me trying…

The first thing that catches my attention is which interface you are using. It is a serial (RS-232 or USB?) interface that the modem has. If it is RS-232, I’m a bit surprised by ttyS4, because more than one serial port is unusual (actually, we are moving to a position where more than zero is unusual) and so I would expect either ttyS0 or ttyS1.

If you are interested in testing this out, you can equip yourself with minicom, try AT commands on each interface, and see where you get a response. Obviously, you’ll grt this ‘modem not responding’ message until you have the port that the modem is connected to, and the port that the software uses set to the same values.

(Oh, and watch out for baud rates -this is commonly done wrong, because of the confusion between the baud rate on the interface between the modem and the computer and the baud rate between the modem and the ISP; there is no necessary connection between these rates (although the optimum for speed is probably to set the speed between the computer and the modem slightly higher than the speed of the link to the ISP), but you must get the baud rate between the computer and the modem set to the same value - the commonly used values are power-of-two multiples up from 9600 baud. If you get this wrong, you’ll get gobbledygook…but you are not currently getting anything, as far as I can tell).

#4

It’s an internal modem on a card, not a USB, but an internal serial modem? Yes, I’m finding most things assume everyone has high speed, whereas downloading a 20MB file is same as a many hour event if not a delay for a 30 mile round trip to the library.

Thanks for the minicom name. I had no idea if there was or what the name of the modem terminal emulator was. I tried it and using
minicom -D /dev/ttyS4
and it worked as expected. It dialed fine, and asked for username and password which it accepted. Of course at that point, I hadn’t a clue of any other commands and Firefox needed to be connected or host ips set up, etc. (which I don’t really want to connect in that fashion anyway) but the result is that the modem works on ttyS4. Which leaves me at some setup issue with qinternet.

#5

Just a thought I had: I’ve never used qinternet, (and haven’t connected via dialup for few years now), but have you configured your serial modem device via YaST first?

#6

Not that I know what I am doing, but yes, I went through it again yesterday creating a new “modem1” using /dev/modem seeing if that would make a difference. I just clicked next on most the prompts and as far as I know, everything’s the same as my 11.2 which works. I even changed the device back to /dev/ttyS4 just to make sure, but no attempt to dial other than the ATZ and Modem not responding in the log. Anyone use something other than qinternet for dialup?

#7

If I understand correctly, you were able to dial out ok with wvdial. Is that correct? You could try using ‘kppp’ as a graphical dialling utility instead. (It is the front-end to pppd). It does require some permission adjustments to work correctly though. There is an old thread concerning this adjustment.

#8

No, I couldn’t get wvdial to work, either. But then, I couldn’t get it to work with 11.2, either. Seems like kinternet creates a dynamic configuration file for it to use. I assume that’s so with qinternet, but it doesn’t seem to find the modem even though the minicom can find and use it. I tried the kppp, and it doesn’t work either. It had accounts and modem already set up. I don’t know if I had tried it before or if it read it from the qinternet setup. I logged in as root and tried, Query Modem, and it said something about couldn’t open the modem. I tried several different ttyS#'s and “/dev/modem” (which points to /dev/ttyS4) to no avail.

#9

I wonder if the modem device became locked while you were trying different dialling options? What does this command return?

sudo wvdialconf

When a particular /dev/ttyS* device is reported (eg ‘Found a modem on /dev/ttyS4’), then check the device permissions with

ls -la /dev/ttyS*

Are you a member of the ‘dialout’ group?

#10

sudo wvdialconf:

Editing `/etc/wvdial.conf'.

Scanning your serial ports for a modem.

ttyS0&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 2400 baud, next try: 9600 baud
ttyS0&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 9600 baud, next try: 115200 baud
ttyS0&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- and failed too at 115200, giving up.
Modem Port Scan&lt;*1&gt;: S1   S2   S3   
ttyS4&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 2400 baud, next try: 9600 baud
ttyS4&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- failed with 9600 baud, next try: 115200 baud
ttyS4&lt;*1&gt;: ATQ0 V1 E1 -- and failed too at 115200, giving up.
Modem Port Scan&lt;*1&gt;: S5   S6   S7   

Sorry, no modem was detected!  Is it in use by another program?
Did you configure it properly with setserial?

Please read the FAQ at http://open.nit.ca/wiki/?WvDial

If you still have problems, send mail to &lt;wvdial-list@lists.nit.ca&gt;.

I tried it on version 11.2 and at ttyS4, it responded with OKs.

cat /etc/wvdial.conf:

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/modem
Baud = 115200
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2
Init3 =
Area Code =
Phone = 0
Username =
Password =
Ask Password = 0
Dial Command = ATDT
Stupid Mode = 1
Compuserve = 0
Force Address =
Idle Seconds = 300
DialMessage1 =
DialMessage2 =
ISDN = 0
Auto DNS = 1

I saw there was no /dev/modem so changed it to /dev/ttyS4 and tried again with no different results.

I thought I had seen /dev/modem pointing to ttyS4, but I cannot find that now, although in kppp and qinternet, I have a modem set to /dev/ttyS4 which doesn’t work any better than /dev/modem.

ls -la /dev/ttyS*:

crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 64 Jul  6 19:49 /dev/ttyS0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 65 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS1
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 66 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS2
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 67 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS3
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 68 Jul  6 19:49 /dev/ttyS4
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 69 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS5
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 70 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS6
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 71 Jul  6 19:45 /dev/ttyS7

I am a member of the dialout group and even added Set UID to kppp and pppd. But, being a member of the dialout group should work, right?

#11

If your modem device really is a serial modem, then wvdialconf (as root) would have picked it up, so if you say it still works with 11.2, I would have a close look at at the loaded modules.

Being a member of the dialout group is required for access to your modem, and most of the diallers therefore require that. (However, kppp needs those extra steps as outlined previously).

#12
  1. I note that your wvdialconf output didn’t look like mine (openSUSE 11.3)
Scanning your serial ports for a modem.

Modem Port Scan<*1>: S0   S1   S2   S3   S4   S5   S6   S7

This serial port scanning should happen regardless of whether the serial ports are present or not.

  1. This Modem HOW TO may be useful to you

Modem-HOWTO : Troubleshooting

It does mention

Unfortunately, if your modem is in “online data” mode, wvdialconf will report “No modem detected” See No response to AT"

so make sure you read the that section too.

#13

Another thing that comes to mind is to check for any changes with the wvdialconf utility. Check with

cat /usr/share/doc/packages/wvdial/CHANGES
#14

BTW, you can make a link to /dev/modem like this (as root)

ln -sf /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem

although I don’t think it will help with the detection/dialling…

#15

I did not get wvdial to work in 11.2 either. It says modem is busy and even if using the /usr/bin/wvdial --chat --no-syslog --config /var/run/smpppd/chat-modem0.conf smpppd from the kinternet log file, it still says can’t find or use the modem. So, when 11.4 doesn’t work with wvdial either, I’m not sure that’s telling much. I was trying wvdial and wvdialconf in 11.2 and not sure what combination, but got some other errors which reminded me of 11.4 and when I tried kinternet, I got the same can’t find modem. I got your example of scanning the S# ports without it stopping on S4. If you don’t have a modem, you would get the whole list. A reboot solved the issue, but isn’t that odd and maybe an indication of something?

wvdial and changes are the same version for 11.2 and 11.4
setserial gives the same for both:
/dev/ttyS4, Line 4, UART: 16550A, Port: 0xe800, IRQ: 21
Baud_base: 115200, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
closing_wait: 3000

I’ve looked, doesn’t mean I fully know how, for another IRQ of 21 and cannot find any conflict.
I had to install “setserial”. Is there some program or module not loaded? I’m not sure how to check. Doing a lsmod I see a ppp_generic. I don’t know what else to look for.

Looking at the link, I tried several things but the only thing which may seems potential an issue is:
“Another cause reported for the SuSE distribution is that there may be two serial drivers present instead of one.”
How do I tell?

I’m feeling like there’s some module or some program not loaded or set up and qinternet or kppp needs them to run and since they aren’t there it just skips over them. Any logs which would show those things? Or any modules or programs which should be loaded? I’ve found out something changed in the support for parallel printer ports in 11.4 which I don’t fully understand yet, but may have to do a manual load of module lp even though it’s not needed in 11.2. Could something similar be with the modem? I might try the ln -sf /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem in case something is hardcoded to use that.

#16

Remove the modem then see if there is still a serial port seen. Maybe something built into the mother board.

#17

Further to gogalthorp’s advice, with the card removed, capture the output of

/sbin/lspci -nnk

then after you have powered down, re-installed the card, and booted up again, execute the command again, and note the entry (if any) concerning your card. If it’s not detected, that could be where the problem lies.

#18

After removing the modem, I get
/dev/ttyS4, Line 4, UART: unknown, Port: 0x0000, IRQ: 0
Baud_base: 0, close_delay: 50, divisor: 0
closing_wait: 3000
Flags: spd_normal

which I believe is as expected.

/sbin/lspci -nnkv
gives the only item difference in 11.2 and 11.4 with and without the modem:
03:06.0 Communication controller [0780]: Agere Systems Venus Modem (V90, 56KFlex) [11c1:0480]
Subsystem: Actiontec Electronics Inc Device [1668:0500]
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at febffc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
I/O ports at ec00 [size=8]
Capabilities: [f8] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: serial

Between 11.2 and 11.4 regardless of the modem, I do notice a few minor differences.
11.4 does not have “Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver” for the 00:0a.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 5) [1022:9609] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
but does have “Kernel driver in use: k10temp” for 00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control [1022:1203]
and 11.4 has some different names such as “Family 10h Processor” in place of “K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron]”
11.4 is using the kernel driver radeon for 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300] and 11.2 is using fglrx_pci
11.4 is using firewire_ohci while 11.2 is using ohci1394 for 03:08.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller [1106:3044] (rev c0) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])

and I do see some IRQs changed from 11.2 to 11.4:
26 to 40 for SATA
28 to 18 for VGA controller
27 to 41 for Ethernet

Am I right that none of that makes a difference? Any other things to try?[/size][/size][/size][/size]

#19 
/sbin/lspci -nnkv
gives the only item difference in 11.2 and 11.4 with and without the modem:
03:06.0 Communication controller [0780]: Agere Systems Venus Modem (V90, 56KFlex) [11c1:0480]
Subsystem: Actiontec Electronics Inc Device [1668:0500]
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at febffc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
I/O ports at ec00 [size=8]
Capabilities: [f8] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: serial

Well, this looks ok to me (supported by kernel’s serial driver). FWIW, I trawled online and found these old posts:

Linux support for Windows modems

FC6: Modem not detected but shows up on PCI list [Archive] - FedoraForum.org

They suggest the same.

Two utilities that may help are ‘setserial’ and ‘scanModem’

For the first, type ‘man setserial’ to get more info. You should be able to get (and set) your modem’s serial config.

setserial -a

For the second, go here:

A Linmodems support page

I’m not sure that I can really offer anything more on this.[/size][/size][/size][/size]

#20

Well thanks for your help. Maybe it is no longer supported by OpenSuse. I noticed the one guy never came to a solution though it sounds similar to my problem. Maybe I can search for that modem if there is a solution or find a different modem.