2008.8 + international roaming: tickles qpe dialer/registration bugs
Russell Sears
sears at cs.berkeley.edu
Thu Sep 11 07:49:07 CEST 2008
I noticed that 2008.8 couldn't register for the first few boots each
time I moved my freerunner from one country to another.
First I'd see one of these three GSM messages (typing from memory) each
time I booted and tried to make a call. (Each started with something
like "Can't make call; couldn't connect to gsm network.")
Not registered
No network
Network permission denied
I got some of these messages after getting a SMS message from the local
cell network. (The SMS said welcome to the vodafone network / country,
and I only got it once...)
After a few boots it registered, but qpe crashed when I tried to place a
call.
After ~ 24 hours in the same city it made calls reliably.
At home, before the trip, I saw the same behavior the first few times I
booted 2008.8/qtopia (same day). I had been using 2007.2 without
problems before trying qtopia. A bit later, I tried an updated 2008.8
and it was reliable. Interestingly, when I returned, it again broke for
~ 24 hours, then started to work reliably again.
I have T-Mobile in the US, and roamed to Vodafone networks in 900MHz
countries.
Here's my wild guess as to what's going on:
- First few boots to 2008.8 (but not boots to 2007.2, and perhaps FSO)
causes cell providers to initiate unusual handshaking
- Moving from country to country initiates more unusual handshaking.
- When qpe sees the handshaking (unknown messages from the modem), it dies.
The schedule was:
start in US.
3 hours in country A
- 2-3 calls / registration attempts failed
2 weeks in country B, roaming from city to city, always same provider
- first registration failed, then during later boots, calls failed
- dialer worked ~ 24 hours after first attempt
return to US
- calls/registration failed for ~ 24 hours
I hope this helps shed some light on the mysterious qtopia dialer
problems people are seeing.
-Rusty
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