[QtMoko] GSM not turning on / registering

[Nick]

Quoth Michael Spacefalcon:
> Nick <openmoko-community at njw.me.uk> wrote: 
> > I tried the SIM in another phone and it does work, and another SIM 
> > in this one does not (both the same network).
> 
> OK, good observation.  The problem is now narrowed down to the FR,
> rather than network coverage in your area, your service subscription
> or the SIM issued for it.
> 
> There is one more thing we need to check before proceeding further,
> though.  That other phone you used to confirm your SIMs as good, what
> kind of phone is it?  Is it 2G or 3G?  If the latter, please look
> through its menus and see if there is an option to force 2G mode.
> The reason for this exploration is to eliminate the possibility that
> GSM (aka 2G) service in your geographical area stopped working,
> knocking out Free Firmware phones while closed proprietary Apple/
> Samsung/GTA04/etc still work on UMTS..

The phone that works is 3G, and it doesn't seem to have a 'force 2G' 
option anywhere. I'm in the Greater Boston area, so I can't imagine 
the phone company could just have turned off 2G here yet; there are 
too many subscribers around.

> Assuming that your email TLD matches your location, you are doing this
> in the UK, right?  Do you know if your service provider operates a
> 900 MHz GSM network, a 1800 MHz one, or both?

As I said, I'm in the USA now, and I'm on ATT, FWIW.

> > Revision is:
> > GSM: gsm_ac_gp_fd_pu_em_cph_ds_vc_cal35_ri_36_amd8_ts0-Moko11
> > So Moko11, I guess ;)
> 
> Any particular reason you have not yet upgraded to leo2moko-r1 aka
> moko12?  While it is very unlikely that performing this fw update will
> fix the problem, running fw with a published Corresponding Source and
> a linker map listing will likely be a prerequisite for some of the
> more advanced troubleshooting steps, so you might as well do it now..

The only reason is laziness. I like following your work very much, 
and am glad you're doing it, and planned to upgrade eventually.

I might as well do it now indeed... Will do so tomorrow, when I 
debug this further.

> > > http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Manually_using_GSM
> > [...]
> > That's a good idea. I'm hitting a snag before I get very far, 
> > though. Namely that I don't know which process is in charge of the 
> > GSM, so which one to kill to stop the phone accessing.
> 
> According to this web page:
> 
> http://winterveldt.co.za/leo2moko-p3.html
> 
> the command you need is:
> 
> /etc/init.d/qtmoko-neo stop
> 
> (Whether the intent is to talk manual AT commands to the modem or to
>  reflash it, the step of stopping QtMoko should be the same.)

Ah great, thanks, that sounds like just the ticket.

> > lsof would probably tell me, but I can't install it because it's 
> > tough to get the wifi to work (which I generally don't care about).  
> 
> Huh?  WiFi?  While you do need an ssh connection into the Neo, why
> does it have to be WiFi?  Doesn't QtMoko support eth-over-usb
> networking like the others?

It does, I expect, I just haven't set it up to do that yet.  
Basically because I just want a dumbphone that works, really, so 
tend towards laziness regarding my phone nowadays.

> HTH,

It certainly does, thanks, I'll report back tomorrow.

Nick