Topic: debugging modem connection?

[Mark Henderson]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting 5.1.2 (and 5.5b4) to dial-up through a USR external modem. This same hardware worked fine with 4.1.2 (so it's not a Win-modem issue).

I get a successful response to AT using minicom, but when testing the Internet connection from the console I get no activity on the modem at all. minicom uses "dev/modem" which is sym-linked to "/dev/ttyS1", and e-smith correctly shows "/dev/ttyS1" as the modem port.

I'm trying to debug this from the command line, but and running into a maze of config files and scripts, some of which seem to be un-used, and others that are called from others scripts in turn.

I suspect the problem may be to do with the /etc/diald/link file.

When I run "/etc/diald/scripts/connect", I get:

"<3>No entry for , type modem in /etc/diald/link"

and "link" only contains a line for an ISDN link:

isdn    PHONE='0,0860007249' WAITTIME=10 EAZ_OUT='' EAZ_IN=''

... which is wierd cause I don't have ISDN and never selected any such options.

If I edit the file, changing "isdn" to "modem", I get the following error:

./connect: /etc/diald/scripts/modem/generic: No such file or directory

Having searched the archives it seems others have had similar USR-related probems, but they were never resolved. My guess is that for some reason the e-smith install proceedure is no longer seeing the external modem on installation, and so is not installing all the scripts and config options needed, and assuming there is ISDN.

Anyone have any suggestions as to where to start looking for answers? (FYI, I'm currently on 5.5b4 which I freshly installed when I could not solve the same problem with 5.1.2).

Many thanks,
Mark

[Mark S]

What does it say in /var/log/messages?

[Mark Henderson]

After trying to identical external USR modems (known to work with 4.1.2) I installed a cheap no-name brand modem and suddenly everything seems to work...  Someone else reported a similar result elsewhere in the archives with USR modems. Our system is now working, but there is obviously a bug there somewhere!

[Glenn Kennedy]

yes, i am 99% convinced that there is a bug in the dial-up module. i installed 5.1.2 on three different systems with both a new USR 56K v92 external modem and a new zoltrix v.90 external modem. with 2 of the 3 installs (IBM P166 PC350 system and a VMWare install on a AMD1400 system) the dial up access didn't function properly - the modem would come off hook as diald initiated on boot up and commence a handshake sequence (awful squealing) and continue the handshake process every 60 seconds or so. on the third install (generic P150 system) with the zoltrix modem everything worked perfectly. i used the exact same install CD and SME version, exact same modem (Zoltrix) and configured the server exactly the same way on all three installs - so go figure - why all the problems with 2 of the three installs? i wasn't able to test the USR modem on the third install because i had already returned it (keeping the cheaper Zoltrix), but i suspect the problem is not with the USR modem but with the SME software. the likely reason that we're seeing all the complaints about USR modems is that they are the most widely available, commonly purchased modems.

glenn kennedy