Can't get data from my nordic 4G/5G prepaid SIM cards with GLX-3000

onni · November 19, 2024, 3:45pm

Hey,

I have now tried 4 different SIM cards with my GLX-3000 Spitz AX and none of them work:
2 x Estonian Super
1 x Estonian Elisa Zen prepaid
1 x Finnish DNA

I'm using a separate Peplink 42G external antenna on the roof of my motorhome and it's connected to the router. Wifi repeater work perfectly and iPhone tethering through USB works perfectly.

I can even see that it connects to the 4G/5G towers but I just can't get data flowing in. I tested and I can even send and receive SMS with these sim cards so I don't think it's a hardware issue.

I used Italian Windtre Prepaid card with the same router succesfully with the factory antennas and Spanish Movistar prepaid data card succesfully in the summer with the new antenna and same router.

Now a bit later I have tried to use Estonian and Finnish prepaid cards and I just can't get internet data through them.

All of these SIM cards have PIN removed and I have tested that they work succesfully on my iPhone. (Same SIM cards do connect to internet when my iPhone is attached to the router USB port).

It sounds to me that the router is accidentally connecting to wrong APN or otherwise having wrong settings or that these Nordic providers are somehow not supported.

I tested already on latest stable and beta releases too. I even tried factory reset on the latest stable version and it's the same issue.

What could I do to get data working? Is there a way for me to verify which APN was selected for the active SIM from the command line or with AT commands? I think there might be a bug and it still tries to use the Italian Windtre APN "internet.wind".

onni · November 19, 2024, 4:04pm

I also called the service provider and they mentioned that they are not blocking the SIM cards for routers and can't see any issues from their end.

I emailed the GL-inet support support@glinet.biz and they asked me to try with MTU lower than 1500 which I did but even that did not help.

I saw from this forum post that the following AT commands could help to debug the issue:

$ AT+QCFG="data_interface"
+QCFG: "data_interface",1,0
OK

$ AT+QENG="servingcell"
+QENG: "servingcell","NOCONN","LTE","FDD",248,02,F539315,306,1849,3,5,5,7E5,-76,-13,-42,17,0,-,53
OK

The only lines I can see from the logs when pressing "Auto setup" button:

Tue Nov 19 18:00:07 2024 kern.err kernel: [ 2319.672391] 7981@C13L1,tx_free_v3_notify_handler() 3530: ContTxFailCntTotal = 2, ContTxFailCnt300ms = 2
Tue Nov 19 18:00:07 2024 kern.err kernel: [ 2319.681783] 7981@C13L1,tx_free_v3_notify_handler() 3533: token used by current wcid = 1, free_token_cnt = 2303

I'm not sure if these are in anyway related

Happi · November 19, 2024, 4:09pm

Try clicking "cancel" then "manual set-up" and enter the correct APN.
On my 4G set-up the port is "wdm0", so try that also,

onni · November 19, 2024, 4:11pm

Also it doesn't seem to be APN issue like I was expecting. I used the AT+CGCONTRDP AT command and did see that APN "internet" was properly selected for my Elisa SIM card:

$ AT+CGCONTRDP
+CGCONTRDP: 1,5,"internet","10.27.148.215","32.1.21.48.16.2.184.197.225.85.26.76.160.128.80.136", "254.128.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1","172.17.163.218" "32.1.21.48.0.96.0.16.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.24","172.17.167.218" "32.1.21.48.0.176.6.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.2.8"
+CGCONTRDP: 2,6,"ims","32.1.21.48.16.33.196.46.237.157.17.187.202.110.24.220", "254.128.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1", "32.1.21.48.0.8.3.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.4", "32.1.21.48.0.12.3.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.4","32.1.21.48.32.0.0.2.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.16","32.1.21.48.32.0.0.6.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5"

OK

onni · November 19, 2024, 4:14pm

I can't change the port in the manual setup and it's grayed out for me:

Happi · November 19, 2024, 5:55pm

No idea why it's grayed out - support should be abe to help you.

Meanwhile, if you're adventurous (at your own risk), you could have a look at /etc/config/network (I use WinSCP) and have a play with the settings there.
I am using a different router to you but mine looks like:
option apn 'apn.here'
option proto 'qmi'
option device '/dev/cdc-wdm0'

onni · November 19, 2024, 6:55pm

Thanks for sharing this. Here's my config for the modem:

$ cat /etc/config/network
...
config interface 'modem_0001'
	option apn 'internet'
	option proto 'qcm'
	option device '/dev/mhi_QMI0'
	option metric '40'
	option disabled '1'
	option roaming '1'
	option band_enable '0'
...

Do I read the disabled option properly and it is now disabled or enabled?

onni · November 19, 2024, 8:14pm

I looked it again and it seems to be a protocol mismatch and I was missing support for qmi for some reason.

This can be done from command line like this:

$ opkg install luci-proto-qmi

After I installed this and again tried to connect with the SIM card it started to work .

What a waste of time. Could the admins here please ensure that QMI is installed by default in GLX-3000?

Happi · November 20, 2024, 8:16am

Good that you got it working!

From your previous post option disabled '1' => option enabled '0' = DISABLED

The problem appears to be related to this: