Modem Lights--minor problem

[billwww]

I was reinstalling F7 to try to get an ATI x1600 pro video card working (see other post), and I wound up with a problem with Modem Lights. I had installed it on the application bar before I got the modem configured properly (it was on ttyS1 when I was expecting it to be on ttyS0), and after I got it set up to activate on network control, the Modem Lights icon won't work. The button will actually activate the modem, but the timer, activity and speed displays won't work and the popup box reports "not connected" even though it is.

I tried removing the applet and reinstalling it on the application bar, but that didn't work. I searched for the problem but so far have found no info on this. I'm probably missing something obvious.

mb: Gigabyte M61P-S3
proc: Athlon 64 3800+
RAM: 4 GB Kingston DDR2-6400
2-Seagate 320 GB SATA2 hard drives in RAID 1 array
Asus EAX1600PRO-silent video card
Antec P-150 w/ HE380W PS

[Dan]

Bill, it's been a very long time since I dealt with a dial-up modem, but as I recall, if you right click for properties, and make sure the if-up and if-down labels match any custom labels you have applied to the device, it should then display the correct info.


Dan

[billwww]

Dan,

You were right and it was pretty obvious. The "Lock file" pointed to ttyS0 and when I changed the 0 to 1, the lights came up. Apparently the lock file gets set when the applet is first installed. Reinstalling it apparently doesn't reset it. I suppose this is a bug.

Thanks.

Bill

[Dan]

You're welcome.


Dan

[billwww]

I have since freshly installed f8 on this computer, and more problems have surfaced with Modem Lights. This time I made sure to get the modem working before I installed the Modem Lights applet. Again, even though the hardware information correctly identifies the mode (a USR 5610), the network configuration does not find a modem. Using the generic modem, I point it at /dev/ttyS1 instead of /dev/modem and the modem will activate. (Incidentally, the bug I presumed existed in my last post in this thread probably does not exist because ML did not set information based on detected parameters.)

When I then change /var/lock/.../ttyS0 to .../ttyS1, I expect it to work as it did in f7. Instead, I get "Failed to execute child process "pppoff" (No such file or directory)." I have not modified anything from stock except the above, so the problem seems to be in the Modem Lights applet. It apparently uses incorrect commands by default.

[billwww]

When Modem Lights wouldn't work in f8, I checked the preferences on another machine running f7. I discovered that all the settings were wrong--the box should be checked to show a connection; the commands were incorrect (pppon--should be /sbin/ifup ppp0, pppoff--should be /sbin/ifdown ppp0); all the colors on color tab were black--they should be (L-R, top to bottom) light red, dark red, light green, dark green, light green, dark green, light yellow, light green, black,dark green; on the advanced tab the box should be checked to verify owner and the ttyS0 changed to match your modem if necessary.

After this, ML worked, though it no longer pops up a button to connect or disconnect--it just does it. Because of this I also checked the "blink ... when connecting" box.

It appears as though the default settings are to do and show nothing.

[billwww]

An update to f8 plugins seems to have fixed most of the problems--mainly initial settings that are likely to work.

[billwww]

I misspoke in my last post. It is the "applet" update that seemed to have an effect. Also, the Fedora Unity re-spin from December 28 2007 doesn't seem to include the applet update.