Failure in unlock Huawei E303: Could not identify active port

[Sucharitha81]

I am running on Ubuntu 13.04. I was trying to unlock my Huawei E303 dongle. I found this application by posting a question on How to unloack a USB Broadband Modem ? at askubuntu.com.

I tried to unlock using this application. But the result was Could not identify active port.

In my system python-serial was already installed. There was python2.7 installed. I followed all the steps in README.

This is good work done by you. Wish you all the best to improve this further !

Below is the terminal dialogue :

`dumindumahawela@dumindumahawela:~$ su
Password:
root@dumindumahawela:/home/dumindumahawela# cd /home/dumindumahawela/Downloads/linux_huawei_unlocker-0.3
root@dumindumahawela:/home/dumindumahawela/Downloads/linux_huawei_unlocker-0.3# ./unlocker.py

---

Huawei modem unlocker
By Neil McPhail and dogbert
This is Free Software as defined by the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC
LICENSE version 2

---

This software comes with NO WARRANTY
This software can damage your hardware
Use it at your own risk

---

Not all modems can be unlocked with this software.
Users have reported problems with the following devices:
    E220, E353
Attempting to unlock these devices with this software is not
recommended. I hope to fix this in a later release.

---

If you wish to proceed, please type YES at the prompt

YES
Trying to find which port is the active modem connection.
Please be patient as this can take a while.

Could not identify active port.
root@dumindumahawela:/home/dumindumahawela/Downloads/linux_huawei_unlocker-0.3#`

[mcphail]

Thanks for taking the time to make a bug report.

I haven't heard of any previous successes or failures for that modem model. Can you confirm that you have placed a "foreign" SIM in the modem and that your network manager application is not set to automatically try to connect?

[Sucharitha81]

This dongle is given by Mobitel (Sri Lanka) . I inserted a SIM of
Dialog (Sri Lanka) . Network manager was not set to " Connect
Automatically".

Further : I also having installed modemmanager application. This
dongle works with its own SIM. unlocker.py can detect my other dongle
which is already unlocked.(In a separate attempt)

On 11/24/13, Neil McPhail notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks for taking the time to make a bug report.

I haven't heard of any previous successes or failures for that modem model.
Can you confirm that you have placed a "foreign" SIM in the modem and that
your network manager application is not set to automatically try to
connect?

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#5 (comment)

[mcphail]

I've been doing a bit of research about this model. It seems to be set up as a psuedo-ethernet device rather than a standard USB modem. I think it is possible to use some usb-modeswitch magic to make it work like a standard USB modem but I don't think my script can compute the unlock code for these devices anyway.

As far as I am aware, there is no freely available algorithm for computing unlock codes on the E3... devices. If anyone knows of one, please send me a link!

Sorry I can't help just now but consider this a work-in-(slow)-progress,

[Sucharitha81]

Thanks for your kind intervention on my matter. I need your help from
your knowledge. Can it use with usbmodeswitch with unlock code that
are given in certain websites.?

I tried it with 5 attempts with Mobile Partner software which contain
a Unlocking function. But wasnt succeed.

IMEI number of this dongle is 868988011401780 and a website given me
the code 49311704. I tried with this software :
http://nacitasyifa.web.id/content/download-mobile-partner-linux-20003-can-sms-and-voice-call-too

thanks
On 11/24/13, Neil McPhail notifications@github.com wrote:

I've been doing a bit of research about this model. It seems to be set up as
a psuedo-ethernet device rather than a standard USB modem. I think it is
possible to use some usb-modeswitch magic to make it work like a standard
USB modem but I don't think my script can compute the unlock code for these
devices anyway.

As far as I am aware, there is no freely available algorithm for computing
unlock codes on the E3... devices. If anyone knows of one, please send me a
link!

Sorry I can't help just now but consider this a work-in-(slow)-progress,

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#5 (comment)

[mcphail]

Without having one of these devices I cannot be sure. Nor do I know what the vendor-supplied firmware will be doing to things. If you are feeling brave you could try this as root:

usb_modeswitch -v 0x12d1 -v 0x14fe -M "55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000"

I have no idea whether this will help, break your modem, set fire to your home or kill your pet. It is taken from http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/.

Edit: This won't unlock your modem but might make it show up as a standard usb modem device.

[erm3nda]

usb_modeswitch will not kill pets :-) but i am also not 100% sure of it

the port detection failurre can be some of these:

1. you didn't ran it as sudo
2. your stick has modem+sdcard, so USB1 will BREAK the script cuz will not respond to AT commands.

You can surround line 73 function like

def identifyPort():
    print "Trying to find which port is the active modem connection."
    print "Please be patient as this can take a while.\n\n"
    for p in glob.glob('/dev/ttyUSB*'):
        try:
            print "Testing port " + p
            ser = serial.Serial(port = p,
                    timeout = 15)
            ser.write('AT\r\n')
            activity = ser.read(5)
            if activity == '':
                print "\tNo activity\n"
                ser.close()
                continue
            
            print "\tActivity detected\n"
            ser.close()
            return p
        except Exception as e:
            pass
    return ''