"Dial-In" modem quit answering

[WPSMITH]

3 different modems (USRobotic Sportster 56K, 33K, and Hayes Optima 28.8K) set to Auto answer in SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 and installed and re-installed on tty2A with 2a disabled and AA light on, will not answer when dialed in. AA light begins to flash on and off during rings. Settings have not changed in modem manager, but some symbolic links "fixed automatically" recently in software manager. Application suuport believes that permissions have been changed and that causes modem to see call, but not respond. If I run cu ltty2A dir, I get connection, but never receive info, just blinking cursor. Do i need to accces through tty2a? Any suggestions appreciated. Thank you. W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

at bliking cursor try ate1q0 and see if you have an "ok"
There are reasons I use 2a, but I can't remember them, but yes , you probably need to add that capability.
How about putting on a serial port turnaround and see if you can get out and back. Minimums of 2&3, 4&5, and 6&20 jumpered.
Ring detect from the modem should be attaching the SCO.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WPSMITH]

Ed, Thanks. I do not get an "ok" at cu commands and the keyboard is not letting me type an ycommands after connect, except ~. . I donnot understand the serial port turnaround. I have looked a tony Lawrence's FAQ's and I am trying various settings on Serial port and Modem now. I am confused by Lawrences refernces to using 2a instead of 2A as the getty to communicate the cu commands too. I am also going to look at the uucp stuff. If you haven't guessed, I am novice but have to admin for our company. Thanks. W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

The turnaround is a plug that goes on in place of the modem. It routes the signals that go out from the serial port right back to the serial port and display them.
tty2A and tty2a are the same physical device but they are handled differently by the operating system since modems (2A) require handshaking and (2a) only requires the send, receive, and common to work.
It sounds like the serial port is dead. With the USR you should have the TR ,CS, and AA lit and when you type the rd and sd lites should flicker, but you have to look close.
You could also look in /etc/inittab to see what 2A has to tell you re enabled or not.
I generally disable tty2A and enable tty2a when I start diddling with modems. And with the USR I cu -l tty2a to get to the blinking cursor and the first thing i do is a ati4 to see what the modem is set up with.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WPSMITH]

shuldn't I see the tty2a (not just tty2A) on the com port? On com1, tty1a and tty1A exist. on com2 only tty2A exists. If Ienable tty2a, I get a normal response, but it doesn't show up in the ports config. W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

You should have both. How about in /etc/inittab?
I don't know about the ports config. I do all mine from the command line.
And if you enable 2a and no errors you should have a 2a listing in inittab. And 2A should be disabled, by you before and should show in inittab as disabled.
Sometimes the listing gets scrambled so look to the end. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WPSMITH]

inittab has both. I just finished the Tony Lawrence unixart dial-in only instruction including the direct line in lib/uucp and chown. I get connected to tty2a then, but the screen/console starts responding extremely sluggishly (eg 5 minutes for the ~. command to respond) and I still get no "OK" or any response to AT commands. If I had a serial port hardware problem, wouldn't it affect any communication with that port? I am going to try to set up the modems on other stations and Hyperterminal to set AT or on a Windows station and run manufacturers manage software.
I am at a loss, since all the configs I think are reasonable seem to be correct and I have even removed HP management port (sharing IRQ 3) and un- and re-installed the entire COM Port as well.
Thansk again for your help. W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

Why don't you use hyperterm to see what commands work with the modem so you can duplicate those commands through cu.
If you had problems with the serial port send or receive it would affect anything using the port. If problems with handshake lines it would only affect the modem use of the port.
And what are you using for dialer in the ACU line? Initilization code coming from the dialer can cause some wierd stuff. Think all my USR stuff is set to hayes24, but I'm away from all the machines now and can't check. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[apeasecpc]

If I am understanding your post correctly, your modem was working for dialin and then quit. I am a little confused about you mentioning 3 different modems. Did you try all three because the first one didn't work?

The reason the modem AA light is flashing and the modem isn't answering is because it is not set up for auto answer mode. Modem auto answer is configured within the modem dialer files. Unless these files were changed you should be able to reset the modem by disabling and re-enabling the ttyport.

disable tty2a #should always be disabled
disable tty2A #disable modem port
enable tty2A  #enable modem port

The modem lights should flash after re-enabling the port, and the AA light should turn on.

If doing this does not solve the problem it means you have a bad modem, a bad port, or your configuration files have been changed. (Note: fixing symbolic links does NOT changed the files, so that is not the cause of your problem).

For configurations, here are the things to check:

1) Make sure the port is listed in both the /etc/inittab file and the /etc/conf/init.d/sio file:

Se2a:2:off:/etc/getty tty2a o1
Se2A:2:off:/etc/getty -t60 tty2A o1

2) Make sure the gettydefs referenced by the inittabs file and sio file match, and are defined in /etc/gettydefs:

o1 # B38400  HUPCL # B38400  CS8 SANE HUPCL TAB3 RTSFLOW CTSFLOW #\r\nlogin: # o1

3) Make sure the port is defined in the /usr/lib/uucp/Devices file, and has both an ACU and Direct entry. The ACU entry must be before the Direct entry:

ACU tty2A - 38400 normal
Direct tty2A - 38400 direct

Even if the line is only used for dialin you must have the ACU entry or the modems will not reset correctly.

4) Make sure sure the Devices ACU line refers to a valid dialer. You can use compiled dialers provided by UNIX or the modem manufacturer, or you can define a dialer string in the /usr/lib/uucp/Dialers file.

For dialin only modems, the easiest configuration is a dialer string in the Dialers file:

normal       =,-, "" \r\pAT&F\r\pE0Q0S0=0S2=128 OK\r \dATDT\T CONNECT
&normal      =,-, "" \r\pAT&F\r\pATS0=1\r\pAT&W0\r

Note: The "&normal" line is critical for the modem to reset properly. The "ATS0=1" part of the line turns the modem auto answer on. These lines should be customized for the particular modem being used.


Note: Permissions of the configuration files should be set to the following:

inittab   -rw-rw-r--    root     audit
sio       -rw-r--r--    root     audit
gettydefs -rw-r--r--    root     sys
Devices   -rw-r--r--    uucp     uucp
Dialers   -rw-r--r--    uucp     uucp

You should disable and re-enable the modem port after any changes to the configuration files.

disable tty2a #should always be disabled
disable tty2A #disable modem port
enable tty2A  #enable modem port

 

[WPSMITH]

Apeasepc, Thanks for replying. I had a USRobotic Sportster 33.6 (working for 4 years as set for dial in), updated BIOS on HP LH3 and had "fixed discrepencies" in Software Manger, could not dial in afterward but didn't discover for couple of weeks. No changes had been made directly to SCO or modem at that time. First step taken when discovered, were to disable and reenable tty2A which gave the same blinkng light but no answer. attached USRobotic Sportster 56k (no changes needed in Modem Manager to sub it); same results. Switched telco line; same result. Decided to uninstall USRobotic in SCO and repbuil with Hayes Optima 28.8; same result; took Hayes off and manually set NVRAM with Hyperterminal on a PC and reinstalled; same result. Could not ever get cu command to respond after "connected" on any of the above modems. Tried various corrections in Modem Manager, UUCP, Devices, then flashed CMOS, removed port2, reinstalled port 2 disabled port3(management port on LH3), installed serial port in maintenace mode ..... Now I have no tty2a or tty2A in PORT2 or Device in UUCP msnager, and if enable tty2a get repetitive spawing of process. Tty2a and tty2A exist in some "lost" manner in the system and I have about lost track of the changes. Other than the specifics in Definition, most of the theings you mention were I believe, similar or accurqate for my settings and attempts at different transfer rates. I think you are on target with the Permissions and I don't know why the dialer would have changed, but maybe the BIOS update could have affected the com Ports. Shouldn't the dialer be establed by the selection of a SCOO listed choice of modem brand and specific model in Managereven if it had corrupted? Thanks for your reply and I will pursue the definitions and dial strings, but I don't know what to do about the phantom gettys. W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

Based on this additional information, I suspect that you are right about it being a lost comm port. The os thinks it is there but your hardware doesn't.
It sounds like the BIOS upgrade wiped it out.
You may want to look at /usr/adm/messages to see if there is any indication of problems with the port. Then it is a matter of removing everything associated with it and reinstalling it and hoping that everything needed loads back in.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WPSMITH]

HP Netserver /SCO supprt asked me to follow instructions from SCO TA109287 (set up Serial Console) to try t orebuild serial port gettys. That TA had the mkdev done in Single-user mode!!! I have not seen any references to using mkdev or modem manager while in singl-user mode.. I do know that inhwconfig-hc, I do not see serial port for com2 now. Isd there any need to be in single user mode for serial port removal or addition other that this console type?
There is a post from EdFair in TekTip about a serial port being"clobbered" I suspected hardware failure on the port and have run full diagnostics and it passed all, but there were someusful comments.
W.P.Smith

 

[edfair]

I'm curious about what diagnostics you used. And whether the diagnostics required the use of a turnaround plug.
Diagnostics on a serial port can't really do the full job unless the serial output is compared to the input.
Then serial output is sent thru a level shifter before it goes out, then shifted again when it comes back in, unless you are lucky enough to have an integrated serial chip that includes the shifting. I say lucky since the loss of a driver or receiver in the chip requires a board replacement. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[apeasecpc]

Since you no longer have a tty2A you are definitely going to have to remove and recreate the device.

As far as doing it in single-user vs multi-user modes, it doesn't really matter for a serial port, this device setup should work in either mode, but you do have to be in multi-user mode before you can test the dialin process.

I do not recommend using the SCO modem manager; when I attempted to use it during a recent OS upgrade I ran into some major bugs. I also don't recommend the sco provided dialers for US Robotic modems, rather you should set up a custom dialer using the atdialer method (see the man page).

Phantom getty's are not surprising on tty2a if you have a modem attached. tty2a is the non-modem device, which means that it ignores the modem carrier signal and is on continuously. Enabling this port is probably sending a login prompt to the modem, for which the modem is replying with an error response, which causes the login prompt to repeat, and the process keeps cycling in a continuous loop. Always use the modem control device name when a modem is attached (i.e. tty2A).

 

[edfair]

I agree with apeasecpc about the USR. Everything I use is the builtin dialha24 with modifications to the script to lock in the 9600.
I also modify gettydefs so the modems point back at themselves rather than rolling between speeds, then modify the baud rates to lock in the speed I want. that way any gettydef token that is a number is a modem and a letter is a terminal. But it helps that all my systems use a total of 2 speeds. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WPSMITH]

Just to post the final resolution FYI. the Original setup of the server had COMB at IRQ3 2E8 (this is the serial port with the modem); COMA at IRQ4 3F8 and the default for COMC at IRQ3 2E9. Changes to addresses on COMCdisabled or not didn't fix anything; however when COMB was changed to 2F8 and COMC disabled SCO saw the port properly and worked properly. I appreciate all the good suggestions and credit MASC Data for their expertise. I have reported the results to HP NetServer Support and they said they would post it for future and existing situations. thnks again. W.P.Smith