BleepingComputer.com: wvdial won't accept my phone number

Hi,
I've been trying to get my elderly PC running Ubuntu 8.04 to use my USB modem (USRobotics model 5637). The modem can be initialized from a terminal using wvdial, but it tells me that "Configuration does not specify a valid phone number." Same thing with login and password. Whatever syntax error I'm making, it's probably the same all through. My wvdial.conf file looks like this:

(Dialer Defaults)
Init1 = ATZ
Init 2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 602 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type =USB Modem
: Phone = 250#####67
ISDN =0
: Password =
New PPPD = yes
: Username =
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800
If anyone out there can spot what I've done wrong here, please tell me before I murder my machine.
Thanks,
Paintbrush.

is a prefix required? Or has one been inadvertently added somewhere in the GUI?


After checking that stuff, is the file executable by mere mortals?

Yes, prefix is now required. Our phone company switched to 10 digit dialing a little while back.

what do permissions of wvdial.conf and /usr/bin/wvdial look like?

Life got in the way again.
Here we go with the permissions.
/usr/bin/wvdialconf - Owner:root Access: read & write Group:root Access: read only Others: read only
/usr/bin/wvdial " "
/etc/wvdial.conf same again.

I don't use wvdial but try as root in a console :

chmod u+x /usr/bin/wvdial

The "u" indicates user and the "+x" adds execute privileges for he user.

Always remember what the original permissions are so you can get back to square one.

If you want to give full permissions for testing purposes, give each of those files the chmod 777 <file you want to have permissions>, but remember this gives full access to owner, group and others.

You may also want to change ownership of the file with the chown user:group <file you want to change ownership of>

Also before I lead you too far astray, You say that wvdial is initializing the modem, but many USB modems are winmodems and may require drivers to access all of the modem functions. Have you investigated the scanModem utility by Marv Stodolsky? I know that in Mandriva, I have to use the "add a network connection" utility to tell the computer that there is a modem hooked up so that the hdwr interrupts are set up properly and then I can use Kppp (another dialer similar to wvdial) to do the actual dialing.

hope this helps

Thanks Trio3b, I'll give this a try.
No change at all. Here's what it gives me.

- - > WVDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
- - > Cannot get information for serial port.
- - > Initializing modem.
- - > Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
- - > Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
- - >Modem initialized.
- - > Configuration does not specify a valid phone number.
- - > Configuration does not specify a valid login name.
- - > Configuration does not specify a valid password.
~$

plz double check any dashes, colons, semicolons etc. Also wipe the file clean (via the GUI), reboot and reenter the info. then check the config file to see if it has updated your info.


The only thing I can guess at this time is that the configuration file either:

is not being updated from the gui (if you are entering info into the GUI) because of no write permissions
or the config file cannot be read by wvdial because there are no user permissions to do so.

To me it appears that wvdial only has root permissions and cannot be run as normal user. Try opening a console login as root and open the program from there. type "wvdial" (without the quotes). If it dials and connects then you know it is a user permissions issue.

This might explain why the hdwr is recognized but the software permissions are not there yet.

hope this helps