Replicant

A F wrote:

Hello,

Hi,

I've recently bought a 삼성 Galaxy S3 i9300 in order to be able to install an anti-Corona virus application. I've installed the Replicant operating system version 6.0004 from my Debian Linux laptop computer via USB.

• Replicant 6.0 0003
• Replicant 6.0 0004 RC1 (RC1 is the first release candidate version)

So I guess that you used the 0004 RC1.

The sha256 checksums were valid, and the operating system has been installed without any difficulty, and I followed the instructions on this very website. Yet, unfortunately, the telephone tells me it hadn't found a SIM card despite me having inserted it.

My first question would be (since I'm a real newcomer to smartphone technology): What kind of logs do I have to submit to this community in order for it to be able to tell me about the error, and how do I access them?

• It would be great to have some information on the SIM card, like The country you got it from, the type of contract (prepaid / contract), year in which it was bought, operator, etc. This should enable us to buy a similar one and/or to differentiate it from other SIMs.
• The logs obtained with 'adb logcat -b radio' command could also be very useful. To use that command, you need to enable ADB and give ADB root permissions, there is a guide on how to do it on the ADB wiki page. We also have a guide for how to get logs with the GettingLogs page if needed. Note that the logs do often contain privacy sensitive information like the IMEI (more information on that below), the number you just called if you get it after a call, etc. So make sure that it doesn't contains anything you don't want to not be public if you add it to a bugreport.

A little bit of startpage-ing has shown that this kind of issue is not new, but all bug reports seem to have addressed different (ie. earlier) versions of Replicant, and the changelog of this version suggests that there has been some work on this (supposed) bug.

Replicant 6.0 0004 RC1 fixed it for some SIM card, and so far we didn't have any report yet of other SIM cards not working. So we hopped that the bug was fixed for good, but it might not be the case if your SIM card was recognized with the previous distribution and stopped being recognized with Replicant 6.0.

In the report we got, Replicant 6.0 0003, 0002, and 0001 didn't detect certain SIMs that were instead detected by Replicant 4.2.

I've got a minimal affinity to computers, and I'd be able to write a little programme using C and Glade or Java. Given a little encouragement and links to sufficient background information, I might be able to try and fix the bug myself. In principle, I'd be very interested in learning more about programming for smartphones, in ptic. because the German Corona App essentially depends upon proprietary software by Google resp. Apple (depending on whether or not you use an Apple device), and I'd like to reverse-engineer these libraries in order to make them available for Replicant.

The first step is to open a bug about this issue. Then it would be a good idea to try Replicant 4.2 and see if it works or not, and try other SIMs.
If you can manage to make Replicant 6.0 0004 RC1 recognize some SIMs.

I personally use dumbphoneassistant to test it with older SIMs that don't register to the network anymore: this way I'm sure that it talks to the SIM while ignoring the network part completely.

Another thing to test would be if you can manage to get the IMEI, modem versions and similar information in the settings. It's best not to paste your IMEI publically (unless it's the first 8 digits). A malicious person might be able to use your IMEI to prevent your phone from connecting to the network again by reporting a device with your IMEI as stolen.

So I guess that you used the 0004 RC1.

Yes, that is the case. I neglected to state that clearly.

It would be great to have some information on the SIM card, like The country you got it from, the type of contract (prepaid / contract), year in which it was bought, operator, etc.

Would the following data suffice?

• Germany
• Flat rate
• Congstar, a subsidiary of "Deutsche Telekom"
• The (northern hemisphere) summer of 2017
• Only to be used for phone calls, not for internet surfing (the Corona app is the only reason I bought the smartphone)

The logs obtained with 'adb logcat -b radio' command could also be very useful.

Using the > operator of my linux terminal, I obtained a rather large log file. I wonder which information might be the most relevant to the issue at hand. (I performed a Strg+F for "sim" and obtained a few hits, and furthermore it seems as though there is an endless loop running.) I have not been able to locate the IMEI.

[...] if your SIM card was recognized with the previous distribution and stopped being recognized with Replicant 6.0

Then it would be a good idea to try Replicant 4.2 and see if it works or not

I'll be skimming through a couple operating systems tomorrow.

and try other SIMs

I'll try to get the store of my provider to allow me to test some.

I personally use dumbphoneassistant to test it with older SIMs that don't register to the network anymore: this way I'm sure that it talks to the SIM while ignoring the network part completely.

I'll possibly delay that for a bit as an option of last resort, because I fear that I might destroy my SIM card. (Probably this fear is unfounded, but if I get a new SIM card, we may have lost our chance to fix the bug.)

It would go against good manners to not thank you for your assistance, which I'd hereby like to do.

Alright, I've installed Replicant 6.0003 and the problem persists. Replicant 4.2 is next.

I'm sorry for the delay, but I've had some grave personal difficulties. Now I'm back at it.

Unfortunately, installing Replicant 4.2 (which wouldn't be an option anyway due to compatibility issues) has not resolved the issue. To the contrary, when the SIM card is inserted, it does not finish the process of searching for networks, and when it is not inserted, this process terminates with an error message.

The next steps for me are:

1) Create a bug report with the above information
2) Go to the Telekom store and try and find a SIM card which is compatible with the most recent RC version
3) Try and fix the issue myself, or (preferably) with the support of the Replicant community

See also the bug report: https://redmine.replicant.us/issues/2102