[PLUG] Unable to connect by tethering to HP / Toshiba Laptops using Iphone 6 Plus ( using USB Cable ). I'm able to use same phone to tether successfully to a Thinkpad X220 Laptop??

Sun Nov 5 02:40:22 UTC 2017

Hi Mitch,

Maybe you should try to better describe what exactly you mean by:
"it takes> 60 minutes of  disconnected / reconnect / turn phone & / Or
laptop off".

I am assuming that there is no significant difference between the
laptop's Ubuntu setup. Please correct me if this is incorrect.

One of the things to verify would be to check if the tethering behaves
the same way using usb2 and usb3 ports on your HP and Toshiba laptops.
Your x220 probably does not have usb3 port, Lenovo only put it to i7
models back then. Typically laptop's would have both usb3 and usb2
ports, typically color coded. You could also get help from comparing
what you see on x220 and one of the problematic devices.

There are two different things at play in the USB tethering case:
1. usb device and hub connectivity and possibly a driver
2. network card device in the phone and its linux driver

1. USB
------
Things to look for and compare between x220 and the other devices:
* lsusb - command lists usb devices. Example:

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 058f:5608 Alcor Micro Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 8087:0a2a Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129
Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 028: ID 18d1:4ee3 Google Inc. Nexus 4 (tether)
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 258a:1205  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Here I have 2 usb hubs - one is usb2 and one usb3. Here is Nexus 4
device connected to bus 001 device 028

To list details run: hwinfo --usb , in my case: /usr/sbin/hwinfo --usb
and pick the section relevant to the tether:

09: USB 00.0: 0291 USB Host-to-Host link
  [Created at usb.122]
  Unique ID: cLrx.3Z4p7zhtdl9
  Parent ID: k4bc.ZEYWNM3UrzF
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:15.0/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.0
  SysFS BusID: 1-2:1.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Google Nexus 4/5/7/10 (tether)"
  Hotplug: USB
  Vendor: usb 0x18d1 "Google Inc."
  Device: usb 0x4ee3 "Nexus 4/5/7/10 (tether)"
  Revision: "3.10"
  Serial ID: "00b1e9a448672fe4"
  Driver: "rndis_host"
  Driver Modules: "rndis_host"
  Device File: usb0
  Speed: 480 Mbps
  HW Address: 8a:66:54:fc:5a:c7
  Permanent HW Address: 8a:66:54:fc:5a:c7
  Link detected: yes
  Module Alias: "usb:v18D1p4EE3d0310dcEFdsc02dp01icE0isc01ip03in00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: rndis_host is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe rndis_host"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #6 (Hub)

You can see here that the device is network card, driver rndis_host,
Link is detected, MAC addr, etc.

For your trouble you probably care to know that the device is in "Link
detected" state, that it is correctly detected and connected to USB.

2. Network
----------
You can verify that the driver is properly loaded by running:
sudo lsmod |grep rndis_host
sudo modinfo rndis_host
Please change the driver name based on your hwinfo --usb output.

Here is my output:
sudo lsmod |grep rndis_host
rndis_host             16384  0 
cdc_ether              16384  1 rndis_host
usbnet                 49152  2 rndis_host,cdc_ether
usbcore               270336  9
btusb,uvcvideo,rndis_host,rtsx_usb,usbhid,usbnet,xhci_hcd,xhci_pci,cdc_
ether

sudo modinfo rndis_host
filename:       /lib/modules/4.4.87-25-
default/kernel/drivers/net/usb/rndis_host.ko
license:        GPL
description:    USB Host side RNDIS driver
author:         David Brownell
srcversion:     A2121484B83321544804422
alias:          usb:v*p*d*dc*...........
........

This driver should create a network device for you. You should be able
to check that out (before and after tethering) using following command:
ip link

My output:
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP
mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:16:eb:db:22:52 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: usb0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast
state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether ee:cc:e4:ca:69:d5 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

In my case the tether device is labeled usb0
At this point you should be able to see this network device in Ubuntu
"Network manager" and connect through it.

You can check if the device has IP address, etc by:
ip addr

My output:
5: usb0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast
state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether ee:cc:e4:ca:69:d5 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.42.39/24 brd 192.168.42.255 scope global dynamic usb0
       valid_lft 2745sec preferred_lft 2745sec
    inet6 fe80::eccc:e4ff:feca:69d5/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

You can see that I have assigned IP for the network device.
You could certainly verify routing, etc., but that should just work in
most cases.

At this point you could try to ping www.google.com (hit Ctrl-c to stop
it)

ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (74.125.28.103) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from pc-in-f103.1e100.net (74.125.28.103): icmp_seq=1 ttl=44
time=90.5 ms
64 bytes from pc-in-f103.1e100.net (74.125.28.103): icmp_seq=2 ttl=44
time=75.2 ms

or traceroute www.google.com (in my case /usr/sbin/traceroute)

/usr/sbin/traceroute www.google.com
traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.203.105), 30 hops max, 60 byte
packets
 1  192.168.42.129 (192.168.42.129)  1.771 ms  1.698 ms  1.714 ms
 2  10.167.254.48 (10.167.254.48)  31.117 ms  39.549 ms  39.525 ms
 3  10.170.233.19 (10.170.233.19)  41.574 ms  41.547 ms  41.522 ms
 4  10.177.69.117 (10.177.69.117)  60.165 ms  60.136 ms  60.108 ms
 5  10.164.162.244 (10.164.162.244)  60.085 ms  60.176 ms  60.149 ms
 6  10.177.5.62 (10.177.5.62)  60.123 ms  47.268 ms  52.657 ms
 7  10.164.165.25 (10.164.165.25)  51.365 ms  56.656 ms  64.120 ms
 8  209.85.174.12 (209.85.174.12)  67.508 ms  67.482 ms  66.314 ms
 9  108.170.242.226 (108.170.242.226)  67.434 ms  61.966 ms
108.170.242.242 (108.170.242.242)  59.892 ms
10  64.233.174.91 (64.233.174.91)  64.040 ms 209.85.246.38
(209.85.246.38)  63.983 ms 209.85.249.63 (209.85.249.63)  63.923 ms
11  216.239.49.198 (216.239.49.198)  64.963 ms 72.14.232.63
(72.14.232.63)  63.800 ms 216.239.49.198 (216.239.49.198)  64.849 ms
12  216.239.40.142 (216.239.40.142)  67.042 ms 216.239.40.144
(216.239.40.144)  77.113 ms 108.170.228.64 (108.170.228.64)  52.394 ms
13  209.85.142.20 (209.85.142.20)  52.331 ms 216.239.51.66
(216.239.51.66)  65.372 ms 74.125.37.215 (74.125.37.215)  65.340 ms
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * *
18  * * *
19  * * *
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  pg-in-f105.1e100.net (173.194.203.105)  90.911 ms  90.891
ms  52.350 ms

I hope that debugging your problem will not be too difficult.
Let us know how you get on ...

Best luck, Tomas

On Sat, 2017-11-04 at 14:04 -0700, mitch Stanley wrote:
> Hi, I'm a  beginner & 1st post to list. I down sized from a Hot Spot
> to
> tethering (USB)  with iPhone 6 Plus ( verion 11.0.2). I'm using
> Ubuntu
> 16.04. When I used the Hot
> 
> 
> Spot I was  able to connect immediately but now   with tethering, it
> takes
> 60 minutes of  disconnected / reconnect / turn phone & / Or laptop
> off. (
> Occurs with HP &
> 
> 
> Toshiba    Laptops  but not with my Thinkpad X220 ). I've not able to
> find
> any answers online.
> 
> 
> I'd appreciate any suggestions short of reactivating my Hot Spot.
> 
> 
>  Thanks in advance , Mitch Stanley
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