Making the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor Open Source has been well received with almost 40 downloads in a few weeks. And now I’m happy to tell you that a v.1.3 of the software is in the works!

So far, the three primary additions will be (1) making it possible for the users to share anonymous information, (2) support the monitoring of the logging in Sony Ericsson software and (3) a whole rewrite of the core application, which means that the Mobile Broadband Logging Minitor API (Application Programming Interface) will surface after this release. Yeah, that last one is more for the nerds ... :-)

What I really would like you to do is to head over to the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor online forum and let us know what you’d like to see in the next version. Maybe you’re missing some function, that we haven’t thought of? Let us know here!

I have now moved the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor source code to Microsoft’s source code platform CodePlex, and the application is therefore declared Open Source.

I am not sure if anyone actually will participate in developing the application further, it is truly a bit nerdy ;-), but I hope so. There are many mobile broadband connection clients out there and it would be nice if Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor could include many more of them.

However, the most important point behind moving the source code to CodePlex is to open the application up for the public. I can understand if many people are hesitant about downloading software from any blog (including this one). I know I would. Therefore, by putting the source code on CodePlex, anyone will be able to look me over the shoulder and see what goes on. And by doing so you will be able to conclude that the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor is not malicious in any way! :-)

If you would like to use Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor, see the source code and / or participate in developing the application further, please go to the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor project space on CodePlex.

The HUAWEI Mobile Partner connection client, shown below as the OiSTER connection client, is logging excessively to your hard disk. You can read more about this in the blog posting concerning Telenor’s use of HUAWEI Mobile Partner.

I am very glad to be able to forward to you a fix for the excessive logging to your hard disk.

Before turning the logging off the Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor would show up to 142 log changes pr. minute, which would mean more than 68.000 changes on a workday (8 hours).

To stop the excessive logging you have to locate the installation directory of HUAWEI Mobile Partner (in this case is was “C:\Program Files\Mobile Partner”, but it may reside in other locations as well). Make a backup copy of the RunInfo.ini file and open thereafter the RunInfo.ini file with Notepad.

You will see a section of information like this:

[TraceSet]
TraceLevel=4
TracePath=Log\trace_0.txt
ATRecord=Y
ATRecordPath=Log\ATRecord.txt

Change these to the values below:

TraceLevel=1
ATRecord=N

Save the file and re-start the application. The Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor now gives a totally different output showing only two changes to the log files. I can tell you that these changes were done at startup of the application and no changes were made hereafter. The projected 8-hour value is therefore not valid in this case. Very nice! :-)

There’s only one thing left to wish for and that is a way to disable the excessive use of the Windows Registry. Do you have information on this? Please share in comments below.

Blog posting based on this information.

If you are a follower of this blog and you are using mobile broadband, then you have probably wondered if you are suffering from the 3Connect or HUWAWEI Mobile Partner excessive logging and hard disk activity.

Well, no need to wonder any more. I have spent some time now making a new simple, easy to use monitoring tool for mobile broadband users, targeting the most popular mobile broadband connection clients core products, namely Birdstep EasyConnect and HUAWEI Mobile Parter. This will, among others, include mobile broadband clients from 3, Telenor, OiSTER, Telmore, Turkcell, t-mobile, Orange, m1, Movistar, Etisalat, O2, just to name a few.

The Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor tool will tell you if you are suffering from the excessive logging and hard disk activity, and it will show which files that are being written to and the amount of writes pr. minute, hour and workday (projected).

Furthermore, if there is a known solution to the logging problem for your particular software it will show you direct link to that solution.

In short, a simple tool for giving you insight on the problems and how to solve it! Here’s a nice picture:

Now, that was a nice picture, wasn’t it? :-)

Download the monitor software (from Microsoft CodePlex). The application is now Open Source (read more about what this means).

How to use
Follow the instructions on the screen. Let the tool monitor for more than 1 minute, as it calculates the changes pr. minute. So, you’ll see the numbers rising for the first minute, and then the numbers should stay relatively stable.

The technical stuff
Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. You will download an installer, which in turn will install the software properly when run. The software has a very light “footprint” on your computer, is totally non-intrusive, and, of course, totally respects your privacy. It simply tells you if there is a problem, and, if possible, what you can do about it!

Release notes
1.2: Added support for MWConn (standard location) and user defined locations. (28th Dec. 2009)
1.1: Added support for newer editions of Birdstep Technology EasyConnect.
1.0: First edition. Hello mobile broadband users!

It has been known for some time now that 3’s 3Connect (based on Birdstep Technology EasyConnect) and Telenors “Mobilt Bredbånd” (based on HUAWEI Mobile Partner) have serious issues with logging and more.

But as a non-technical user, how do you know if you are affected by these issues? Well, you really only have the hard disk activity indicator to look at, as seen in the video here on this blog post, but that is not really a solid indicator, as many other things on your computer might write to the hard disk at the same time.

Therefore I have been brewing on a new utitlity that can visualize the logging in the aforementioned on your computer in a simple way. In other words, you will be able to see if you are affected by the problems. And now I need someone to help me test it.

A little information about the utility:

* It’s totally non-intrusive ie. it does not make any changes to your computer at all. 
* You run it and go online with your mobile broadband. Hereafter you will see information in the utility, if the logging is present.
* It’s made with common Microsoft Technologies.

It is very simple so if you are up for it, please let me know here.

As you might know from my previous posts, I have tested different connection software from mobile broadband providers.

Often, although the connection might be working fine, the connection software may have some problems, either by using the hard disk excessively (logging) or some other compatibility issues (with Adobe Flash). So far this focus has opened up dialogue with the telephone companies and software manufacturers, which is very good for the many many users, that use these mobile broadband modems.

I would be very interested in testing mobile broadband connection clients from the major players in the following countries:

UK: vodafone, Three, O2, orange, t-mobile and Virgin.
Spain: Movistar, vodafone, Orange.
Denmark: OiSter, M1, Fullrate, Telmore, TDC, Call me, Telia.
Sweden: Telia, Three, com hem, Universal Telecom, bredbandsbolaget, Glocalnet, ice.net, Telenor,

If you yourself or through friends have access to a dongle from these providers, I'd be very interested in borrowing the software which resides on the dongle for thorough testing. It will have nothing to do with the accounts of the original owner, as I do not have their SIM-card (i'll use my own SIM-card and network). Test results will be posted here on this blog.

If you would like to help me out, please contact me here.

You can find existing connection software tests here:
http://blog.mobilebroadbanduser.eu/page/3Connect-and-the-logging-issue.aspx
http://blog.mobilebroadbanduser.eu/post/2009/09/22/Telenors-Mobilt-Bredbandexe-uses-log-files-and-Windows-registry-excessively.aspx
http://blog.mobilebroadbanduser.eu/post/2009/09/22/3Connect-20-file-access-is-more-excessive-than-ever.aspx

Kind regards,
Christer

I hereby proudly present you a huge list of Acces Point Names (APN) here on the Mobile Broadband User Blog. The list is presented in collaboration with French Vysoo, a worldwide leading company in Communication Over Wifi devices and services. The list is for you, the mobile data / broadband user, who for some reason need these names as part of setting up your device.

Go to the worldwide list of APN names and learn about the ideas behind it.

If you sometimes experience that your mobile broadband connection is dropped and you therefore have to connect again in your mobile broadband connection client (such as 3Connect), you might think that it is caused by a bad network connection. Although that sometimes might be the case, you could also be experiencing a problem in a whole different area.

The drop in connection can instead be caused by the power management on your computer (experienced on Windows XP computers). You see, when the power management on your computer thinks that you're not using a USB port, it might turn off the USB port to save power. Very clever in many cases. However, from the perspective of mobile broadband the power management can have a negative effect. Sometimes, it seems, the power management misinterpret whether the USB port is used on not. As a result, the power management might decide to turn off the USB port on which mobile broadband dongles and sticks are connected and running perfectly fine.

As a user, you would experience that the connection to the Internet is lost and that you have to re-connect. And of course you would naturally conclude that it is because of bad mobile network reception when it is actually not.

Fortunately, it's possible to turn off the power save on USB ports. This means that you will not be harvesting the positive effects of power saving on the USB ports, but I would say that it is worth the sacrifice. Here's what you do to turn it off (in Windows XP, it should be possible in Vista as well):

Go to: Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Universal Serial Bus -> Right click on USB Root Hub -> Power Management

Remove the check at "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". Repeat for all USB Root Hubs.

That's all for now! Send me a comment below, if this helps your connections problems, no? :-)

Yesterday, in the context of testing the Telenor “Mobilt Bredbånd” connection client, I also checked up on the latest version of 3's 3Connect. I’ve done that before, so what I saw came as quite a surprise.

As stated in the previous article about this issue, logging to LogFile.txt is still present but is also still possible to turn off.

But when I turned off the logging last night and ran the application with ProcessMonitor on, I saw that there was still a lot of access to the wilog.exe file (the 3Connect application). In other words, not only is the logging still there, but there’s also a new form of disk access. So, it’s more excessive on the hard disk use than ever.

What does this mean to you as a user? Well, it’s basically the same problem and consequences as the Telenor case: it means a lot of excessive use of your hard disk and therefore a performance hit on your computer. In other words, I'm worried by your hard disk, here...

The following Excel file shows output from ProcessMonitor while running 3Connect. One pane is shows output with logging on, the other with logging off (log Errors only). 2009-09-22 3Connect file access 2003.xls (2,81 mb)

This information has been forwarded to Birdstep Technology, creators of 3Connect for 3. 3Connect is based on Birdstep Technology's EasyConnect, which is also used by T-mobile, TMN and Turkcell. Therefore, I presume that these customers are experiencing the same problems as 3's customers.

(File I/O reproduced on two separate laptops, and ProcessMonitor output sanity checked by Björn Johansson.)

If you're a Telenor mobile broadband user in Sweden, Norway or Denmark I suggest you continue reading this blog post.

Admitted, this blog post is about a very geeky, nerdy and technical issue with Telenor's mobile broadband connection client, known as "Mobilt Bredbånd" (at least to Danish customers, for many others its known as HUAWEI Mobile Partner). As a matter of fact, it's so nerdy, that my girlfriend gave me the "what-the-h*ll-are-you-babbling-about"-look when I told her last night what I was doing (what I don't do for you guys!). However, even though it's nerdy and all that, you should read it to know the very tangible effects is has on the computer you're using Telenor's connection client on. Normally blog posts should be kept short and concise, I know, however, since the subject is so technical I've divided this long blog post into three sections. Here we go...

 

Introduction - what is this about and why should you care?
Ok, I'm going to give it to you straight away. No need to keep it back: The Telenor "Mobilt Bredbånd" connection client writes to a set of log files on your computer. The writing frequency is about once every 10th second when you're offline and every second when you're online. On top of that, the Telenor connection client also reads (in my opinion) excessively from the so-called Windows registry. It doesn't matter if you don't know what the Windows registry is or not, just trust me on this one, it's not a good thing.

Why is this important? Well, first of all, let me tell your that the content of the log files are technical and do not, as far as I know, contain any personal information. However, file access is normally considered a "heavy operation". I mean, think about it: Once every second. That's 3600 writes every hour. This is, in my opinion, very important in the context of your hard disk's life span and well being. It also slows your computer down. You might not notice it when you're using it on a fairly new computer. This issue is very similar to the logging issue I found with 3's connection client, and the difference in system performance while using that client with and without logging every second was significant, and could especially be seen when running on batteries. And that's what you do, when you're out and about, writing blog posts on nice cafés, right? [Artistic break, while sipping coffee on nice café]

The logging issue i found with 3's connection client was actually the very reason why this blog started. Oh, I remember the days.... at the time, I was very annoyed of being in the hands of a telecommunications company that was also taking on the role of being a software company, and it annoyed me that they had released software with such heavy logging. On a side note, I'm still a bit annoyed, because although 3 has released two updates to the software since then, the logging issue has not been rectified and therefore their customers need to change it themselves by following the guides on this blog.

Telenor customers however, need not to be as annoyed as I was and am. This test of the Telenor's connection client is based on a request from Telenor themselves to test their software, which, in my opinion, shows that they care and want to know the reality of things. Kudos! 

The techincal stuff
Now, there's a huge difference from the 3 issue and this Telenor logging issue. Telenors "Mobilt Bredbånd" connection client writes to 4 different logs files! They files are...

ATRecord.txt
Callbalk_trace.txt
Func_trace.txt
trace_0.txt 

... and can normally be found under C:\Program Files\Mobilt Bredbånd\Log. There's also a file called log.txt, but it doesn't seem to be called very often.

When you're offline, the client writes to the files ATRecord.txt and Func_trace.txt every 10th second or so. When online it also writes to Callbalk_trace.txt, and even reads from a file called RunInfo.ini. When you're online, they're written to every second or so. View my logging of Telenor's connection client's file and registry access here on Google Docs or download Excel file for Excel 2007 (301,12 kb). Note the three sheets, “File access while offline”, “File access while online” and “Registry access” (while online).

Because of the several files the Telenor connection client writes at least 7200 times every hour.

Here are some sample log files...

ATRecord.txt (468,11 kb) 
Callbalk_trace.txt (172,12 kb)
Func_trace.txt (100,55 kb) 
log.txt (284,00 bytes)
trace_0.txt (68,97 kb)

... and RunInfo.ini (275,00 bytes)

Conclusion
So now what? What to do, what to do. Well, unfortunately, as a end user you cannot do anything yet to change this behavior. As a reference, my history with 3 was several months of correspondance with 3 and BirdStep Technology, who are the suppliers of 3's software. It ended with me getting a description to a very technical workaround, that are the base of the guides on this blog. In this case, there's a few things that leaves me very positive about the prospect for (1) a technical workaround and (2) maybe an update that solves the problem where it is:

* In this case Telenor's software supplier is HUAWEI. It's a skinned application and seems fairly structured in the way it is built (file wize). 

* The golden key seems to be the file RunInfo.ini, where, as far as I can see, there are settings regarding logging levels. A workaround could maybe be made possible by letting the Telenor customers know what settings they can set and with what values to minimize the logging themselves.

* The possible workaround above does only target the technical customers. However, as my investigation was initiated by Telenor, they've come across as being interested in the well-being of their customers computers, and might provide an update to target all customers. A suggestion here could be to release it with lowest possible logging as default and allow customers to change the logging level from inside the application itself.

That's it for now. Thank you for reading this far. This blog posting has been forwarded to representatives of Telenor. Stay tuned on progress via my RSS feed and on Twitter.

If you want me to check your connection client (O2, Vodafone etc.) let me know.

ProcessMonitor output sanity checked by Björn Johansson.

Are you affected?
You might want to check if you are affected by the logging problem or not. I suggest you try out our new free Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor tool.