Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues while using the Soracom Onyx LTE™ USB Modem, this page provides guidance on how to troubleshoot common problems. By following these steps, you can quickly identify and resolve issues to maintain a stable connection.

Common Connectivity Issues

The Onyx modem is connected but no data is being sent

If the Onyx modem is connected but not transmitting data, the problem may be related to the host's network configuration, or incorrect or missing APN settings.

The Onyx modem takes a long time to connect to a network

The time it takes the Onyx modem to connect to the network can be impacted by a variety of factors:

The Onyx modem is not detected by the host device

If your host device does not detect the Onyx modem, review the following steps:

The Onyx modem performs a full network scan on every reboot

A bug exists in older versions of ModemManager (the NetworkManager component that detects and controls modems). This bug causes some Quectel modems—including the Quectel EG25-G used in the Onyx—to perform a full cellular network scan every time the Linux device reboots, whenever the modem is unplugged and reconnected, or when ModemManager restarts. While that scan is in progress, the modem cannot send or receive any data.

Once the modem has finished the network scan, the device and modem will resume normal operation. However, if your Linux device is restarted frequently, or your application requires periodically disabling and re-enabling the modem or restarting ModemManager, the network scan caused by the bug may introduce unacceptable delays in establishing cellular connectivity.

To see if your device is affected, run the mmcli --version command and check if you are running v1.14.0 or later. If you have an older version, you may need to update ModemManager.

In particular, the previous version of Raspberry Pi OS (such as Buster) has not updated its ModemManager package since v1.10.0. However, newer versions of ModemManager are available from the Debian Backports repository. To manually install the latest version of ModemManager, run the following commands to add the Debian Backports repository, update the package list, and install a newer version of ModemManager:

echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
wget http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/debian-archive-keyring/debian-archive-keyring_2021.1.1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i debian-archive-keyring_2021.1.1_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -t buster-backports modemmanager

Once installed, repeat the mmcli --version command to check that your ModemManager has been updated. If the version is v1.14.0 or later, the bug should be resolved and the Onyx modem will no longer perform a full network scan on every reboot.

Additional Resources & Support

For further device and advanced troubleshooting steps, see our Troubleshooting guide.

For additional technical and product information, visit the Soracom Onyx LTE™ USB Modem page.

For complete information on using the Soracom User Console, SIM Management tools and APIs, Soracom platform services, and additional capabilities, documentation is available on the Soracom Developers website.

If you run into trouble, feel free to contact our Support Team.

  1. Log in to your User Console account.
  2. Click the Support menu and select Contact us. Doing so will redirect you to the Soracom Support portal.
  3. At the top of the page, click Submit a request.
  4. Complete the ticket form and click Submit.