Re: trying to understand context creation

[Marcel Holtmann <marcel@holtmann.org>]

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Hi Jussi,

> >> HW problems any more than I'm "fixing" connman crashes in my UI --
> >> both are still events I'd rather handle (witihin limits) if that makes
> >> the UX better.
> >
> > Sure, the UI should handle the basics, e.g. connman service being
> > stopped by the administrator.  However, going out of your way to
> > 'handle' connman crashes or ofono HW issues is clearly the wrong thing
> > to do.  A system service crashing is a major problem and should be
> > addressed by the project responsible, not by the UI.
> 
> From a UI point of view, connman crashing and connman being stopped
> are 100% same -- the only thing the UI can do is inform the user that
> there is a critical  problem, so they won't just wait there expecting
> that Wifi AP to show up any moment now... I hope the users would never
> have to see that but they sometimes do.

I would do this centralized with a system that monitors systemd status
and make sure that systemd restarts ConnMan properly. So that even if
something goes wrong, the user never really sees this. Unless it is like
a real fatal problem.

But trying to handle this different than a restart of ConnMan is kinda
weird. I would not even bother. Especially since there is nothing you
can do about it anyway.

> I'm not sure what you mean by "going out of my way". I either handle
> this situation or I don't. The same goes for ofono contexts that are,
> from my POV, broken.

Why are they broken again?

> >> We are in total agreement. I will gladly remove this whole UI when you
> >> or someone else with knowledge on this tells me that ofono + mbpi can
> >> handle things. Likewise, if you tell me I can drop the manual settings
> >> part and that won't harm many users, I will do it in a heart beat.
> >>
> >
> > I would guesstimate that it works in 90% of the cases today, the other
> > 5-9% are handled using a simple dialog.  If this is not the case, then
> > we would like to know what is failing / not working.
> >
> > Dropping the settings UI is probably never going to be feasible, but it
> > should be made into an avenue of last resort.  E.g. something that the
> > user can be guided through by tech support at the carrier for instance.
> >  Not something that the user should ever see under 99% of circumstances.
> 
> Let's work on this then -- that is my goal as well, but my
> understanding of current situation was just way grimmer: maybe I've
> missed some bit about how the provisioning works. This is my
> understanding:
>   * connman shows a cellular service for every internet context
>   * ofono creates a internet context for every modem that is capable
>   * if there are multiple APNs defined in mbpi for the carrier, the
> ofono context will be empy
>   * mbpi has lots and lots of carriers with multiple APNs, most of the
> big names I checked seem to have multiple ones.
> 
> This seems to imply that by far the most common use case is this:
>   * user plugs in a new modem
>   * ofono creates an empty context (because of multiple APNs defined
> for carrier)
>   * connman shows a broken cellular service that does absolutely
> nothing -- it stays in "idle" forever and does not react to anything.
> 
> You said 90% of the cases should just work -- where does this
> difference in experiences come from?

As pointed out by Denis, the automated setup experience can only be as
good as your database. However it is not our job to install or create
the perfect APN list. That is an OEMs job and it depends on what kind of
quality and experience they wanna have.

Problem is that MBPI needs to be clearly improved. It is currently a
dumping ground for random information. And btw. neither Apple nor
Android gets this fully right. I have an ICS that keep resetting the APN
configuration as TIM Italy while network is Wind in Canada.

So if you really care about ConnMan showing an empty cellular service,
then we can talk about adapting ConnMan to not bother showing that
service if the APN is empty.

Regards

Marcel