Never saw this before. Usually it will just say device not recognized or something to that effect, meaning the SOHO doesn’t have a driver and/or doesn’t support a USB connection to said device. But, this is a new one, to me.
I plug in Motorola E4 (XT1768) and the USB interface disappears entirely from the main screen. I’m looking to do a direct USB tether for data to the SOHO over USB. Standard Android functionality. What’s the dealio here? Initially I thought perhaps the device drew too much juice (SOHO output is rather weak I have observed) but I’m able to power and trickle charge the same phone easily on a lousy 500mAh standard USB power port so I’m thinking it is something else. As a side note - why does Pepwave not publish the USB port spec? What is the maximum power output available for USB direct tether devices? I do know that it isn’t much (HW1, at least) because it does not keep any of several Jetpack devices topped up either (they slowly die as they are burning more juice than the SOHO is sending back in).
Yes, I confirmed that from the beginning. The Moto E4 tethers just fine and dandy to PC as well as to my little pocket travel router running OpenWRT. A couple clicks and it comes right up. When I connect to the SOHO, it basically shuts the port down. There’s no warnings or error messages, the USB connection just disappears from the interfaces. I have no idea what’s causing this.
Very weird, this should be a vanilla Android thing. Maybe try a different USB cable just to rule it out?
Otherwise you should grab a diagnostic report from the SOHO while it is in that state and then open a support ticket with us so they can take a look. Maybe the USB port on your SOHO is bad.
I will try again next time and generate a report if it fails to operate again. I’d probably accept the fact that the USB port is faulty or not operating properly, but other devices connect and tether with no issue, using the same cable and port on the same router. So I’m far more in the camp that there’s a driver issue or some other communication problem. Perhaps the E4 is not a commonly used enough USB tethering device to have caused any reports previously (it is a “budget” phone you could say) but I guess we’ll see. Thanks.