Can't set my APN settings properly (Public Mobile, Canada)

franknarf8 · May 17, 2020, 3:33pm

Dear Teracube,

I’m trying to connect my new Teracube phone to my Public Mobile network provider, which is a Telus sub-brand (Canada).

Telus seems to be force-pushing its APN settings with some kind of setting-locking flag, which causes newer version of Android to disable the manual editing of APN settings. More info here :

I tried the proposed workarounds, but they don’t seem to be working for Android 9 +; therefore, I can’t get my data working.

This seems to be a manufacturer issue as I think there may be a missing entry in /etc/apns-conf.xml or something like that;

How can I fix this? Should I really need to root my device to edit that file manually?

Thanks

Frank

Sharad · May 17, 2020, 9:38pm

Hi Frank,
This does seem to be a special case. Here is a online link I found with similar issue. Could you try this app that is mentioned in there. Let us know how it goes.

We will continue to investigate it on our end as well.

Sharad · May 18, 2020, 7:52pm

Found another way to fix this. Does not involve root but does require ADB over USB.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75157321&postcount=14
(Full XDA thread)

Same solution referenced in Public Mobile’s forums as well : https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Unable-to-configure-APN-settings/td-p/401346#

franknarf8 · May 25, 2020, 3:58pm

Hello @Sharad,

Thanks for the quick answer and sorry for the late reply.

Unfortunately, those steps do not work; they only worked in Android versions prior to 9 (those workarounds used “bugs” from those versions to access those settings), but it is impossible from Android 9+ (the bugs were fully patched).

Would it be possible to add Public Mobile to the list of APNs shipped with Teracube phones?

Thanks!

Frank

franknarf8 · May 25, 2020, 4:03pm

Btw, here is my post on the PM forums : https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Teracube/td-p/507664

Sharad · May 26, 2020, 9:11pm

Yes - we will get them added in the next update. Meanwhile - would you be interested in trying out a test build with APN added? The installation steps will use fastboot (similar to the Bootloader unlock section here)

franknarf8 · May 26, 2020, 9:33pm

Hello Sharad!

Those are good news, thanks!
Yeah, I’m up for installing a test build; this will perform a factory reset, correct?

Thanks again

Frank

Sharad · May 26, 2020, 9:39pm

Great - should have a test build for you soon. If you have not unlocked your bootloader already, then yes - bootloader unlock will perform a factory reset. Installing the new build will not do a reset by itself.

Question - have you rooted the phone and tried those APN settings? Which APN settings should we add?

franknarf8 · May 28, 2020, 7:59pm

Hello Sharad,

Ok cool, I’ll unlock the bootloader as soon as you send me the new build!

I have not rooted my device yet, nor tried the APN settings; I guess you can find the values somewhere on the PM forums. (Somebody posted those values on my post : https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Teracube/td-p/507664)

Take care!

Frank

Sharad · June 4, 2020, 11:01pm

Hi Frank,

As promised here is the modified system image that includes the Public Mobile APN. Please note that we are not able to test it here (since the particular network is not in US).

Note: This is a temporary solution. We will include the fix in our next official build.

Download the image from here. [Update: this points to the latest revision as of Aug 15, 2020].
Unzip it to its img file.
Backup your data (Check under Settings > System > Backup).
Follow these flashing instructions to flash the image to your Teracube.

Let us know how it goes or if you run into anything.

Saijin_Naib · June 4, 2020, 11:09pm

This is customer service.

franknarf8 · June 7, 2020, 3:18pm

Hey Sharad!

Thanks for the test build; I’ve just installed it, but it unfortunately doesn’t seem to work :S.

The “Network & Internet / Mobile network / Network” setting shows ‘Public Mobile’, but there are no entries in the ‘APNs’ settings page (Where there used to be Telus settings). That page is now blank and shows the following text following text written in “Access Point Name settings are not available for this user”. I’ve tried restarting the device a couple of times, logging in with my google account and playing around with a couple other settings, but I’m not able to make this work (or try out any custom APN settings).

Is there any further troubleshooting info I could give that would be useful to you?

Would it be possible for you to re-enable the manual editing of APNs? I found this reddit post about which commits introduced those changes in the android codebase.

Thanks

Frank

Sharad · June 9, 2020, 11:05pm

We entered the following settings:

<apn carrier=“Public Mobile”
mcc=“302”
mnc=“220”
mmsport=“80”
mmsproxy=“74.49.0.18”
mmsc=“http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mb/mmsc”
apn=“sp.mb.com”
type=“default”
/>

The link you gave has slightly different settings. And this another link has slightly different.

Is it possible for you to call Public Mobile and ask them for the right Android settings? Or we can create another build with different settings?

Sharad · June 10, 2020, 12:19am

My colleague @robert has put together another test build for you. Will upload and share the the link tomorrow.

franknarf8 · June 10, 2020, 9:54pm

Hello Sharad,

I have another phone (Nexus 5X) which connects properly, so here are the snapshots of it’s APN Settings page. I hope it can help!

Take care

- Frank

(Looking forward to that build btw )

Sharad · June 11, 2020, 8:54pm

Here you go (new build) . Let us know how it goes. Any screenshots will be helpful.

Faith_Jones · June 15, 2020, 12:02am

Hi! I just got my Teracube, and am also on public mobile. Also can’t access my data, which I think is the problem on this thread. I could also help if you need another tester, or would love to hear a solution.

Sharad · June 15, 2020, 7:00am

It’ll be great if you can try the same instructions and let us know.

ps: I have updated the above instructions with the new image

franknarf8 · June 15, 2020, 3:03pm

Hello Sharad,

It still doesn’t work. Here are screenshots of my APN settings page.

I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning, but Public Mobile uses the infrastructure of Telus.

Is there anything else I can do? Some utility I could run?

Thanks!

Sharad · June 15, 2020, 9:12pm

Is it possible for you to do a root and try out the settings? We added the suggested settings to the apns-conf.xml - so not sure why its not working.

One more thing - can you try a different carrier SIM in this new build. Just to make sure that our apns-conf is working at all or not.