[ubuntu-uk] (UK) Virginmedia mobile internet- Troubles with yahoo and google sign in using Virginmedia mobile internet dongle

[alan c]

(also to ubuntu forum)

Is anyone in UK using Virginmedia mobile internet dongle and yahoo or
google accounts?
I would be most interested to know if you see the following problems
too. tia.

Workaround - please see below.

Problem:
is that although all internet sites are available and work ok, when the
user tries to login to either yahoo or login to google, the login
process stalls.

It is emphasised that generally, internet use is perfectly ok. The
problem is most specifically only at the early stage of trying to sign
in, in yahoo and also, since a week ago, google.

The yahoo process shows an incomplete login invitation screen, which is
continually trying to complete, where the user name and password
fields are shown, and can be filled, but the 'Sign in'  button never
becomes visible.

The google process accepts the entry of username  and password.
However, subsequently the sign in browser progress bar hangs at around
halfway, never completing.

Virginmedia phone support do not know anything useful about Ubuntu
use.

The user used the dongle on a windows machine with Internet
Explorer as a test and it completed the google sign in ok, suggesting
the dongle is not faulty.

A second Ubuntu laptop, nominally identical, was also tried, with
identical problem results.

When the laptops were connected to the internet via an ethernet cable,
then the sign in processes are ok with no problems.

It is interesting to note that the yahoo sign in page problem has
remained unchanged for some months, and that the google sign in
problem has only begun a week or so ago, previously google sign in was
normal and ok.

The browser being currently used is Firefox, currently version  3.0.15

Different browsers:
epiphany-gecko was installed and tried, and also showed exactly the
same problems.

At this stage, Opera browser was downloaded and installed, however,
for better download speed, the laptop was connected using an ethernet
cable, which remained connected while initial yahoo and then google
sign-in were tested - being wired connection - all was ok and working.

However a bright idea was considered at this time:

Both yahoo and google sign in facilities invited the user to *remain*
signed in. If the (virgin media??) machines somewhere were getting an
issue with some security timing or procedure, then what would happen
if the initial sign in was completed using the wired connection, and
the setting chosen for the user to *remain* signed in?

This was done for yahoo and google with both firefox and also opera,
with the user setting to remain signed in.

When the internet connection was then later transferred to Virginmedia
mobile internet dongle, both yahoo and google were available fully
signed in no problems! The process had apparently by passed the issue.

Workaround:
was to initially *not* use a Virginmedia mobile connection
but to use a wired connection to login and set to *remain* logged in.
Then subsequently use the Virginmedia mobile internet connection.

Thoughts:
It seems as if when internet connection is used from Virginmendia
mobile internet, that something in the early process with the ISP or
other secure machines, that an essential item is not being completed
satisfactorily. This is for both yahoo sign in and also for google
sign in. Use of the 'Remain signed in' option seems to avoid this issue.

Note: one experiment which was not done at this time was to attempt a
complete sign in from scratch using Opera browser and virginmendia
mobile internet. It is hoped that this may be done at a later time or
please may be done by others reading this to help test this issue.

=========================================================
Hardware:

Dongle:
Virginmedia mobile internet broadband dongle, monthly account use
dongle type: believed to be: Huawei E160G 3g USB modem

Signal strength is good at 3 out of 4 bars

Laptop:
Lenovo  type: ThinkPad N500-1 (from Linux Emporium)

and also the same problem on another, nominally identical laptop.

Software: Ubuntu 9.04, fully updated
browsers used:
firefox currently version 3.0.15
epiphany-gecko
Opera currently version 10.10
=========================================================

Suggestions welcomed
tia
-- 
alan cocks
Ubuntu user