oot

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This is a write-up of my experiences getting the Alltel Snap (eg. a Samsung SCH-U340 mobile phone) to work with Bitpim under Slackware Linux 12.0.

I am not asking a question, the problems have already been solved, I'm just writing this up to help other people who might be searching for help with Bitpim.

The cable I am using is not an "official" one from Alltel or Samsung, it's just one I bought on eBay that was listed as being compatible with the phone.

NOTE: YOU DO NOT NEED TO FOLLOW THESE STEPS. These are the steps I actually went through, and are included to help people who've gotten partway through the process and run into trouble. If you're just looking for a step-by-step guide, see my reply to this post with a summary of the steps you need to take (there's only 5).

Step 1: Plugged the phone in to the computer. The phone started charging. Good, this means the cable is working.

Step 2: Had a look around and see what's happened in response to plugging the phone in.
In addition, the list I get by typing "lsmod" shows that modules named "cdc-acm" and "visor" have been loaded.

It's mistaking my phone for a PDA. This will cause problems later (see step #8)

Step 3: I downloaded and installed BitPim. I use Slackware, and there was no Slackware package, so I decided to try the rpm.
Installed fine.

Step 4: Ran BitPim. It attempted to auto-detect phone. I got the message "No phone detected/recognized. Run Settings?". I clicked "yes" to get to the settings page (the same one as under Edit->Settings).

Not a problem that the phone doesn't auto-detect. As of the time of writing this post, the SCH-U340 is not officially supported by BitPim (but you can still do stuff with it)

Step 5: Under settings, changed the phone type to "Other CDMA phone".

Step 6: Let's see if it works now... clicking "Get Data From Phone" will just show you a box with all the options greyed out, because the SCH-U340 is not supported by BitPim. Instead, you'll need to access the filesystem of the phone directly. To do this, choose "View Filesystem" under the "View" menu, then click "Filesystem" on the left where it appears.

Step 7: Attempting to browse the filesystem... it fails.

You will get an error message that looks like one of the following:
"Failed to auto-detect the port to use. I couldn't detect any candidate ports."
OR
a large window with a traceback will come up, and the relevant line is
"USBException: could not claim interface 1: Operation not permitted"
OR
"/dev/ttyUSB2: Could not open port: [Errno 13] Permission denied '/dev/ttyUSB2'"

In this case, all three of these errors result from the same problem: the wrong module was automatically loaded when I plugged the phone in. (If you are getting the third error with a different model of phone, it might be a permissions problem too, but in this case it wasn't).

Step 8: What went wrong?
Look back at Step 2 -- when I plugged the phone in, it was automatically detected as a Visor. This is incorrect.
To fix this, you need to run (as root):
This will unload the "visor" module, and unload and reload the "cdc-acm" module (the unload and reload is necessary because the visor module interfered with the cdc-acm module creating /dev/ttyACM0).

Step 9: Go back to BitPim. Under Edit->Settings->Comm Port find /dev/ttyACM0. NOTE: if /dev/ttyACM0 is listed under "inoperable ports", you need to log in as root and do "chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0", then click "Refresh" in the "Choose a comm port" dialog box, and /dev/ttyACM0 should move to "Available ports". Choose /dev/ttyACM0.

Step 10: Attempt to browse the phone's filesystem. If you haven't already, choose "View Filesystem" under the "View" menu, then click "Filesystem" on the left where it appears. It should now work.

oot

OK, and here's a summary of the steps to just get it working, instead of the trial-and-error process used above:

1. Install BitPim. On Slackware, this can be done with:
2. Plug in the phone. The wrong modules will load automatically. To correct this, run (as root):
3. Correct the permissions on /dev/ttyACM0. Run (as root):
4. Start BitPim. Skip attempting to auto-detect the phone, it isn't supported. Go to Edit->Settings. Set the phone type to "Other CDMA Phone" and the comm port to "/dev/ttyACM0".

5. Don't attempt to use the "Get Phone Data" and "Send Phone Data" features, they aren't supported for this model of phone. Instead, browse the phone's file system directly. To do this, enable filesystem view by going to "View" and making sure "View Filesystem" is checked, then find "Filesystem" in the left pane and click on it. A new pane will appear with a folder named "/", click the arrow next to "/" and wait for your phone's filesystem to load.

You will need to do steps 2, 3, and 5 every time you plug the phone in.

oot

Additional notes:

Ringtones are under /brew/ringer. (Do not put them in the nodrm subfolder). To upload one, navigate to this folder, right click, choose "New...", then choose the file you want to send to the phone. You will need to turn the phone off and back on before the ringtone will show up under the phone's menus. If the ringtone won't play, make sure the mp3 you are uploading is less than 100K and only has one channel. To turn a two channel mp3 into a one channel mp3, do "lame -m m originalfile.mp3 newfile.mp3".

I haven't figured out what's up with the images yet. There is a folder called /cam_data that contains files named photo001 photo002 etc., but they aren't in any format that the Gimp recognizes.

Note to Windows users who Google across this while trying to get your SCH-U340 or Alltel Snap to work with your computer: BitPim is available free for Windows too. You will need a Windows driver for your phone/cable (this should come on a disc with the cable when you buy it). I'm sorry I can't write you a detailed guide on how to use it, since I don't have Windows, but I can tell you that you'll need to set your phone type to "Other CDMA Phone" and you'll have to browse the filesystem (as described in step 5 of my second post) just like a Linux user would.

Uhm... that's all I can come up with for now. Hopefully this will save somebody else the trouble of having to figure all this out.

phisrow

Thanks for writing that up. I was having some trouble with my SCH-U340 until I ran into your writeup, working fine now. I've confirmed that bitpim works in the same manner on a windows box, as well.

In my case, running the (awful) verizon firmware, pictures show up as ordinary .jpg files in /mm/pg/Default Album

Preloaded pictures, ringtones, and whatnot don't seem to appear anywhere. Not a huge problem; but I was hoping to delete some of the preloads.

Coppersmithe

would you be willing to help me through the process in Windows? I'm not a total dummy on the computer, but this is slightly past my skill level. I feel like I've almost got it, and once I start a project like this I go crazy until I can figure it out.
Erin
coppersmithe@kohler.k12.wi.us