Ubuntu – Mobile broadband showing “Not Enabled” on Lenovo X1 Carbon 5th gen in Ubuntu 16.04

lenovomobile-broadbandnetworkingthinkpadusb-modem

I have installed Ubuntu 16.04 on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5th generation).

The 4G internal modem is showing as "Not Enabled" in the network manager. The model of the modem is: Sierra Wireless EM7455

The system recognises there is a modem:

$mmcli -L

Found 1 modems:
    /org/freedesktop/ModemManager1/Modem/5 [Sierra] MBIM [1199:907B]

But when modem manager is started it shows the following errors:

ModemManager[15054]: <warn>  [1490988196.927207] [main.c:101] 
name_lost_cb(): Could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.ModemManager1' service name
ModemManager[15054]: <debug> [1490988196.927263] [mm-base-manager.c:814] 
set_property(): Stopping connection in object manager server
ModemManager[15054]: <info>  [1490988196.928180] [main.c:187] 
main(): ModemManager is shut down

I've had a Google about this issue and the best I could find was this thread on the Lenovo support forums.

However I have been unable to get the modem running with the information/ instructions on that thread.

Has anyone been able to get their mobile broadband running successfully on their X1 Thinkpad in Ubuntu 16.04?

Best Answer

As you have mentioned in your question, this thread in the Lenovo forums says that it is a problem with the version of modemmanager, which must be upgraded to 1.6 or later. That is why it apparently works when you upgrade your distribution; however if you don't want to do so just use this PPA to upgrade just the version of modemmanager to the one you want.

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