WebOS 1.3.1 and MyTether

UPDATE 11-17-09: All updates on the progress of My Tether are in red toward end of article.




A little background


The app allows people to use their WebOS device as a source for Internet to their laptop. Allowing for connection via USB cable, Bluetooth and WiFi making it a must have tool for every hardcore smartphone user, also simple enough for any everyday Joe/Jane to be able to browse the web when they are out and about.



Sad Storry


It is definitely an odd feeling when you are extremely excited about your newest update for your phone, all the talk has you hyped up and there it finally is; of course you immediately remove all your patches and begging to update your phone. When all done you start exploring all the new features of the updated WebOS cool little neat features added. But then when you need to jump on your laptop on the bus you bust out your Pre get started with MyTether and nothing. All that joy you felt earlier turns into sorrow right off the bat.  One of the biggest disappointments most of us faced with Palms 1.3.1 WebOS update was the fact that it broke functionality of one of the most useful apps available for the WebOS platform, MyTether.



Now the good stuff


As soon as Aonic (MyTether developer) got wind of this he jumped right on. As of right now MyTether is functional for both USB and BlueTooth tethering. Development is in the works to bring back Wifi tethering functionality. The newest version of MyTether that supports USB/BT is available in the donor form of mytether.net. Free version now updated to supports Bluetooth and USB tethering more info bellow . Quit interesting we get a solution to tethering in less than 24 hours of Palm breaking it on us. This is the second time this has happened if you all can recall the first time was from the release of 1.2 WebOS update. Feels like DaJavu a little don't you think? Eh Hum iTunes sync... but that's a story for another time. Just a little hypocritical of Palm. Sure it might be sprint pressuring them then again maybe not?



About his fix after the break.




How Functional is the fix?


First of all if you can help it don't update. You can disable auto update with the fallowing command line code entered via Terminal App, Putty, WebOSQuickInstall, Novacom or whatever you choose for your command line access



cd /usr/bin

mount -o remount,rw /

chmod -x UpdateDaemon

mount -o remount,ro /
then reboot



to re-enable update

cd /usr/bin

mount -o remount,rw /


chmod +x UpdateDaemon

mount -o remount,ro /
then reboot




Now for those of us in the sad story situation


Lets keep in mind this fix is still in its beta stages. As of right now we are able to tether using USB tethering which doubles for BlueTooth tethering simply by enabling a BlueTooth PAN network between your PC and phone (Sorry guys/gals no Wifi yet). USB tethering driver instructions are located on mytether.net for windows users. Linux users automatically get pre USBNet device recognized and ready to use. Sadly USBNet is not supported in Mac OSX as of yet but BlueTooth works flawlessly. A few bugs I noticed are when you first start MyTether it seems to think USB tethering is turned on when it is not so toggle it off fix has been made for both free and donor version to apply reinstall My Tether. When you are connected to your PC and ready, go ahead toggle USB tether back on hit enable when it asks about DHCP and you should be tethering and surfing the net no problem. So here comes the next bug; when I was done tethering I closed the app and then tried to do it again. This time around no luck. To fix it you need to restart your pre or at least JAVA on the pre which can be done using Luna Manager available via Preware and WebOSQuickInstall. That's about it for now. Keep in mind that one rule of thumb after done tethering simply reboot pre or just restart java for now. Complete fix is just on the horizon. Wifi solution has been established but breaks camera app working on resolving issue before released to the public.



Free version fix for USB and Bluetooth tethering ONLY on WebOS 1.3.1 has been applied... one note to keep in mind is that you may need to reboot your pre to restore its Internet after you are done tethering just like mentioned above. If you have Luna Manager installed you can just hit Restart Java


All you have to do to install it is run this simple command with linux access


Code:

wget -qO- http://vz.aonic.net/pre/my.tether.install | /bin/sh

Note: If you are using Terminal App Orange + . [period] makes |



A Word from the Man Himself


Sunday Nov. 15- Aonic says:

Today was a rough day for me, just spent the last 14 hours working on trying to fix My Tether on WebOS 1.3.1. Not all is bad, don't panic.

I was able to fix USB and Bluetooth tethering, but WiFi tethering is still not fixed in WebOS 1.3.1, I strongly suggest using WebOS 1.2.x if you need WiFi tethering. If you already updated to 1.3.1, you can try running WebOS Doctor.

As always, just re-run the installer(s) and it will update your My Tether to the latest fixed versions.

I tried various methods to get WiFI tethering working again, methods that led to me having to doctor a few times (doctoring and then updating back to 1.3.1 was a major time killer!). I will continue my attempts tomorrow morning.