The Cell Broadcast story

[Ian]

@lduboeuf My Volla Phone X is running 20.04 dev channel r725 amd I heard nothing.... other than my wife's Android phone.

All the alerts were on in the settings, but both 'Cell Broadcast Enabled' and 'Receive emergeny notifications' were on but greyed out.

I will see what logs I can get.

EDIT: the journalctl returned nothing and I checked through all logs visible in Logviewer and there was nothing either side of 15:00.

I will stay on the dev chanel in case you want me to dig further through the logs. When you say so I will revert to stable.

Further edit: I live near to Newark, which is the back of beyond. Imagine walking from the edge of civilisation towards 'nowhere'. You will walk past Newark I have just checked my phone status and it claims to be 3g, not 4g so I guess that explains it. I am on the Three network (my wife has recently moved to Virgin who I believe piggy-back the O2 network).

[Lakotaubp]

@Ian Nothing on P3a dev 20.04 also.

[lduboeuf]

@Ian said in The Cell Broadcast story:

@lduboeuf My Volla Phone X is running 20.04 dev channel r725 amd I heard nothing.... other than my wife's Android phone.

All the alerts were on in the settings, but both 'Cell Broadcast Enabled' and 'Receive emergeny notifications' were on but greyed out.

I will see what logs I can get.

EDIT: the journalctl returned nothing and I checked through all logs visible in Logviewer and there was nothing either side of 15:00.

I will stay on the dev chanel in case you want me to dig further through the logs. When you say so I will revert to stable.

Further edit: I live near to Newark, which is the back of beyond. Imagine walking from the edge of civilisation towards 'nowhere'. You will walk past Newark I have just checked my phone status and it claims to be 3g, not 4g so I guess that explains it. I am on the Three network (my wife has recently moved to Virgin who I believe piggy-back the O2 network).

Bad luck. I don't think 3G/4G have any impact. Cell Broadcast is something that should work for all connectivities.
Now i don't know what to look at. If journalctl doesn't output anything with "CBS".
Could be lots of causes ( modem, layer in between android and UT, upper layers, ... )

But i would be interested to see the logs if possible by dm it to me.
I'm not at home currently

[lduboeuf]

@Lakotaubp nothing in logs ?

[Ian]

@lduboeuf I have run journalctl to a file and I can send it to you if you wish but according to last night's news the Three network failed to send the btoadcast. The file is prettty big and it might be worth me trimming it down a bit before sending, but I am away all week so I will have to do it at the weekend.

[Lakotaubp]

@lduboeuf was out yesterday. Just ran journalctl and log starts from 15:49 so after the broadcast. Any use?

[lduboeuf]

@Lakotaubp said in The Cell Broadcast story:

@lduboeuf was out yesterday. Just ran journalctl and log starts from 15:49 so after the broadcast. Any use?

humm weird. Did you use the command with grep CBS ?
But yes no interest if after 15:49

[lduboeuf]

@Ian said in The Cell Broadcast story:

@lduboeuf I have run journalctl to a file and I can send it to you if you wish but according to last night's news the Three network failed to send the btoadcast. The file is prettty big and it might be worth me trimming it down a bit before sending, but I am away all week so I will have to do it at the weekend.

Ah ok, that explain. So no need to send the logs.

[irnbru]

On P3a no emergency notification but I didn't realize I had to be on dev, my bad. In the UK it is only 4g/5g that receive the broadcast and in my networks forum a poster said only android 11 and above would work. Would that have an impact on Ubuntu Touch devices ?

[lduboeuf]

@irnbru said in The Cell Broadcast story:

On P3a no emergency notification but I didn't realize I had to be on dev, my bad. In the UK it is only 4g/5g that receive the broadcast and in my networks forum a poster said only android 11 and above would work. Would that have an impact on Ubuntu Touch devices ?

The dev channel was just to have logs in case of decoding failure.
i'm surprised it needs Android 11. Cell Broadcast is a protocol that exist since 2G iirc, and already had one on the P3a. But maybe providers didn't enabled it for others than 4G/5G.
Do you also have something in logs ?

[irnbru]

@lduboeuf
No logs unfortunately.
I was surprised too but according to the BBC website (UK national news) - " The alerts will work on all 4G and 5G phone networks and on devices with the following software:

iPhones running iOS 14.5 or later
phones and tablets running Android 11 or later

Older "non-smart" phones will be unable to receive the alerts, and nor will devices that are turned off or on aeroplane mode. "

[CiberSheep]

@lduboeuf said in The Cell Broadcast story:

i'm surprised it needs Android 11.

My husband got a notification and, I'm not totally sure, but I would say he doesn't have Android 11... when he comes back I can check.

I can try to check any log if any on his device if you explain what to do

[CiberSheep]

@lduboeuf this is his Android version

[lduboeuf]

@CiberSheep said in The Cell Broadcast story:

@lduboeuf said in The Cell Broadcast story:

i'm surprised it needs Android 11.

My husband got a notification and, I'm not totally sure, but I would say he doesn't have Android 11... when he comes back I can check.

I can try to check any log if any on his device if you explain what to do

Yes you can check if sudo journalctl | grep CBS output something

[hsce1]

@lduboeuf FYI, in Germany there will be another occasion for testing cell broadcast on September 14:

"On the Nationwide Warning Day, a test warning in the form of a warning text is sent to all warning multipliers (e.g. radio stations and app servers) connected to the Modular Warning System (MoWaS for short) of the Federal Government starting at 11:00. The warning multipliers send the sample warning with a time delay to warning devices such as televisions, radios and smartphones. There you can then read and/or hear the warning. "
https://www.bbk.bund.de/DE/Home/home_node.html

[lduboeuf]

@hsce1 thx for the info,

For testers, pre conditions are: 20.04, on 4g ( no data needed ), all Cell Broadcast notifications toggled on.
If nothing received please check sudo journalctl | grep CBS
If success, please take screenshots ( and share logs too )

[Capsia]

@lduboeuf Hi! The Italian cell broadcast system IT-Alert will be tested during 7 dates in September and October.

• 12 September in Campania, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Marche
• 14 September in Piemonte, Puglia and Umbria
• 19 September in Basilicata, Lombardy and Molise
• 21 September in Lazio, Valle d'Aosta and Veneto
• 26 September in Abruzzo and the Autonomous Province of Trento
• 27 September in Liguria
• 13 October in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano

They will then ask to submit a form about the experience on different devices and operating systems.

The original announcement: https://www.it-alert.gov.it/it/notizia/dal-12-settembre-ripartono-i-test-sui-territori/

[CiberSheep]

Tomorrow morning, Thursday 14 in Barcelona area:
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/proteccio-civil-fara-una-prova-del-sistema-dalertes-a-larea-de-barcelona/

[lduboeuf]

So we have very few sucess feedbacks for CB.
But it has worked!
Some debug logs are needed to be able to dive more but we haven't them: TODO
We still don't know which layer fail sometimes.

[wally]

I know this is an old thread, but it seemed the most relevant place to report:

Today I received a cell broadcast! Emergency alert test in Ontario, Canada. Running 20.04 OTA-6 on a Oneplus 5T.
Phone was on silent, so I just heard the vibrations and saw the message.

Way to go team! Many thanks to Lionel and others who've worked on this!