Cannot administer used AirLink LX60 via ACEmanager or ALMS

AirLink Routers
1

Hi, I hope someone who knows more than me can advise me..

I bought a used AirLink LX60 from a seller on ebay in UK last week. I did some reading on the Sierra Wireless website, downloaded the manuals and thought I knew what I was doing to configure it as a backup gateway (LTE router) in my home environment. I followed the instructions, fitted a sim card into it, plugged it into my Win10 laptop via an ethernet cable and powered it on. I http’d to the local ACEmanager admin page, 192.168.13.31:9191, used the password on sticker underneath it, and the password wasn’t correct. Tried the default, 12345, PW which also wasn’t correct. Hmm. Did more reading online..

I created a login for ALMS and registered my serial number, but it is already registered by another, am assuming previous owners?. So I can’t see or do anything with it from this admin tool. Hmm. The challenges of buying used IT kit from Ebay…

The Sierra site says to use ALMS or to manually update firmware to reset this (corrupted or changed) password. So I put it in recovery mode and updated it to latest 4.18 FW, it says ‘installation success, rebooting, do not remove power’ then hangs, doesn’t reboot and doesn’t ask me for radio fw upgrade. I didn’t note what FW it was on previously but it has to have been 4.15 or later as it was on port 9191.
I waited 30 minutes or so for it to reboot/ask me to upgrade radio FW, then rebooted it manually as it appeared to have hung. I could ping it on Ethernet and USB IP’s, but not HTTP to either of them. I rebooted it again, same. I factory reset it. Same, no admin web page. I upgraded FW again to latest, same. I update firmware again, same, it hangs after updating first FW. I factory reset it again. Same, no admin web page. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result so that doesn’t bode well for me..

Have followed these:
How do I factory reset a Gateway?
Can’t access ACEmanager - AirLink Routers / AirLink routers - Sierra Wireless Forum
How do I find the default password for my AirLink device?

So, the upshot is that I have an LX60 that I cannot administer via local HTTP ACEmanager page as Edge says ‘refused to connect’ nor OTA via ALMS as the serial number is registered by another, am assuming previous owner, am also assuming it isn’t stolen??

It has green lights on for power, signal and network flashes amber. GNSS flashes green as does Activity light when connected to a network, ie my laptop. I can ping it on 192.168.13.31 and 14.31 but can’t connect to web page on either of those IP’s on port 9191.

Can somebody please advise what am I doing wrong here? Or is this now a small brick and I need to send it back to the seller as not working and just buy a consumer grade (D-Link, etc) LTE router that isn’t as complicated as this to install, configure and manage? I am from an Enterprise IT background and would really prefer to get this one working though if I can.as it is a cracking little box that does all I need it to, if only I could get onto the admin page to configure it so…

I am assuming that I cannot just call Sierra Tech Support and ask them as I do not expect this device to be under a support contract. I am aware these came with a 3 or 5Yr warranty when new but I didn;t buy this new and don;t know how old it is. The firmware update page says 2022 so am assuming it is at least 3 years old.

Thanks for reading this far. I hope someone more knowledgeable than me can help :slight_smile:

James

2

@Jamesv,

I think that 4.18 has disabled the http://192.168.1[34].31:9191 port by default and requires https://192.168.1[34].31:9443/ instead.

As for the hour long wait, that is not unheard of. I have had a couple devices that have taken nearly that long. Most, however, upgrade in a matter of about 3-10 minutes. I typically don’t do the recovery mode flashing as the AceManager web interface gives an easier means of doing the flashing and seems to be extremely reliable.

Please let us know if you can get connected to the interface.

As for the ALMS service, I do not have a clue, but I am sure there is a way to contact a sales rep, etc and pay a fee to get ALMS support. For a single device, I do not think you would ever benefit from ACMS, but again, we do not use it for our fleet of 85 (105 during equipment rental season) devices so I can not speak to its pluses and minuses.

3

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the reply . And I can confirm that ports 9191 and 9443 do not connect via http.

But I can connect to it via SSH. And it accepts the password on the sticker. So I am just installing and configuring an FTP server so that I can use an AT command line to update the FW and Radio to 4.18 as per page 464 of the SW Config manual…

I’m clearly a sucker for punishment…

I’ll report back if that works in the next few days if I get chance.

4

Hi @Jamesv,

  1. When accessing the LX60 via USB, do you see any interface appearing like the one in the attached image?
    image
    image645×506 101 KB
  2. Please share a screenshot of the Network Adapters and Ports sections under Device Manager with me.
  3. If it shows an IP like in my screenshot, then when you access https://192.168.14.31:9443/, what does the screen display? Please share a screenshot with me.
  4. If the LX60 has already been registered to another ALMS account, it cannot be registered to a new account. You need to confirm that the old owner is no longer using the device and has sold it. If the old owner no longer has access to their ALMS account to remove the device, you must contact the Semtech Support team.

Thanks,

5

Please use https://192.168.13.31:9443/ It needs to be the ssl version.

6

HI Robin and Jerdung,

You both appear to be correct in that I needed to use https on port 9443. Yet I could swear that I didn;t put http:// or https:// infront of the IP’s and ports and it didn’t work previously. Yet it does now…
Many thanks. I can now access ACEmanager. And have updated FW to latest and it works very well as an LTE router, its intended purpose as a backup internet connection…
Again, many thanks for your help and I’m now feeling sheepish that I didn;t notice this..
Cheers

James

7

@Jamesv , one other thing I would do is go to the Admin -> Radio Module Firmware and upload all the firmware for the cellular providers that your SIM card supports. In our case, we have devices using a SIM card from a Virtual Network Operator that supports, globally, 85 different network operators. Our devices are only used in north and central America, so I upload the firmware for all those network operators, thereby allowing operator switching. If your SIM is single carrier, this is just a waste of time.