Mystery of sending SMS in Deepnet with GPRS modem

Some of Deepnet Security customers who use GPRS Modem to send SMS reported they sometimes got the error "org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcException: null values not supported by XML-RPC"



As far as I was concerned, this error message created a misleading impression.

Fortunately, you can check the actual reason by looking at the related log file,dgs.log, which by default is located under the folder C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\logs

In my case(I am using GPRS609 Modem), I got the following

INFO 2010-10-07 12:00:09,109 DGS - Got Transport: GSMModem, Provider: GSM Modem, Service: SMS
INFO 2010-10-07 12:00:09,125 DGS - SetParameterValuesTransportFilter
ERROR 2010-10-07 12:02:03,906 org.smslib - GSM: Network registration denied!
ERROR 2010-10-07 12:02:03,921 DGS - 
com.deepnet.dgs.common.exception.DGSException: GSM Network Registration denied!
 at com.deepnet.dgs.providers.GSMModemTransport.send(GSMModemTransport.java:41)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.TransportFilterChain.send(TransportFilterChain.java:26)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.SetParameterValuesTransportFilter.send(SetParameterValuesTransportFilter.java:10)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.TransportFilterChain.send(TransportFilterChain.java:24)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.Communicator.sendSMS(Communicator.java:46)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.Communicator.sendMessage(Communicator.java:64)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.services.Communicator.send(Communicator.java:75)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at org.apache.xmlrpc.Invoker.execute(Invoker.java:130)
 at org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcWorker.invokeHandler(XmlRpcWorker.java:84)
 at org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcWorker.execute(XmlRpcWorker.java:146)
 at org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcServer.execute(XmlRpcServer.java:139)
 at org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcServer.execute(XmlRpcServer.java:114)
 at com.deepnet.dgs.servlets.DgsXmlRpcServlet.doPost(DgsXmlRpcServlet.java:97)

 ...........

Now you have a better vision of this problem - "GSM Network Registration denied". You may ask why, well, I think it is a challenge to Deepnet support team, as Deepnet system only deals with 2 important setings, COM Port and Speed (the other two are descriptive names), they are nothing to do with GSM Network Registration!

With a revised dgs.war provided by Deepnet Security Ltd, I saw something really interesting in the log file.

INFO 2010-10-07 11:38:01,390 DGS - Got Transport: GSMModem, Provider: GSM Modem, Service: SMS
INFO 2010-10-07 11:38:01,421 DGS - SetParameterValuesTransportFilter
WARN 2010-10-07 11:38:25,281 org.smslib - CMS Errors [ +CMSERROR:33555 ]: Retrying...
WARN 2010-10-07 11:39:11,140 org.smslib - CMS Errors [ +CMSERROR:332 ]: Retrying...
WARN 2010-10-07 11:39:21,281 org.smslib - CMS Errors [ +CMSERROR:33571 ]: Retrying...
WARN 2010-10-07 11:39:43,390 org.smslib - CMS Errors [ +CMSERROR:33571 ]: Retrying...
ERROR 2010-10-07 11:39:57,796 org.smslib - CMS Errors [ +CMSERROR:33555 ]: Quit retrying, message lost...

if you'd like to carry out the same experiment, please download the file dgs.war and upgrade your Deepnet server at your own risk! Upgrade instructions are listed below.

At this stage, you are adviced to check the error code in GSM specs. For your convenience, you can get it from here.

Want a futher investigation? you are encouraged to use HyperTerminal to test SMS. For details, please look at this page where the essential AT commands are described, you can also find these AT command descriptions in my favourite PDF file How To Configure A GSM Modem Using HyperTerminal.

Upgrade Instruction

• Stop DAS service, in Command Prompt, type "net stop das";
  
• Delete all log files under the folder "C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\logs", assume you have a default installation of Deepnet Authentication Server;
  
• Delete the subfolder DGSSERVICE under "C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\work";
  
• Backup the file dgs.war under "C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\dgswebapps";
  
• Delete everything under "C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\dgswebapps";
  
• Copy the revised dgs.war to "C:\Program Files\Deepnet Authentication Server\Tomcat\dgswebapps";
  
• Start DAS service(type "net start das" in Command Prompt);
  

Reference

CMS ERROR Code List