GPS still doesn't work? Try this. - Galaxy S I9000 General

Greetings all!
Ever since updating from 2.1 to 2.2 my phone (i9000m) has not been able to acquire a GPS signal. I tried everything I could find on xda and online to no avail. While the 'Test GPS' application was able to identify satellites, none of my applications could (not even Google Maps!). Miraculously, I stumbled upon a solution earlier today. Once I turned off my Wifi (and I don't mean 'Use Wireless Networks'), my GPS started working instantly. The signal locked on FAST and was ACCURATE. I don't know why this happens. Maybe the Wifi interferes with the GPS? Anyways, I decided to share this right away in case it could help others with a similar situation.
Jonnie
P.S. My GPS settings are stock settings other than my Accuracy, which is set to 30m.

Related

GPS out of the country?

Hello!
I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.
It never worked once.
I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.
As soon as I got back home, it started working again.
Any ideas?
Mod Edit: Moved from Titan Upgrading
Thanks!
Hello!
I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.
It never worked once.
I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.
As soon as I got back home, it started working again.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were roaming overseas, then you won't be inside Verizon's firewall, therefore you won't have connectivity to the PDE server. The standalone GPS should have still worked, though it probably would take a lot longer to fix due to the fact you moved a great deal since the last fix. Did you try to use QuickGPS to download the ephemeris data? That probably would have sped up your fix a little.
I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.
I've let it stand by the window for hours and it never got a lock. I didn't try QuickGPS.
Should I have switched something in the registry to have it work in standalone mode instead of assisted?
Well, i'm living in Republic Of Moldova. WE have no aGPS here at all, but i still can use GPS function on Titan. I have to wait about 1-3 minutes for lock.
I have installed DCD 3.2.6 rom and 3.42.50 Radio. Use SeaSGEE to download ephemeris data and Navitel Navigator. But Tom Tom and any other programs work fine too.
PS Sorry for my English.
I recall having a similar discussion in an earlier thread.
See if any of this info helps:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2538917
If you do that right, i'm pretty sure it won't even attempt to connect to a PDE server (when u change GPSMode), so you should be able to get a *slightly* quicker lock, as it won't waste time looking for that server.
I do also suggest using some other tool like QuickGPS to retrieve the ephemeris data before trying to get a lock; it *should* speed it up, but I don't know how true that really holds.
Ok,
Thanks for all the infos. I'm going to Madrid next month, I'll try again there.
I was able to get GPS locks all over Europe no problem this past July.
I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it doesn't matter whether you have Verizon or Telus when it comes to aGPS. I was referring to aGPS. If you aren't inside your carriers internal network, then you won't access the PDE.
The GPS should still work regardless, just in standalone mode, which is why I asked if you tried QuickGPS to try and speed up the lock times.
I was under the impression that there is a registry setting for the global "zone" for our GPSr to look for and that it was set to US.
From the posts I reviewed few if any folks have been able to lock overseas unless they got locks while traveling
GC, have you found any settings in the registry for this?
In QuickGPS I think the setting is as follows:
[HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region
Its set for US for me here in TN and I think someone from Holland posted on PPCGeeks a long time ago NL worked for him to get a lock once he found and got it via trial and error...
I am sure you are onto something here
I think you guys are really onto something here. I have had the most frustrating time with my titan because of this very issue. I travel outside of the USA frequently and in all my travels have only managed to get a lock once! All through Australia and Thailand with no phone signal I was unable to get a lock with either flight mode on or phone mode on. Even in Taiwan where VZW has some modicum of representation (i.e the phone function worked but zero data) I go no lock.
gc was right about the agps thing. Outside of Verizon network you will not get assisted gps (although strangely when in "extended area" roaming inside USA it still seems to work).
in the end i tried a hundred things to get a lock including leaving the phone out in the full view of the sky for 6 hours. Nothing worked except the gps mode that scrawnyb talked about. I finally got a (very slow) lock after what seemed like hours.
I really believe that osteo's answer about the zone (i.e. "US" here in USA) is also part of the answer. I can only assume that the ephemeris data has to be relative to where you are on the earths surface, so the phone having some idea of where you are surely would help (especially without cell tower help from agps).
Targitai, if you visit this thread again can you please check the setting in your phone to see what zone setting you have that assists with locking. You need to look in [HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region and check that you are not set to "US" or similar.
I wont be traveling OS for a few months now, so I cannot confirm any of the above. I hope others who are traveling see this thread and can report back.
Thanks for the helpful info on this thread. This problem has been bugging me for months. Strange this is that my bluetooth gps never takes more than about 2-3 minutes to get a lock, even after crossing to the other side of the earth, over 9000 miles to Australia.
Well,
I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.
Any other things I can try?
stanelie said:
Well,
I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.
Any other things I can try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long did you wait, and do you have a clear view of the sky?
After traveling a long distance it can take some time to download the full catalog info on the satellites.
I waited a few hours in clear sight of the sky.
My old hp hw 6515 with a old stand-alone GPS chips can find a lock fine...
sorry, double post...
I have had my gps lock over the ocean in an airplane. I dont have navigation software installed other than google maps so I just used Visual GPS to verify I had lat/lon fix and a gps speedometer app to tell me I was going at the same speed the captain had said. No wireless data connection at all.
Hi, I have a similar problem, but when I'm in a no service area, the GPS locks in 2 minutes. When the phone gets a cell phone tower, never gets a lock unless I let him overnight catching sats. I'm from Venezuela, may be the cell phone towers or the network, I don't know, induce some kind of conflict in the position calculation of the GPS. In the flight mode the problem persist.

[FIXED]No network location when "use wireles networks" is enabled

I have a epic runing DI07, rooted. Since I got the phone the GPS has been flawless, and i use google navigation everyday without the first issue.
But my phone is unable to determine its network location, so if GPS is off, an application can not determine my rough location.
Most of the time I don't care at all about this. However some application, "Weather and toggle widgets" uses network location to figure out where you are, and give you weather for that area, it will not even look for a GPS location. and no mater what it fails to fine my location.
I have also tested this with google maps, and every other app I have that can find my location based off what tower im connected to. I have reflashed, even rolled back to the old rom to see if it worked.
So i went into the sprint store and they told me it was working as intended. I called bull *(@# and said I wanted to exchange my phone. Dude at the counter had a moment and I showed him on the moment that with network location enabled and GPS disabled you get a blue ring in google maps showing the area you could be in, aka rough location. So he agreed to exchange my phone, we pulled out 2 more epics and tryed them both and they both behaved EXACTLY the same way. GPS lock was no problem, network location was 100% fail.
What is everyone elses experience with this?
bump. Just updated to DI18, "use wireless networks" still provides no location.
Works for me...
No problem here... running on DI07, stock but rooted. Turned off wifi, turned off GPS, turned on "use wireless networks for location" (forgot to mention) and started Maps. It definitely took a little while longer to lock on, but there I am with a big blue ring around little blue me.
Wanna go test my issue for me now
I would be forever grateful
Still no dice, anyone else want to test for me to see if this works or not for you?
update.
I pushed the NetworkLocation.apk from the samsung moment and rebooted and now its working great! It works over WiFi and over 3g/1x, and it didn't break GPS.
attached is the APK

Epic GPS issues

I have had my Epic since it was released and for the original build and the first OTA update, my GPS worked fine but I have been trying to use it lately and its not finding satellites. I am wondering if there is a fix for this or if anyone else has been seeing this issue? I know people had issues on earlier builds...
Under what conditions is your GPS not working? Indoors? Outdoors? Assisted GPS enabled or disabled?
djcslice said:
I have had my Epic since it was released and for the original build and the first OTA update, my GPS worked fine but I have been trying to use it lately and its not finding satellites. I am wondering if there is a fix for this or if anyone else has been seeing this issue? I know people had issues on earlier builds...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search for "Cold Start" workaround in this forum or any other Sprint Epic forum.
All Epic phones have GPS bugs. The worst one, which you have just experienced, occurs after a period when the GPS has not been used lately, and the phone has not been recently rebooted. This bug has been isolated to these conditions, and obviously is caused by poor internal handling of time-sensitive GPS cache data. The workarounds force a temporary refresh of the cache.
BTW, even though all Epic's have GPS bugs, officially Sprint and Samsung are still in the denial phase. The bugs may not get fixed, so you should learn the workarounds,
You can also download "GPS Status" which lets you clear your cache data and redownload without having to gimp your GPS in cold start mode (which is horrid if you're off network).
boomerbubba said:
Search for "Cold Start" workaround in this forum or any other Sprint Epic forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recommend this cold start mode as well. Using GPS status to force cache only works part of the time and gimps out your GPS unless your are turning GPS status on and off a dozen times a day each time you want to use location application, not to mention background uses of GPS.
I'm having the same issue, my GPS used to work fine before the latest update and now it takes 2-5mins to acquire a single when im trying to navigate.
narn17 said:
I'm having the same issue, my GPS used to work fine before the latest update and now it takes 2-5mins to acquire a single when im trying to navigate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1)Make sure "use wireless networks" is off
2) use cold start GPS workaround
I was having trouble with the cold start workaround being an intermittent fix. I realized, however, it was usually when I left my house with WiFi turned on.
Apparently the GPS doesn't work (at least on mine) if I have WiFi on even if it's not being used (not connected to an AP). I do not have "use wireless networks" turned on, either.
That really struck me as odd because why would the GPS have anything at all to do with Wifi?
othan1 said:
I was having trouble with the cold start workaround being an intermittent fix. I realized, however, it was usually when I left my house with WiFi turned on.
Apparently the GPS doesn't work (at least on mine) if I have WiFi on even if it's not being used (not connected to an AP). I do not have "use wireless networks" turned on, either.
That really struck me as odd because why would the GPS have anything at all to do with Wifi?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it is the GPS receiver that has a problem. It is the network-based refreshing of the GPS cache, which is what the Cold Start setting triggers -- that is a problem. Having WiFi on inhibits the cellphone network data connection, and after you leave the house your WiFi does no good.
I and some others have found that this cache refresh not only needs WiFi off, but also 4G off. The refresh occurs smoothly using 3G data. (This 4G behavior makes little sense to me, and I think it is itself another symptom of the Epic's bug.)
I use the Cold Start workaround. To make it work effectively, before I start the GPS I make sure WiFi is off. When I am outside and need to initialize the GPS, I temporarily toggle 4G off. Then I open GPS Test, which turns the GPS radio on, forces a Cold Start refresh of the cache, and confirms that I get good satellite locks. Then I turn 4G on again before using an app such as Google Maps.

[Q] Geotag Issue

Hi all,
I own a Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000) and I'm running Android 2.3.4, CyanogenMod-7-Nightly-GalaxyS.
There seems to be a problem with my camera geotagging. I have enabled both Wireless networks and GPS satellites and I have turned on the 'Store Location' feature in camera settings. However, whenever I take pictures, the geotag doesn't seem to work and the pics often come out with 'Unknown location'.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, what I've noticed is that, it only works when the GPS is locked on a location, like when I'm running Sygic in the background. When I don't have Sygic running, the pictures always come out with Unknown location.
As far as I know, the camera is supposed to geotag the pics based on two modes, either through wireless network or/and GPS satellite. That means that even if my GPS is turned off, the camera should be able to tag my pics with my network location (even if it's not accurate). However, that's not the case with me, the pics are not geographically tagged at all, despite the fact that the location positioning through wireless network is always turned on.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? I have tried searching for similar problem but I have found no relevant threads with relevant solutions. I hope someone is able to help me with this. Thank you for your time.
AFAIK geotagging has only ever used the gps for location so it will only work when gps is locked.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Hi Mark,
I can't say for sure, I've come across sources saying that both Wireless networks and GPS satellites can be used for geotagging, but the former often gives inaccurate tags. I have tried searching for a definite answer from an official source or something but couldn't find any.
That aside, I usually have my GPS satellite turned on anyway, but the pics still come out untagged. Upon launching the camera app, do I have to wait for the GPS to get a lock first before snapping the pic? I have tried waiting, but the GPS gives no indication whatsoever that it's even trying to get a lock.
If I have to wait like a minute or two before taking a pic before the pic is able to be tagged, I think that's pretty ridiculous cz seriously, who launches the camera app and leave it idle for 2 minutes before taking a pic right?
Ambrosial said:
Hi all,
I own a Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000) and I'm running Android 2.3.4, CyanogenMod-7-Nightly-GalaxyS.
There seems to be a problem with my camera geotagging. I have enabled both Wireless networks and GPS satellites and I have turned on the 'Store Location' feature in camera settings. However, whenever I take pictures, the geotag doesn't seem to work and the pics often come out with 'Unknown location'.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, what I've noticed is that, it only works when the GPS is locked on a location, like when I'm running Sygic in the background. When I don't have Sygic running, the pictures always come out with Unknown location.
As far as I know, the camera is supposed to geotag the pics based on two modes, either through wireless network or/and GPS satellite. That means that even if my GPS is turned off, the camera should be able to tag my pics with my network location (even if it's not accurate). However, that's not the case with me, the pics are not geographically tagged at all, despite the fact that the location positioning through wireless network is always turned on.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? I have tried searching for similar problem but I have found no relevant threads with relevant solutions. I hope someone is able to help me with this. Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how I'm doing it.
When I cannot get a lock on the gps, I turn on the 3G data, and open gmaps.
After I get a relative position through my network antenna, I leave gmaps (not close it!!!) and switch to camera.
Before I used open street maps, and sometimes it didn't require the 3G connection, but now I'm just doing the gmaps workaround.
Afterwards it's picasa, and if I got a geotag position on the first picture, I just use that location for the rest of the album
Hi Cristi,
That's pretty much similar as leaving Sygic running in the background like I've mentioned. That's more like a workaround and not a solution. Besides, running Sygic or any other navigation app will kill the battery quite quickly. I'm trying to look for a permanent solution or at least detect the source of the problem to begin with.
You must have a fix, since you don't know where you are before the fix...
With GPS the first fix can be quite long (cold start) since you have first to downloads the ephemerides. After that if the GPS is well initialised it will reused the previous downloaded ephemerides (hot start) so the fix will come sooner...
With assisted GPS, you can download the ephemerides from the network rather than the satellites, so the first fix is normally quite fast (a few seconds). That's sufficient to tag pics (on many devices it's working quite well).
However if the A-GPS is mis-configured or if the reception is bad (not many satellites - cloudy weather - under a bridge or inside a building) then fix will take longer
So the first thing is to configure correctly the GPS (verify that it doesn't restart always using cold start and, eventually, enable assisted GPS to have a fast 1st fix).
If all is configured correctly, it should improve the time needed to obtain the 1st fix.
However if you have a bad GPS on your Galaxy S, your not lucky !
You can try somel of the many GPS fixes you can find in these forums. For some people it seems to work (but not for everyone...).
You can also try to convince your support to exchange your SGS. If you're lucky you will obtain a good one.
Hi Herbert,
Thanks for the suggestions on fixing the bad GPS, I know a lot of people have been saying that the GPS on Samsung Galaxy S is a bit faulty.
I understand that the GPS needs some time to get a lock on a position, but what I'm more concerned about is the fact that the GPS icon shows no indication whatsoever that it's trying to get a lock upon launching the camera app. So, how long must I wait? 10secs? 20secs? Anything more than that is a bit pointless I think.
Another thing is the wireless networks tagging, the fact that the camera is unable to tag the pics based on the network location puzzles me. Anyway, for the time being, I'm just going to assume that my current telco doesn't support network positioning. I'll try it with a different telco and see how it goes.
I installed Compass from App Market...when the gps has already locked a position that is when I start to use the geotagging.
Hi Darl,
I am using GPS Assist to temporarily workaround this problem, I run GPS Assist before launching the camera app. The GPS Assist locks on a position quite quickly, it usually takes around 5seconds or so, provided I'm in an open area that is.
However, I'm still looking for a permanent solution.

GPS not working

Rooted my G1 yesterday for the first time and installed
GreenRomProject-Presents-CyanogenMod-7.1-D/S-08/06/2011
H-BOOT 1.33.013d
Radio 2.22.27.08
Everything seems to be fine EXCEPT my GPS isn't working - When I hit my location in maps it says to enable a My Location source in system settings - I have use GPS satellites checked and use wireless networks unchecked - if i check use wireless networks it will get me my location but doesnt solve the problem why GPS isn't working. Also when I use facebook and try to check-in with places, facebook crashes (I'm assuming its trying to use GPS and for some reason it can't).
I was having the facebook crashing problem prior to this and didnt notice if GPS was working or not prior to this so I'm wondering if something got messed up during the rooting of the phone or is my GPS somehow not enabled? I don't even get a satellite icon in maps or facebook. Any help ?
anyone ?????
try reflashing
Same problem here with Laszlo's Froyo, seems that switching on/off GPS in settings doesn't do anything. Normally I got a blue color on the LED, nothing happens there either.
Very fast MOD, but I definately want to get GPS working!
Rich
Try different ROM. See if you get the same problem.
Right, got it working. Don't know what did the trick, changed radio to v2.22.28.25 (from 2.22.27.08) and installed "GPS-test-plus" (gps-test-plus-version-1-1-3 from androidxmarket) after I started the gps-test program my location changed to the right one in my case from Holland to Sudan (!)
Maybe this could be helpful to anyone.
Glad everything works out.

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