Database Users

GPS Inaccuracy while in car?

Strange error I haven't noticed until a few weeks ago.
I've tested in both Damage Control v1, v2.05, and Fresh 2.0d (current ROM i'm running)
With google maps/nav it always places me about 50 feet+ to one side of the street. It moves with the vehicle just fine, but always puts me on a side street, so if I'm traveling down a 2 lane highway it's constantly saying "turn right onto hwy xxx"
My GPS is always DEAD ON accurate though. I mean even inside my house if I'm at the front of the house it puts that dot within 5 feet, if I goto the back of the house (bedroom) it puts me RIGHT OVER that spot. The movement however is not so great. My phone while in the GPS mount has a clear view of the sky through the windshield.
Am I the only one experiencing this?
Google NAV is basically useless, because of the annoying constant re-routing.

I had this on Thursday when I was traveling for the holiday. I was using DC2.0r2 at the time however. I didn't have the same experience with my last install of DC2.05. I will repost after my trip today. Might be some time.

Bump...
10char

Same here.gps problem with 2.1?

Yes I have this problem. It's been mentioned in the main damageless thread and the bug thread so I think people are aware of it.

I was having the same issue with the dcr2 but it went away when I wiped and went over to freshes. Might be cuz It's based off the latest Sprint leak?

Works very well for me on dcv2. I think it's almost as good as co-pilot with the directions. It's so easy to start by going "navigate to 123 fake st". I usually had to restart my phone every time I wanted to use co-pilot otherwise it couldn't find a gps signal.

Also seeing this issue.
When I fired up navigator it started telling me to make the first turn (down the street) before I even got in my car -- so I had to use maps instead. Using maps, my marker was always a bit off. For example, it was showing me consistently North of the road (not on any road) when I was traveling West. Not sure exactly when this started, but I am currently running Fresh 2.0d, just for the record.
EDIT: Also, just FYI, this is with a good and proper GPS lock. It does follow my every move and turn, and is entirely responsive, but it seems as though my location is consistently mis-calibrated somehow, and always by the same amount/direction.

Anyone tried pushing one of the 1.5 gps.conf files to a 2.1 rom and seeing if it makes a difference?? I remember that was a fix in the early 2.1 roms from flipz that came out. Try it and see.

All seemed to be working OK today for me. This is like my third/fourth flash of a 2.1 ROM that seemed to have done it for me. No more flashing for a little while. Not that it is a fix at all, but I've had it both not work and work after switching out a few different ROMs.

I was going to make a thread on this. It was off for most of my trip. I muted the audio and just watched for my exit. After awhile it moved me on top of the road and it was ok, but it did it again a few other places.
It was a really odd bug. DC2.05

It worked for me in D1. But it's off in D2. GPS seems to be fairly accurate when just finding my location in maps. It's when I start to nav that it goes off.

It actually started doing that thing today where it can't find a GPS signal until it's restarted again, so I guess it's not unique to the ROM or nav software. My phone just seems to be bad with GPS if it's been a while without a fresh restart.

Has anyone tried using the Sprint Navigation on this or is it just Google's beta Navigation application? For me I never did actually try the Sprint nav, just stuck in the Google one. I knew where I was going the whole time, so instead of trying things I just shut it off.

I might be on to something for the GPS issue.

Well like everyone I had the GPS issue and it was frustrating. I do run an app killer and I always notice many apps (especially the preloaded ones) Keep launching themselves. It got rather irritating. Specifically Telenav.
I noticed with Telenav my GPS would be very flaky. Once I got "killed" it the gps seemed to improve. I thought to myself maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Did a bit of research and found an app called "Start UP Auditor" which completely kills an app and restricts it from every starting up again. My gps seems to be working much better now.
I drove a few miles and on the Verrazano Bridge here in NY and the GPS was super percise. When I was at the end of the block it was at the end of the block as well at the same time. Not like it was before.
Now I can launch google maps and it will find me exactly in front of my house and not 200 feet away.
Takes a solid minute to lock on. Not more but not less unfortunately. So there still is a bit of a problem but for me at least it has exponentially gotten better. Versus it not even locking on previously.
I think I might be on to something. I cannot give all credit to me because I saw on a Tmobile forum someone say that they think the problem might be with the self launching apps so that's where I started to draw conclusions.
EDIT: Scratch that one min thing. It seriously just now took me 10 seconds to lock on and the GPS to start talking to tell me where to turn inside my house. Issue fixed?

I completly removed TeleNav and I still have GPS issues... It is not any software causing this problem. It is a Hardware / Firmware / Driver issue.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

gravis86 said:
I completly removed TeleNav and I still have GPS issues... It is not any software causing this problem. It is a Hardware / Firmware / Driver issue.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, one of the first things I did after rooting was remove all the bloatware, and Telenav was one of them.

gravis86 said:
I completly removed TeleNav and I still have GPS issues... It is not any software causing this problem. It is a Hardware / Firmware / Driver issue.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... Interesting.
My GPS issues seem to have disappeared after killing Telenav.
This just takes me back to the drawing board once more. I just do not understand...
I would like to see others responses. Does there happen to be vibrants with different firmwares?

So what happened to me?
Was it some magical stroke of luck?

Wow.
Initially, disabling TeleNav gave me a significant improvement in GPS performance. Indoors, I went from having 50-60ft. of accuracy (with multiple locks), to 12-15ft. of accuracy with a single lock. Initial accuracy was in the upper 40s, but quickly dropped to the highest accuracy I've seen with the device (the 12-15ft. figure) - indoor or outdoor - within a minute. Crazy.
Outdoor, on a perfectly clear sky, the best I've achieved was previously 25ft. of accuracy.
I rebooted (the phone froze, wheee!), with TeleNav still selected as disabled, and now, I'm only getting 30-52ft. of accuracy with a single lock. This took about two minutes to come down from 170ft. or so.
GPS settings have been switched to 'Automatic', from the stock supl server, for all of these tests.
Maps still shows me in Issaquah, initially (incorrect data), but quickly updates my position my exact location (within a few seconds). Previously, Maps would take at least a half hour to place me in even the correct city! Margin of Error: ~50ft. or so (shows me on the street, rather than on my property), within seconds.
Compass, as expected: still totally ****ing broken and ****ty.
I can confirm that - besides not being able to lock onto more than a single sat - I'm seeing drastic improvements. Thanks for pointing this out.
Still, I'm not sure the improvement will be enough to convince me to hang onto the device while we wait to hear from Samsung. :/

Jon C said:
Wow.
Initially, disabling TeleNav gave me a significant improvement in GPS performance. Indoors, I went from having 50-60ft. of accuracy (with multiple locks), to 12-15ft. of accuracy with a single lock. Initial accuracy was in the upper 40s, but quickly dropped to the highest accuracy I've seen with the device (the 12-15ft. figure) - indoor or outdoor - within a minute. Crazy.
Outdoor, on a perfectly clear sky, the best I've achieved was previously 25ft. of accuracy.
I rebooted (the phone froze, wheee!), with TeleNav still selected as disabled, and now, I'm only getting 30-52ft. of accuracy with a single lock. This took about two minutes to come down from 170ft. or so.
GPS settings have been switched to 'Automatic', from the stock supl server, for all of these tests.
Maps still shows me in Issaquah, initially (incorrect data), but quickly updates my position my exact location (within a few seconds). Previously, Maps would take at least a half hour to place me in even the correct city! Margin of Error: ~50ft. or so (shows me on the street, rather than on my property), within seconds.
Compass, as expected: still totally ****ing broken and ****ty.
I can confirm that - besides not being able to lock onto more than a single sat - I'm seeing drastic improvements. Thanks for pointing this out.
Still, I'm not sure the improvement will be enough to convince me to hang onto the device while we wait to hear from Samsung. :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea like I said in the OP the fix is better but there definitely is a problem that needs to be addressed. That might be either hardware or firmware, All thats left is to wait for sammy to fix it up. However my GPS performance for my needs is more than exceptional.

I have noticed that while running GPStest, Google Maps starts to work. Something is wrong with the API.

If anyone is getting black screen freeze ups, disabling GPS will clear that right up.

And, we're back to square one. So much for that.
Location services can no longer locate me, and show that I'm in a neighboring city. Nothing I adjust fixes this for more than a short period of time.
Oh, Samsung...

dattaway said:
I have noticed that while running GPStest, Google Maps starts to work. Something is wrong with the API.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to me that it is definitely a software problem. I don't think the hardware is bad. (The gps chip?)
heygrl said:
If anyone is getting black screen freeze ups, disabling GPS will clear that right up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I drove for miles and had nothing. Though if I am not using GPS I always turn it off to conserve battery.
Jon C said:
And, we're back to square one. So much for that.
Location services can no longer locate me, and show that I'm in a neighboring city. Nothing I adjust fixes this for more than a short period of time.
Oh, Samsung...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if they can't even find the issue yet. It will probably be fix in the 2.2 update.

I removed TelNav within 4days of owning my phone and it really for me hasn't changed a thing.
What helped me was turning off the wireless location feature. From what I noticed it looks for your location based off the cell towers first then it looks for your location via GPS. If its slow to find you via wireless then well its slow to find you via GPS too.

I didn't really tried the GPS when I saw the threads saying there was a problem with it and I read somewhere about "how to fix it" so I applied the fix before even using the GPS before, so I have no clue if I had problems or not, but after the fix, the GPS locks in about 10 to 15 seconds and gest my location on the spot, even indoors.
just change the GPS settings to google servers

Directly after rebooting my gps/navigation seems to work much better.
To make it more clear... I'll be using my phone throughout the day and then i'll try to use navigation. Usually it will just keep trying to find the route but it never actually finds it. I'll reboot the phone and it'll find my location and the route in <10 seconds.

kizer said:
I removed TelNav within 4days of owning my phone and it really for me hasn't changed a thing.
What helped me was turning off the wireless location feature. From what I noticed it looks for your location based off the cell towers first then it looks for your location via GPS. If its slow to find you via wireless then well its slow to find you via GPS too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe the wifi and GPS share the same antenna. Anyone know which antennas do what for sure?

Our cellular antenna is at the bottom under the bump. The one at the top next to the antenna port does the rest.

heygrl said:
If anyone is getting black screen freeze ups, disabling GPS will clear that right up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this tip, I hadn't caught this in the other GPS threads.

I ran and used My Tracks but forgot to turn on GPS. When I tried nav it could not get a fix until I restarted. Next time I'll try killing conflicting apps.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I just deleted the Tel-Nav app and now my GPS locks on in about 10 seconds and is dead on accurate. I even drove 165 miles today and never dropped a GPS signal. I could never do that before.

Does anyone know why the times are off one the gps sensors? My local time is 10:51, but gps test has it as 18:51 that is about 8 hours off.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

How's your GPS since the update? and other issues.

MINE SUCKS
I have been using the (new gps fix) and here are its issues;
When on the freeway and driving around town at twenty five miles per hour my position is one block behind my location. the navagation tells me to turn when I am way past the street I was suppose to turn on.
The GPS still loses signal constantly
The accuracy on the Google map is way off in comparison to what the GPS program says the accuracy claims. It claims 30 to 40 feet and its 300 to 500 feet on the map. You better not be walking next to a cliff in the dark
and yeah I rebooted the phone, reinstalled Google Maps, and cleared the cach, and nothing has changed
Why did I wait for the update
I no longer trust Samsung.
The phone lag is getting worse every day and I have lost the ability to go to the market unless I reboot.
The battery life sucks as well, I cant make it through a day with out recharging.
Hey but the hardware is great if it works
Unfortunately I bought this phone for the supposed functionality and this includes the GPS.
Has anybody done any testing and what are your results or issues?

Did you miss the other threadS on this?
Delete GPS data
Wipe data, reinstall from fresh flash of JFD
Disable Use Wireless Networks.

Mine sucks too. Position in Maps jumps all over the place, it's usually at the far end of the error margin, and is relatively slow getting a fix (compared to a Nexus One)
Accuracy has never been consistent (usually above 10m)
The compass is really bad too.
There were improvements with JI6, faster lock, more satellites, fixed gmt and local time, smoother compass, but still far from reliable.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

heygrl said:
Did you miss the other threadS on this?
Delete GPS data
Wipe data, reinstall from fresh flash of JFD
Disable Use Wireless Networks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry heygirl, your optimism is appreciated but that solution is no more than wishful thinking.
Drive a 1000 miles and your gps is still usrless. Wait a few days, abd your gps is useless.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

heygrl said:
Did you miss the other threadS on this?
Delete GPS data
Wipe data, reinstall from fresh flash of JFD
Disable Use Wireless Networks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you delete GPS data?

mine is working awesome i did it last night and is working way better than before, in some places where i used to have 0 or 1 bar i now have 3 bars, the gps working without problems.

I have noticed bugginess still.
Twice now-- When turning on GPS, opening Maps, clicking the FIND MY LOCATION button.. it sits for a moment.. and then reboots my phone. brilliant, right?
Other than that, it is a bit more usable.. still not reliable like my G1 was.
When sitting still in MAPS, my blue arrow spins, jumps a millimeter, spins back... doesnt know which direction I am moving/facing.
Compass is still absolute trash.

pb3000 said:
mine is working awesome i did it last night and is working way better than before, in some places where i used to have 0 or 1 bar i now have 3 bars, the gps working without problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot complain about the GPS anymore. I flashed the ROM myself, formatted and repartitioned before...just to make sure. Quick GPS locks on plenty of satellites. It does seem that it works best in standalone mode on my phone.

My gps accuracy sucks (usually ~30m), but it does lock pretty quick. Subpar while driving, had me jumping around at stop lights and even lost the signal entirely for a few mins. In my opinion, not yet worthy of the title "gps." i'm on stock ji6.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

My GPS seems pretty good, although it was good before the update since I used the leaked GPS fix.
The only thing I've noticed since I odin'd the official JI6 is that my battery seems to drain a bit faster than before, but I might be using it a little more than before as well, so it's hard to tell.

My only complaint is that when I turn on the navigation app it takes several minutes before the gps locks. Once that happens it seems fine.
The same is true of my Garmin standalone gps, so maybe I'm expecting too much.

Hey in case anyone is interested, GPS is working great on the Bionix 1.8 ROMS. I get a constant viewed 11 and locked 9-10 within 3-4 seconds and the tracking is very accurate.
Thought I would share if you are rooted and want to try it out, oh and did I mention it's a great ROM

Jdom58 said:
Hey in case anyone is interested, GPS is working great on the Bionix 1.8 ROMS. I get a constant viewed 11 and locked 9-10 within 3-4 seconds and the tracking is very accurate.
Thought I would share if you are rooted and want to try it out, oh and did I mention it's a great ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using Bionix 1.8 and it will take minutes sometimes to lock and then for no apparent reason the lock will drop. Mytracks still has me driving through buildings as well. It's better but not fixed (at least on my vibrant).

mine works flawlessly. All I've done is root with Ryans OCLF and never removed any bloatware. I do have the recent JI6 update.

Working great after the update..
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I don't have any of those issues.
I just tried looking for my location... and it's very accurate.
Before the update, it was off by a block, and constantly moving around.
Never put in a custom ROM or kernel.
I just MOD a few things.

I Concur
Jdom58 said:
Hey in case anyone is interested, GPS is working great on the Bionix 1.8 ROMS. I get a constant viewed 11 and locked 9-10 within 3-4 seconds and the tracking is very accurate.
Thought I would share if you are rooted and want to try it out, oh and did I mention it's a great ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
---------
I totally agree with you on this, I had stock ROM, flashed to Bionix 1.8, after the initial waiting period to grab a bird, I have since seen consistent locks (within SECONDS) using this ROM with JI2 baseband (to avoid data improvement/battery issues). It is now working in my house where it wasn't before. In particular with Wireless Networks turned off, that little satellite icon locks right quick.
Can endorse the Bionix ROMs highly enough, this thing is truly butter as advertised.
Also, this is with factory GPS settings (not supl.google.com).
Salud, happy vibrant-ing!
Kelly
Samsung VIbrant with Bionix 1.8 JAC/OC/Voodoo Kernel.

GPS & everything works great for me after the update. I did have to calibrate the compass but that was it...

There was an update? My wifes phone did an update yesterday from tmobile but my phone hasn't.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I upgraded yesterday through mini Keis, and locked on to 9 of 11 satellites, indoors. I tested this morning while driving to work, it was accurate, and navigation App works like a charm. Loving the layers and satellite view!
Before, I could rarely even get a GPS lock.

GPS Problem

IS anyone else having a problem with GPS on their phone? I was having a problem with mine, and i even did a complete wipe of my phone (odin and all) and its still having a problem. When i try to use navigation, it just says searching for GPS constantly.

Yes. If you nose around the Fascinate forum a bit, you'll find more users of these phones with GPS issues. There are a couple of fixes. I haven't tried them. Sometimes it locks on immediately, other times or can take a minute or ten. The I01 OTA update seemed to help a little. For me I just leave the GPS powered on extra much, and the wifi gives google maps a hint toward where I am. Once it does l lock onto the satellites, it works very well.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

it used to work fine, i was using it all weekend, now it wont lock at all. ill have to try somewhere else maybe its bc of where i am atm.

I was browsing through the fascinate forum a day or two ago and ran across a thread with a free app from the market its called GPS Booster. I can honestly say it 100% works. Before when i would open google maps it would put me up to 4 streets away from my actual location. Now i was able to zoom in and it put me in the right room of my apartment.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=825375&highlight=gps
the above link is where i came across it

janorton05 said:
I was browsing through the fascinate forum a day or two ago and ran across a thread with a free app from the market its called GPS Booster. I can honestly say it 100% works. Before when i would open google maps it would put me up to 4 streets away from my actual location. Now i was able to zoom in and it put me in the right room of my apartment.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=825375&highlight=gps
the above link is where i came across it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will have to check this out. My phone has never had accuracy issues, just problems locking. I spent five days in New Orleans, primarily downtown and in the French Quarter, and could only get it to lock twice! Talk about aggravating.

Has anyone tried this GPS fix from i9000?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=955395
Has anyone tried this on the Vibrant?

I tried it ......... it works on the Vibrant, did not really improve my GPS all that much but then, my GPS works pretty well anyway so hard to tell for me. before it showed across the street from my house .... now I am in the driveway of my house 24 ft closer

wow, it works. considerably faster lock.

Only ever used the samsung gps fix...though my gps has always been pretty decent, not a quick lock but accurate within 20ft. which is accurate enough for me. I'll try it just cause the author sounds like a funny guy.
Sent from my Vibrant using XDA App, Bionix-v 1.21

Tried it this morning in MN. With default settings and even going in and focing aids (hehe) it broke my gps. Before after 35 seconds it would see all 11 sats at the very least and eventually fix on 3-6 of them. After using it saw maybe 3 sats in a minute and never locked on. Had to go in and delete its data, uninstall and restart phone before I could get a lock again. All this tried out doors.