How is your GPS performing - Droid Turbo 2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I bought a new (to me) T2 for one reason: to use as a hiking GPS. With a shatter proof screen, gigantic battery, and a LifeProof water-tight case I figured for around $170 I can get myself a top-of-the-line GPS for 1/2 the price of a half-as-good Garmin unit. The thought was to stick a 32gb card in it, freeze all the moto and google crapware, install Backcountry Navigator (BCNAV) and call it a day.
Well, that is not working out so well for me. The GPS is struggling maintaining a lock especially when running in the background in the my pocket. This was at 11000 ft elevation with wide open skies above me, no canyons or ravines in sight. Quite often I would pull out the phone and see the message "searching location" on the lock screen. The track recorded by BCNAV was choppy and reflected the occasional loss of GPS position. My Nexus 6P in contrast had no trouble maintaining a GPS lock the entire time. In fact, I am looking at the T2 screen right now sitting on my desk next to by 6P and after turning waking it up it was displaying "searching location" for about 15 seconds before it found a lock.
What is your experience with the T2 GPS lock? Is there something I can do to prevent the GPS "going to sleep" in the background?

The GPS is AGPS, if there is no internet connection, it can take a long time to get a lock

How's that side by side test on your desk work out if you connect the DT2 to wifi for Internet access?

mjones73 said:
How's that side by side test on your desk work out if you connect the DT2 to wifi for Internet access?
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Click to collapse
Still issues with DT2. May have been due to Greenify though, I had turned on aggressive doze. Have not tested without it yet, will do so in the coming days

I have Force (T2 for non USA countries) and GPS works perfectly. Just recently I've figured out (when someone asked for GLONASS) that AGPS hasn't been updated for more than a month and GPS worked flawlessly. Locking in few seconds even when changing continent. Didn't have problems with GPS during hiking in the woods either.

Yup, it is aggressive doze
http://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/greenify/aggressive-doze-kills-gps-app-t3453283

No problems with GPS since disabling aggressive doze in tasker. Since I am using the phone mostly as a GPS will probably disable aggressive doze in Greenify all together.

Related

DII8 - back to GPS issues.

Anyone having major GPS issues? Seems like it was worse than before. Took forever to get a lock while I was driving, had to stop and turn off GPS/back out of Google Nav, go back in. It got a signal for about 10s then lost it.. with full bars. Anyone else having this problem?
Mine still doesn't work at all. -_-
No problems here ... I usually have it off but whenever I need it, I've always gotten a lock immediately and flawless navigation using Google Maps. Absolutely destroys battery though
Took me 15 min to get a lock on a clear day outside on a fresh reboot and still was off on my location. My touch pro 2 never had this problem.. I could use it inside a building full of metal and still get a lock.. I love the Epic but I would not use the gps in its current state of function for navigation purposes..
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
I think for many, it's still having problems on cold boots. Once it locks, it seems to be fine. I never experienced this though, I only have problems getting GPS signal inside buildings.
nimaim said:
I think for many, it's still having problems on cold boots. Once it locks, it seems to be fine. I never experienced this though, I only have problems getting GPS signal inside buildings.
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Click to collapse
No the opposite is true, the problem people are reporting, including those above, are on warm starts where, on occasion, old expired ephemris data is in cache and causes problem getting a lock in otherwise good conditions.
This is much tested and there is a good workaround. By setting the Epic to cold start you overcome this problem, it is stickied as the workaround on the large epic forums elsewhere:
Enter GPS debug/settings application by typing *#1472365#
click "Setup" tab
click "position mode"
Click "starting mode
Enable "Cold Start"
Back out.
Whats the difference between warm start and hot start
mine shows me and my wife in texas half the time and we live in florida, never did it before this update. seems to be picking it up from the wifi I use in my house, as thats ATT and they are SBC and i believe they are in texas, but i never rehooked her phone up to wifi and lattitude shows her in texas at different times and the thing shows me in texas as well, its like cell triangulation doesn't work worth a damn.
nimaim said:
No problems here ... I usually have it off but whenever I need it, I've always gotten a lock immediately and flawless navigation using Google Maps. Absolutely destroys battery though
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^ Same for me. Never an issue and even locks indoors. Yes it eats batteries for lunch though.
Sent from my wrist watch calculator
The GPS is worthless and can not be relied on. Yes, on occasion it does work and on that rare occasion, it seems to work well. However, on the five occasions that I have NEEDED it, it has failed me completely, NEVER locking on my location. These occasions have been outside with clear sky. When I use GPSStatus, it shows 9 sats but 0 lock. I just don't understand how it can see 9 sats and not lock at all. I have a >10 year old POS handheld GPS that with no network, no maps, no anything locks every time within one minute. Samsung must have actually had to try to f--- this up.
Yes I have applied the cold start "fix" and it has made no difference, sometimes the GPS works and most of the time (especially when I NEED it) it does not.
Using the cold start method posted by aero1, my GPS.... sometimes works. Sitting in my car on a clear day with full signal, the GPS can take up to 5 minutes to get a lock. If I'm moving, It will sometimes lock onto me but still say "searching for GPS" so it won't give me driving directions... even though it can see where I am.
In cases when it does work, it lags a LOT. Sometimes it won't update my position for a minute... which is useless if I have a turn coming up that I don't know about. It is always jumping to where I am every few seconds. Google nav on the EVO was perfectly smooth. It stuck with me around turns and never lagged. Always perfectly accurate. It is the only thing I miss from the EVO.
I've completely given up on the GPS and use my Garmin (/wrists) whenever I need something reliable
hydralisk said:
Using the cold start method posted by aero1, my GPS.... sometimes works. Sitting in my car on a clear day with full signal, the GPS can take up to 5 minutes to get a lock. If I'm moving, It will sometimes lock onto me but still say "searching for GPS" so it won't give me driving directions... even though it can see where I am.
In cases when it does work, it lags a LOT. Sometimes it won't update my position for a minute... which is useless if I have a turn coming up that I don't know about. It is always jumping to where I am every few seconds. Google nav on the EVO was perfectly smooth. It stuck with me around turns and never lagged. Always perfectly accurate. It is the only thing I miss from the EVO.
I've completely given up on the GPS and use my Garmin (/wrists) whenever I need something reliable
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Click to collapse
Same results I'm having now. Using the workaround (cold start) it's hit or miss whether I get a lock or not regardless of how many sats my phone sees.
I put it to "cold boot" and am still getting shaky results. I used it to find my way back to my apartment but it kept putting me on the road NEXT TO the highway and jumping back and forth. Did this again when I was returning from work during lunch just to see if it happened again. Yep, gonna have to lug around my Garmin from now on.
Just sad.
Try this, weird but is working for me.
I installed an app from the market called GPS test to test my GPS signal strength.
Whenever I launch GPS test and then run google navigation it locks on within 10 seconds. If I don't launch GPS test after a cold boot then it takes forever to lock on.
So far this has been working for me for a couple of days. Might be a fluke though.
othan1 said:
Same results I'm having now. Using the workaround (cold start) it's hit or miss whether I get a lock or not regardless of how many sats my phone sees.
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I've got three epics which allow me to do extensive controlled testing.
before applying the cold start fix my results were as follows on all three when in perfect sat condensations:
a) about 75% of the time no problem with locks
b) about 20% of the time I was getting many sats seen and none locked (expired ephemeris);
b) 5% or less I was getting few sats seen where they should be seen (bad almanac)
I applied cold start method to one Epic and for several days never experienced a failure to lock. I applied cold start to second Epic and now both Epics with cold start applied have gone over two weeks without a single failure to lock. I am now testing some other methods of flushing out cache
Top me this points to main problem being cache which for me ahs disappeared with cold start -- although there are other GPS problems on epic)
Other issues -- not addressed by cold start fix -- are inherent low SNR, SNR thresholds, samsung hacking the difference between fine and coarse results (30 meter hardcoded), these can all cause problems with GPS.
That said there is absolutely a repair of the main cache problem with cold start, I now see my 3g light up every single time I invoke GPS, with non net based applications, reflecting an objective and factual assistance data download --and without cold start I often would see no data usage on invoking GPS meaning failure to pull assistance data.

Why does my GPS STILL not work?

Loving the phone and the community here, but I'm starting to get frustrated with this thing. Before DL09, I could never get a lock. After updating to it (manually, before it was an ota), my gps worked for the first time ever. However after switching to DL30 and subsequently EB01, I can no longer achieve a lock. I thought this fix was already taken care of? How come the newer radios aren't working on my phone?
I'm currently using the EB01 radio on Superclean 2.4
You turned on all of the GPS settings (Google, verizon, standalone) and cannot get a lock?
Im getting a lock on EB01 way faster than DL09.
I'm on super clean 2.2 and I have no issues with GPS. Have you considered that your phone's GPS may be faulty? I'd exchange it.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
I leave the GPS on all the time. In most buildings it keeps the lock. I really hope that leaving it on makes it easier to live with.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
In my foray into EB01, GPS was flawless... for a day. After that I couldn't get a lock to save my life, rebooting clearing stats etc.
The difference was four friends came in from out of town with GSM android phones. We all were having issues. It is like they were kryptonite.
Of course it is ridiculous to think that one GPS would mess up another since they are passive devices. I would advise taking this as weak entertainment or with a grain of salt. DL09 is back yup normal, usually 10 seconds sometimes two minutes for a lock.
In my opinion, getting stable froyo on these units won't be so easy, and I hope we get a few timely releases until they get it right. If EB01 does go OTA, I am screaming bloody murder the moment my clock goes out of synch.
Swyped w/ XDA App. When in doubt, mumble.
try turning on your wifi network (even if your not on a wifi network) this gives you a pretty good position.
xtrimsky said:
try turning on your wifi network (even if your not on a wifi network) this gives you a pretty good position.
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For positioning, I just use the cell towers. That's fine. Its for turn-by-turn directions where I really want the GPS lock.
After 48 hours or so of uptime my GPS is definitely not as quick to fix as it was under DL09. I'm sitting in my favorite armchair looking at a fix with three satellites whereas I used to get a fix with 7 or 8 and an accuracy of 8 feet. After a reboot my fix time drops to about 15 seconds and I get a lock on 8 satellites.
these have been my experiences with Super Clean 2.x (voodoo and nonvoodoo):
- sometimes turning the GPS off from notification window and back on again will do the trick
- sometimes when the above doesn't work, turning it off and then back on again from within settings (where you need to click "agree") will be more effective. In this case I've even noticed a difference between doing this by going directly into settings vs. letting Google Nav tell me that GPS is disabled, and agreeing to let it take me to the location settings.
- bizarrely, sometimes opening "GPS Test" app (market, free) identifies satellites more immediately than Google Navigation. Then after GPS Test can see them, I go back into Google Nav and it will see the satellites right away.
- if all else fails rebooting the phone has always done it (and then doing the same dance described above)
Don't get me wrong I wish it were more stable/reliable but the above seems to do the trick. When it locks at all - it locks right away. I have just forced myself to make sure that the GPS is working before leaving the driveway, or else I run the risk of being frustrated when I need to make a snap decision to go somewhere that requires navigational aid. For me it's almost as if the Android OS isn't properly wrapping its arms around the GPS hardware than an issue of the apps locking a fix.
Last night I almost missed a flight and even went as far as to say "I really need to start bringing my old GPS around with me again". I really hope to avoid this.

GPS cuts out?

Was testing out my gps for the first time while going to work and I had the gps cut out 2 times. It wasn't trying to get a gps lock but the whole GPS was turned off. Google Nav and Google Maps wasn't able to start up the gps. Disabled wireless and checked settings and it was enabled. Had to disable and re enable to get it to work again. When it did work however it was flawless... Hopefully this is just a one time deal. Will test again while going home.
I just got my atrix today, and i'm here sitting at my desk which is inside a concrete room with me being 8 feet from a window and i got an instant lock and it doesn't seem to drop it
I used nav as soon as I got in my car after purchase this morning to test it. It locked within a few seconds and never dropped on me. Audio is really loud and clear which is a major difference from the Inspire I exchanged to get it.
I got a lock today inside my company's steel/concrete building. After my captivate that seems like a real miracle.
n0kia916 said:
Was testing out my gps for the first time while going to work and I had the gps cut out 2 times. It wasn't trying to get a gps lock but the whole GPS was turned off. Google Nav and Google Maps wasn't able to start up the gps. Disabled wireless and checked settings and it was enabled. Had to disable and re enable to get it to work again. When it did work however it was flawless... Hopefully this is just a one time deal. Will test again while going home.
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Click to collapse
It happenend to me yesterday too after 2 hours driving the GPS turned itself completely off. I had to disable/re-enable GPS again to make it work.

ICS Passion R13 and GPS

Just an observation. This probably belongs in the development thread, but I don't have 10 posts yet.
I installed Kiss 2.2 kernal after installing ICS Passion R13.
After a reboot, I got a quick lock. GPS locked ok after periods of deep sleep over the course of two days.
Then I turned off GPS, which is a normal battery-saving move. It seems that if GPS is turned off (via the notification bar) and later turned back on after deep sleep, GPS does not work. GPSTest and GPS Status could see or lock on any satellites.
Second experiment was to reboot with GPS enabled indoors, thus not locking onto satellites. After deep sleep, the GPS was able to see and lock in about a minute.
It seems that the GPS will work after deep sleep, but only if the GPS is left enabled. I would be curious to know whether others see this pattern.
Have you tried build.prop modification?
Try it out to see if it helps.
In my case, I always managed to make my GPS lock every time (deep sleep or bad dream sleep lolz)
dougc405 said:
Just an observation. This probably belongs in the development thread, but I don't have 10 posts yet.
I installed Kiss 2.2 kernal after installing ICS Passion R13.
After a reboot, I got a quick lock. GPS locked ok after periods of deep sleep over the course of two days.
Then I turned off GPS, which is a normal battery-saving move. It seems that if GPS is turned off (via the notification bar) and later turned back on after deep sleep, GPS does not work. GPSTest and GPS Status could see or lock on any satellites.
Second experiment was to reboot with GPS enabled indoors, thus not locking onto satellites. After deep sleep, the GPS was able to see and lock in about a minute.
It seems that the GPS will work after deep sleep, but only if the GPS is left enabled. I would be curious to know whether others see this pattern.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume that you are talking about this thread?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1447925
I have not tried this. Some of the keys you list don't exist in my build.prop. Is that ok? Should I add them? I will try this, but have to wait until I am near my computer in case something goes wrong.
It also appears that the GPS stops tracking as soon as the phone sleeps. This is not an issue when using in car mode because the phone does not sleep, but Google Tracks, which I use used while hiking, cycling, etc., does sleep (or at least shuts of the display) while tracking. I tried Google Tracks and it seemed to need to reacquire satellites when waking up the phone. I did not walk far enough to see the effect of that in the recorded track, but I assume that it was not tracking while asleep.
I also noticed the same effect when using GPS Status and GPS Test. If the display shut off, the apps had zero visible satellites when display was powered back on.
Yes, that's the post I was talking about.
If the line(s) is/are missing, just add them at the bottom for your convenience in case it does not work.
I don't want to say anything regarding the phone is having a good sleep or having a bad dream (lolz) because I never bothered to checkup on my phone. All I know is that when I need to use my GPS, I just poke my phone with my crooked finger to unlock, select the 2G Only checkbox, select the GPS Satellite checkbox, launch the Google Maps, type the destination address. (run on sentence lolz)
dougc405 said:
I assume that you are talking about this thread?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1447925
I have not tried this. Some of the keys you list don't exist in my build.prop. Is that ok? Should I add them? I will try this, but have to wait until I am near my computer in case something goes wrong.
It also appears that the GPS stops tracking as soon as the phone sleeps. This is not an issue when using in car mode because the phone does not sleep, but Google Tracks, which I use used while hiking, cycling, etc., does sleep (or at least shuts of the display) while tracking. I tried Google Tracks and it seemed to need to reacquire satellites when waking up the phone. I did not walk far enough to see the effect of that in the recorded track, but I assume that it was not tracking while asleep.
I also noticed the same effect when using GPS Status and GPS Test. If the display shut off, the apps had zero visible satellites when display was powered back on.
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Click to collapse
The changes to build.prop and the GPS settings in AngryGPS made getting a fix much quicker and more reliable (<30 seconds from cold start). Thanks.
I also had to remove Weatherbug Elite. It has some wierd interaction with the GPS even when all location services are disable in the app. It ssems that it won't let the GPSLocationProvider shut down when the GPS is turned off. BetterBatteryStats showed wakelocks and the CPU could not go into deep sleep. At that point, reenabling GPS had no effect and GPS could not see or lock onto any satellites. Only a reboot cured it. Even if no widget is set up, Weatherbug still fires up, probably because of the Background update feature. I had to completely remove the app to prevent this interference.
Only one more problem and it is preventable. If GPS is on AND phone is plugged in with USB AND I run PowerAmp music player, the CPU run solid at 1000 mhz. Only shutting down PowerAmp, turning off the GPS, and unplugging/replugging the USB cable restore normal operation (lower CPU speeds, sleep). Merely unplugging USB does allow the CPU to run normal, but it pops right back up to 1000 when plugged in again. Wierd.
Any other leads?
Vibrant from aug 2010, made the changes but after a sleep the changes to the GPS settings and the libgps.so being added to /system/lib hasn't seemed to have made a difference. After a deep sleep, the gps seems to be dead. "Searching for GPS" appears in the status drawer, and otherwise it's all dead.
What can I do to provide better debugging feedback about this. Does anyone have e.g. a debugging or interposition library to help figure out where this is freezing?
Heck, does anyone have the source to the various GPS libraries being used here so that we can compare what works to what doesn't work for various people?
*edit
I'm completely floored. My GPS came back to life after I got down the elevator leaving work after I posed this. I'm still curious about the source to libgps.so, and I'm honestly not sure it can play a part here since it's not replacing a library in my current /system/lib. If I get some time I may see what symbols are available in it and what library it may/may not be replacing.
I suspect that the change of the supplementary (that's what supl stands for, right?) data and GPS settings have as much to do with this as well. I may try to revert the gps library changes and see if it still works with just the changes made via angrygps. I do know that the build.prop changes did absolutely zero by themselves.

how to make GPS persistently lock on?

how to make the nexus 4 GPS persistently lock on to satellites? because on the nexus 4, GPS would lock on only if you are in a maps app, but if you exit, say if you press home or go check your music player, then it would lose the lock. it would have to re-lock when you re-enter the maps app. this is very annoying. on the iphone, once the GPS is locked on, then it's persistently locked on, regardless if you are in home screen, maps app, or whatever. it only loses lock if you turn off gps. how to fix this on the nexus 4?
You do realize this will nail a battery in 2 or 3 hours right?
Oh, you mean the app in suspended state, uhmmmm, not sure lol
jinjin12 said:
how to make the nexus 4 GPS persistently lock on to satellites? because on the nexus 4, GPS would lock on only if you are in a maps app, but if you exit, say if you press home or go check your music player, then it would lose the lock. it would have to re-lock when you re-enter the maps app. this is very annoying. on the iphone, once the GPS is locked on, then it's persistently locked on, regardless if you are in home screen, maps app, or whatever. it only loses lock if you turn off gps. how to fix this on the nexus 4?
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Click to collapse
I don't think there is an Option for that. To reduce Battery usage, GPS is paused when an app is no longer actively using it.
If you were in Navigation app, then the GPS would stay on.
skezza said:
You do realize this will nail a battery in 2 or 3 hours right?
Oh, you mean the app in suspended state, uhmmmm, not sure lol
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Click to collapse
i guess you only read the title and didn't even read my post. even so, if you just read the title then you misunderstood my title. i said keep gps "persistently lock on", NOT "persistently on". there's a difference. that's means when i turn on gps, i want to to keep locking on to satellites once it's gets a signal. but like i said, right now, it will only keep the lock on if you stay on a maps app, if you switch apps, like to check your music, then it loses the signal and when you switch back to the maps app, then it has to relock on. this is very annoying and often relocking to satellites take a long time. on iphones, if you turn on gps and it locks on to satellites, then the gps stays locked on until you shut if off, irregardless of whether you are in a maps app or not. this is very useful, since you don't have to re-lock everytime when switching between apps and maps apps.
If you're rooted, try the app FasterGPS which allows you to amend your NTP pool which might improve your GPS locking times.
It also had some advanced settings but I can't tell if any of those can fix your main issue of getting persistent locks.
UberSlackr said:
I don't think there is an Option for that. To reduce Battery usage, GPS is paused when an app is no longer actively using it.
If you were in Navigation app, then the GPS would stay on.
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Click to collapse
see that makes no sense from a user perspective. poor implementation from google IMO. i mean if you turn on GPS, then it's already expected that you want to use it, so it should be kept locked on. sure sometimes you want to switch between apps while using a map to say change music or etc, but that should be no reason to turn of the GPS lock. i mean if you turned it on, then means you're going to use it for a while, so that's poor judgement on google. it's not like someone is going to turn on gps and forget to turn it off the whole day. also relocking is a pain, especially if it took a while for your GPS to even lock on in the first place. also wouldn't trying to relock waste alot of battery anyway, i don't see the point it...very inconvenient.
jinjin12 said:
see that makes no sense from a user perspective. poor implementation from google IMO. i mean if you turn on GPS, then it's already expected that you want to use it, so it should be kept locked on. sure sometimes you want to switch between apps while using a map to say change music or etc, but that should be no reason to turn of the GPS lock. i mean if you turned it on, then means you're going to use it for a while, so that's poor judgement on google. it's not like someone is going to turn on gps and forget to turn it off the whole day. also relocking is a pain, especially if it took a while for your GPS to even lock on in the first place. also wouldn't trying to relock waste alot of battery anyway, i don't see the point it...very inconvenient.
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Well from a different users perspective its makes sense. I use GPS.. via Navigation, via Google Now, and etc. But I don't want it on all the time when I don't need it, and I certainly do not want to have to Enable and Disable it every time I need it. If I need to do a quick search for a store/restaurant/etc, all I have to do is Ask it... if I had to Enable it every time I wanted to do that, it would require another step..
And from your other post, about Persistently On verses Persistent Lock, they are essential the same thing is this case. To have a Persistent GPS Lock that would require the GPS to be ON... therefore Persistently ON.
Note sure why you are having so much trouble getting a GPS Lock. The Nexus 4s GPS works pretty well in my experience (better than other phones I've had) - It even locks on to my location when I'm inside my Metal Workshop.. all other phones I had to step outside before GPS would lock on.
UberSlackr said:
Well from a different users perspective its makes sense. I use GPS.. via Navigation, via Google Now, and etc. But I don't want it on all the time when I don't need it, and I certainly do not want to have to Enable and Disable it every time I need it. If I need to do a quick search for a store/restaurant/etc, all I have to do is Ask it... if I had to Enable it every time I wanted to do that, it would require another step..
And from your other post, about Persistently On verses Persistent Lock, they are essential the same thing is this case. To have a Persistent GPS Lock that would require the GPS to be ON... therefore Persistently ON.
Note sure why you are having so much trouble getting a GPS Lock. The Nexus 4s GPS works pretty well in my experience (better than other phones I've had) - It even locks on to my location when I'm inside my Metal Workshop.. all other phones I had to step outside before GPS would lock on.
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Click to collapse
again you're misunderstanding the problem. and persistently ON is NOT the same and Persistent Lock ON . you can turn on GPS via location access and the GPS would be on but never not locked on to anything, thus nothing about the GPS would show up in the status bar, but the GPS would still be on, just at a low power state. on the other hand, the GPS can be on and actually be locked on to satellites, which happens only when you enter nagivation apps, and it would show up in the status as searching for location, this would require more power. just cause you don't see anything in the status bar about GPS does not mean it's off. if you turn on it GPS in location settings, then the device is on, only difference is if it's in lower power state or actively searching for satellites. exiting out of NAV apps put GPS in lower power state, similar to a standby mode.
i never said to keep it GPS on all the time. i only said to keep it location locked on when you turn on GPS.....huge difference. who actually leaves there GPS on all the time?
btw you said you don't want to enable/disable GPS when you need to use it but also you said you don't want it on all the time. so that's already a contradiction. because right now, in order to get GPS, you would already have to go to settings>location access then turn it on. so idk what' you talking about. and the only way to not have to enable/disable it all the time, is to leave it on all day, thus you've contradicted yourself.
and not i'm having any trouble getting a GPS lock, i never said that was the problem. i said i'm having trouble keeping it locked on when switching apps. after doing some research, it seems this is the default behavior of android, which is to remove active satellite lock when you go away from a NAgivation app.....very annoying. there are some apps in the playstore that claims to keep the lock on persistent, but they haven't worked for me
jinjin12 said:
again you're misunderstanding the problem. and persistently ON is NOT the same and Persistent Lock ON . you can turn on GPS via location access and the GPS would be on but never not locked on to anything, thus nothing about the GPS would show up in the status bar, but the GPS would still be on, just at a low power state. on the other hand, the GPS can be on and actually be locked on to satellites, which happens only when you enter nagivation apps, and it would show up in the status as searching for location, this would require more power. just cause you don't see anything in the status bar about GPS does not mean it's off. if you turn on it GPS in location settings, then the device is on, only difference is if it's in lower power state or actively searching for satellites. exiting out of NAV apps put GPS in lower power state, similar to a standby mode.
i never said to keep it GPS on all the time. i only said to keep it location locked on when you turn on GPS.....huge difference. who actually leaves there GPS on all the time?
btw you said you don't want to enable/disable GPS when you need to use it but also you said you don't want it on all the time. so that's already a contradiction. because right now, in order to get GPS, you would already have to go to settings>location access then turn it on. so idk what' you talking about. and the only way to not have to enable/disable it all the time, is to leave it on all day, thus you've contradicted yourself.
and not i'm having any trouble getting a GPS lock, i never said that was the problem. i said i'm having trouble keeping it locked on when switching apps. after doing some research, it seems this is the default behavior of android, which is to remove active satellite lock when you go away from a NAgivation app.....very annoying. there are some apps in the playstore that claims to keep the lock on persistent, but they haven't worked for me
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Well I'm not going to sit here and argue with you all day. But regardless of what you believe, if you go to settings>location and enable GPS, its not Constantly On... There is no "Power Save" mode it falls into. At times apps like Google Now will access the GPS to get a location, this is why it will tell you the time of travel from work to home... the toggle in settings>location is simply to allow or disallow apps access to the GPS. The GPS is not actually "On" unless its called via an app... GPS is only running when you see the GPS Icon in the notification bar. When I get home I'll find the page where Google explains this change since android ICS.
GPS on my phone stays enabled via settings>location all the time... But its only used when I open Maps, Facebook, Google Now, etc. Check your battery stats (press the graph) and you will see when the GPS is actually used.
So again, to have Persistant LOCK ON your WILL HAVE TO HAVE THE GPS PERSISTENTLY ON - MEANING YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN APP THAT IS GOING TO PERSISTENTLY CALL THE GPS .. YOU CAN NOT HAVE A GPS LOCK UNLESS THE _____ THING IS ON and GOOGLE APPS DO NOT DO THIS
I think he's getting confused. He's saying that the data from the GPS is stored so the lock speed is quicker, but it already is. On GB, it was retained and it is too on JB, so he's wrong.
My GPS never has to relock when I switch apps.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
AS was said, GPS enabled is not the same as GPS ON. Enabled just means apps have access to the API to call GPS functions. ON means it's actively searching or locked to sats.
The implementation Google uses is the same as everyone. Your phone should pull down AGPS data via your data connection once every so often so when apps go for more detailed location they the phone will calculate the sats position and lock in 2-3 seconds. Without AGPS data the phone has to do a WARM lock (or a COLD lock which can take up to 2 minutes if your phone has been rebooted since the last lock).
So your phone is not functioning correctly if you haven't blocked AGPS data. I can switch from Maps to Facebook to GPS Test apps and they all lock instantly after the initial lock with Maps (or whatever app is first). The first lock takes only 5-10 seconds also (inside my house), outside is 2-3 seconds.
shotta35 said:
AS was said, GPS enabled is not the same as GPS ON. Enabled just means apps have access to the API to call GPS functions. ON means it's actively searching or locked to sats.
The implementation Google uses is the same as everyone. Your phone should pull down AGPS data via your data connection once every so often so when apps go for more detailed location they the phone will calculate the sats position and lock in 2-3 seconds. Without AGPS data the phone has to do a WARM lock (or a COLD lock which can take up to 2 minutes if your phone has been rebooted since the last lock).
So your phone is not functioning correctly if you haven't blocked AGPS data. I can switch from Maps to Facebook to GPS Test apps and they all lock instantly after the initial lock with Maps (or whatever app is first). The first lock takes only 5-10 seconds also (inside my house), outside is 2-3 seconds.
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you have a data plan? cause i don't so i'm relying purely on the GPS itself when i'm outside. i know using mobile data, it can lock on really fast, my sister has a data plan on the note 2 and GPS locks on fast due to that cause of a-GPS.

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