Database Users

GPS, Social Network Sync, Flash, Screen Burn, General lag

So this is sort of a multipurpose post, just saying some of the issue I have had with my Vibrant, and some of the possible solutions or at least information that I believe will help toward finding a solution.
About the GPS, this is what I have noticed:
I am pretty sure this is a software issue and this is why- I've noticed that I only have a problem when I am using the actual GPS and the network based location. I started to notice this first in Foursquare. Even when I could get a lock in Maps (albeit with a blue circle indicating it wasn't terribly accurate) Foursquare would always show where I last checked in... then I realized it wasn't showing where I last checked in, it was showing where I last was located using the GPS. I found that if I turned off the "Use GPS satellites" option, and only used the network location option, Foursquare (and indeed any other GPS program) got my location near instantly. Similarly, when I had only the satellite option checked (and not the network location) as long as I was outside I got a pretty quick and steady lock. When I put both options back on... everything all crappy again. So I've been keeping the actual GPS off unless I'm using navigation, in which case I switch, and I haven't had an issue yet. So I think this is something that they can fix in an update. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
In regard to Social Network Sync:
It was driving me nuts that half the time I looked in the settings menu it would show that Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter (the Samsung variants) had "errors." Then I realized that for whatever stupid reason, they seem to only run into these errors on wifi. If I turned wifi off and synced... it worked. Turned it back on... didn't work. I tried this a few times. However, that said, the Social Network Sync is kind of broken. For example, even if you have it set to download all of your Facebook friends, after the first time it won't. To add them, you have to go into "Link contact, Get Friends, Facebook" and then check who you want to add .This is kind of annoying, and hopefully will also be fixed with a software update. Again, any thoughts would be appreciated.
About Flash:
This is honestly my biggest issue with the device. If you look in the applications it does have Flash lite. It just doesn't work. Coming from an almost flawless Flash experience on the MyTouch Slide to this is really not fun. The reason this annoys me so much though is because in apps that utilize the browser (for example NewsRob) whenever they load a page that has flash on it, you are kicked into the browser and get an error message (webkit error, file not found or some such.) When I'm browsing through articles in NewsRob it's incredibly annoying to have this stupid error message (which opens the browser, then an error, so it takes three back presses to get back to the article, all of which have a little delay.) Again, this is something that 2.2 should fix, but it's still frustrating. If anyone knows of any possible solution to this it'd be greatly appreciated.
Screen burn in I discovered today.
Much to my dismay, I noticed today that the clock digits were burnt into the screen, much like how the notifications were burnt into the screen on my Nexus One. The difference is that this took awhile to happen on my N1. Not three weeks like I've had the Vibrant. I don't know if this is permanent or just temporary, I have a pure white background open full screen right now, and will run like a color flashing thing next, hopefully this will get rid of it. If not... that's just excessively disappointing. I love love love having what is literally the most advanced screen technology in existence, and having a literally perfect black level, but screen burn in on a few week old device (that has been set at low or auto brightness since day one) is just not acceptable. I will post again after a day or so of white screen/colors and let ya'll know the results. But it's frustrating. Has any one else noticed this yet? Or have any other possible solutions?
Lastly, lag.
I've noticed that the ONLY lag on the device comes from stupid TouchWiz and the Buddies and Feeds widgets. With them disabled the device FLIES. With them on, it's slow and occasionally has to be force closed. For now I have the widgets in question disabled, but this is vastly annoying, and really makes me wish I had my MyTouch Slide back (except with this screen and processor lol.)
So, in conclusion, I generally love this device. But the second T-Mobile announces The MT3GHD, it'll be on eBay faster than you can say Android 2.2 with Espresso lol.

Quick update, jscreenfix app from market fixes the burn in, I let it run for about an hour. I'm going to do that every week just to be safe.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Would you like some cheese with your wine?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

c0wb0ycliche said:
About the GPS, this is what I have noticed:
I am pretty sure this is a software issue and this is why- I've noticed that I only have a problem when I am using the actual GPS and the network based location. I started to notice this first in Foursquare. Even when I could get a lock in Maps (albeit with a blue circle indicating it wasn't terribly accurate) Foursquare would always show where I last checked in... then I realized it wasn't showing where I last checked in, it was showing where I last was located using the GPS. I found that if I turned off the "Use GPS satellites" option, and only used the network location option, Foursquare (and indeed any other GPS program) got my location near instantly. Similarly, when I had only the satellite option checked (and not the network location) as long as I was outside I got a pretty quick and steady lock. When I put both options back on... everything all crappy again. So I've been keeping the actual GPS off unless I'm using navigation, in which case I switch, and I haven't had an issue yet. So I think this is something that they can fix in an update. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even though I personally believe the gps is a firmware/driver issue, your explanation above does nothing to narrow it to that... You say the GPS doesnt work right when it is turned on...
well... yeah.

blink55184 said:
Even though I personally believe the gps is a firmware/driver issue, your explanation above does nothing to narrow it to that... You say the GPS doesnt work right when it is turned on...
well... yeah.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Location settings, there are two options, Use wireless network and Use GPS satellites. What I am saying is that if BOTH of these options are turned on, it doesn't seem to work properly. If I only use wireless networks, it works (even indoors) but isn't terribly accurate. If I use GPS only, and I am outside, it works, accurately. So I am just saying there seems to be some disconnect between the wireless network location and GPS location working in sync like they normally do.
And (@lemarg) I don't see how my post is whining, I'm just pointing out some observations about the issues I (and other people) been having with the phone. Maybe I misunderstand the point of a forum.

Searching for GPS wont go away

i came from 4.2.1. updated to 4.2 and now my tablet wont stop saying searching for GPS (i am indoors and no GPS lock can be found).
nothing has changed, i have the same APPs haven't removed or added anything except updating via OTA yet now after the update this searching for GPS wont go away and i have to toggle it off now.
i have always left GPS and Wifi on with 4.2.1 and didnt have this problem and its draining my battery so i disable GPS.
anyone else see this on theirs?

1) turn GPS off
2) download gps status
3) wait until you are outside and stationary
4) turn on GPS and run gps status to see if you are getting any kind of fix on satellites.

Zillow (an app in the Play Store) causes this on my device. If I force closed it, the GPS icon would go away. If you're not using Zillow, maybe another app is the cause. Try force-closing anything you think might be using GPS

while google nav is running in background (searching for gps..) Hit the home button Go to settings . Toggle gps Of then back on..
You might have to then exit google nav off then back on.. Sometimes it will take a few tired..
This randomly happens to me sometimes if i start google Nav with the gps enabled.. Was present in 4.1.2 after the latest maps update .

I had the EXACT same problem.. I had updated in my "bunker" where I work (no GPS signals get in here) and until it finally got a signal it tried for like 2 hours. Once it did it, it was happy.
I really, really wish there were some way to see GPS usage history. There has got to be a way to do that. A log of what apps used the GPS, how long, etc

Same here. I also noticed this today and the battery drained quickly. It looks like the Weather Channel app was causing it in my case. It had an unusually large share of the battery consumption (according to the Android battery monitor) and uninstalling it seems to fix the issue (will take another day to confirm). This was working fine on 4.1.2.

Mine also has gone AWOL. I tried the on-off trick, all styles, but no joy (and waiting 2 hours was not a possibility... I needed it there and then).
I'll try the apps suggested, but as Gps is a core service, and one Google relies upon, it's disappointing that this crops up after an update to 4.2.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

szeiger said:
Same here. I also noticed this today and the battery drained quickly. It looks like the Weather Channel app was causing it in my case. It had an unusually large share of the battery consumption (according to the Android battery monitor) and uninstalling it seems to fix the issue (will take another day to confirm). This was working fine on 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for bringing this up. I was having this problem, and I have The Weather Channel too so I went to uninstall it and right when I did the GPS notification went away. It's looking like it may be a problem with the app then and not the GPS. Maybe something changed in the background and they have to make some modifications to the app to fix it.
I reinstalled TWC and when telling it to find me through GPS on the first run, it doesn't seem to want to get my location. I did it indoors before so I don't know why it wouldn't pick it up now. But at least it doesnt seem to be constantly accessing the GPS. I was going to do a factory reset to figure out if it was a problem with the system update itself but I'll just chalk it up to an app problem right now.
It's strange though, in 4.1.2 I don't remember getting any notification that the GPS was searching\locked on unless it was Navigation or Maps doing something. Either way, I dislike this new GPS notification thing overall. On the other hand, it's a good thing that we know the GPS was being used improperly. I hope they update The Weather Channel app soon. Weather Underground is slow even on the Nexus 7.

I'm having the same trouble after the update.

I left The Weather Channel uninstalled and had the GPS on again... still a lot of usage so I've just turned the GPS off until I need it. This is very unnecessary though. It has to be something in the operating system (I don't have any apps running in the background that should be using it so much when fine location isn't required).
Has anybody else tried a factory reset to see if this alleviates this problem? I really don't want to be the first and then lose important things I have saved to memory. :/

In 4.1.2 when using Navigation, GPS would be lost at times. Firing up GPS Test Plus would show no satellites, then rapidly find them, and suddenly Navigation would work again. I sometimes had to toggle GPS, sometimes didn't.
In 4.2 so far, I've had GPS vanish in Navigation, and stay vanished in GPS Test Plus. Toggling GPS doesn't seem to help. Rebooting is required to locate the satellites. Annoying.
About to delete 5gb of data to see if my 16GB model will magically speed up from the constant heavy lag.

A factory reset seems to have fixed my GPS problem.

same problem.i found a advertisement module in heywire caused it.as i force closed heywire,it is gone.before that,it continues for 7 hours.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

zhj said:
same problem.i found a advertisement module in heywire caused it.as i force closed heywire,it is gone.before that,it continues for 7 hours.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the bump but it seems even after uninstalling The Weather Channel and the factory reset I still get GPS activation for a long time from time to time. I seem to have found the process in the battery usage that's causing it. "Fused Location". Not sure what uses this or what it is, it has an android icon. I force closed it and GPS stopped searching. Probably not a permanent fix. I sent feedback from the OS on this process.

I've seen this in 4.2 on my Nexus 7 AND my Galaxy Nexus.
Not nailed it yet, one culprit was Shazam (turned off Location in the settings for that and it went away)
Checking my Battery stats again, Shazam is on 12% and I've not even run it! Gonna remove the homescreen widget, see if that helps.

jmbillings said:
I've seen this in 4.2 on my Nexus 7 AND my Galaxy Nexus.
Not nailed it yet, one culprit was Shazam (turned off Location in the settings for that and it went away)
Checking my Battery stats again, Shazam is on 12% and I've not even run it! Gonna remove the homescreen widget, see if that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i suggest you to to Settigs -> Apps -> Running (Tab)
Individuall kill/stop the application that you think might have caused the problem..
You will eventually know which Apps has caused it because the GPS icon goes away after you killed the erring application...
This worked for me. The problem App was "Perfect World Clock"

That solution is rather clunky. I have created a couple of simple Tasker profiles to get rid of this annoying notification. Works flawlessly for me. What it does is it shuts off GPS when the screen turns off, and restarts it after a short delay when the screen turns on. The delay is the real key here, as it circumvents the initial GPS search and, hence, no annoying message. Google Maps and Google Nav are not affected, as the GPS is always on when the screen is on, i.e. GPS is on whenever it is actually needed and off only if it is not needed. And, these profiles do not significantly impact battery, as they are Event triggered rather than State triggered. In fact, it probably saves battery, given that it turns GPS off when it's not needed. There are two profiles needed, which I have called "GPS Suspend" and "GPS Restart." Their associated tasks both utilize the Secure Settings plug-in which is needed to turn GPS on or off. As you will see, I have also added "If" conditions to each task's GPS command, to ensure that the command is executed if and only if the screen is in the correct (on/off) phase.
Here are the profiles and their associated tasks...
Profile: GPS Suspend
Event: Display Off
Enter: GPS Suspend
A1: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Disabled Timeout (Seconds):0 ] If [ %SCREEN ~ off ]
Profile: GPS Restart
Event: Display On
Enter: GPS Resart
A1: Wait [ MS:0 Seconds:3 Minutes:0 HConfiguration:GPS:enabledours:0 Days:0 ]
A2: Secure Settings [ Timeout (Seconds):0 ] If [ %SCREEN ~ on ]
Try it and see!
modestdave

GPS Randomly Turns Itself On...

Having a weird issue with the GPS on my AT&T LG G2. Phone is unrooted on stock firmware. The GPS icon will randomly appear in the nav bar. Sometimes when I check after that, it will be turned on and I can toggle GPS off. Other times it isn't on by the time I check it. I always leave GPS off for the battery life savings. I've tried doing a factory reset and immediately disabling Google Maps. This seems to keep it from happening, but once I re-enable Maps, it will again start randomly turning on GPS. Even after disabling Maps at this point, it still does it. Only a factory reset then immediately disabling Maps seems to keep my GPS off. Any ideas?
Thanks!

I've noticed this as well. I keep mine on but it location icon started flashing earlier in a phone call.
No clue why that would be.

talonted said:
Having a weird issue with the GPS on my AT&T LG G2. Phone is unrooted on stock firmware. The GPS icon will randomly appear in the nav bar. Sometimes when I check after that, it will be turned on and I can toggle GPS off. Other times it isn't on by the time I check it. I always leave GPS off for the battery life savings. I've tried doing a factory reset and immediately disabling Google Maps. This seems to keep it from happening, but once I re-enable Maps, it will again start randomly turning on GPS. Even after disabling Maps at this point, it still does it. Only a factory reset then immediately disabling Maps seems to keep my GPS off. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fr4nk1yn said:
I've noticed this as well. I keep mine on but it location icon started flashing earlier in a phone call.
No clue why that would be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
carrier iq

talonted said:
Having a weird issue with the GPS on my AT&T LG G2. Phone is unrooted on stock firmware. The GPS icon will randomly appear in the nav bar. Sometimes when I check after that, it will be turned on and I can toggle GPS off. Other times it isn't on by the time I check it. I always leave GPS off for the battery life savings. I've tried doing a factory reset and immediately disabling Google Maps. This seems to keep it from happening, but once I re-enable Maps, it will again start randomly turning on GPS. Even after disabling Maps at this point, it still does it. Only a factory reset then immediately disabling Maps seems to keep my GPS off. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the same issue, it's something called carrier IQ that tracks you without consent. Fortunately you can remove it with root access. There are a couple of threads in the qa and general sections which address this and solving it. Search for them and youll be on your way.
LG G2

In on Verizon. It wasn't reported to have that and I did run a check, which was clean, just to make sure.
Here's my light flashing after turning the screen in th change the channel.

talonted said:
Having a weird issue with the GPS on my AT&T LG G2. Phone is unrooted on stock firmware. The GPS icon will randomly appear in the nav bar. Sometimes when I check after that, it will be turned on and I can toggle GPS off. Other times it isn't on by the time I check it. I always leave GPS off for the battery life savings. I've tried doing a factory reset and immediately disabling Google Maps. This seems to keep it from happening, but once I re-enable Maps, it will again start randomly turning on GPS. Even after disabling Maps at this point, it still does it. Only a factory reset then immediately disabling Maps seems to keep my GPS off. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not abnormal at all. This happens when your device needs to refresh locations for multiple apps to work efficiently. We are not alone. Android thing.

What have you guys done, that BIG BROTHER is keeping tabs on ya lol
Sent from my LG-D800 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

talonted said:
Having a weird issue with the GPS on my AT&T LG G2. Phone is unrooted on stock firmware. The GPS icon will randomly appear in the nav bar. Sometimes when I check after that, it will be turned on and I can toggle GPS off. Other times it isn't on by the time I check it. I always leave GPS off for the battery life savings. I've tried doing a factory reset and immediately disabling Google Maps. This seems to keep it from happening, but once I re-enable Maps, it will again start randomly turning on GPS. Even after disabling Maps at this point, it still does it. Only a factory reset then immediately disabling Maps seems to keep my GPS off. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try disable location reporting in Settings. Also, there's a good chance Google Now! is using to access your whereabouts, unless your really want those cards, turn Google Now! off (voice search still works even after that). Look around Maps settings too, and if you see location sharing or let Google use Maps data or something like that, turned that off too.

merlen said:
carrier iq
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This....it was happening to me as well until I installed Disable Service, and went in there and nuked the CarrierIQ services. No more random GPS.
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app

cj31016 said:
This....it was happening to me as well until I installed Disable Service, and went in there and nuked the CarrierIQ services. No more random GPS.
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how I fixed it, too. If you can't figure out how to remove CarrierIQ then you can just disable it after each reboot by going to settings->apps->running->android system->stop.

bryanhayn said:
This is how I fixed it, too. If you can't figure out how to remove CarrierIQ then you can just disable it after each reboot by going to settings->apps->running->android system->stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it seems to be working this trick i ve done 3 factory resets till read this hopefully i solve that issue with GPS,but it turn on again F*ck this **** im going to sell this phone

Rebel Fox said:
it seems to be working this trick i ve done 3 factory resets till read this hopefully i solve that issue with GPS,but it turn on again F*ck this **** im going to sell this phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybue its network problem,and i have the same issue with GPS,it turns on when make or recive call.i went to mobile company they told me its not just me with this problem,there where many others with the same issue,when i get back home i switch my phone from dual mode network to GSM, wasn't turn on during make or recive call,for now it seems problem is been fixed,so it worth to try this

bryanhayn said:
This is how I fixed it, too. If you can't figure out how to remove CarrierIQ then you can just disable it after each reboot by going to settings->apps->running->android system->stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I'm having the opposite problem. When I enable my GPS, after about a minute, it turns off. It used to work fine.
I have a Samsung, but I simply can't find my issue anywhere and I ran across this thread and I'm just praying someone might have some idea what's going on. It's frustrating!
Thanks

Location GPS goes to my home when I am not there

I am sure that I would not even know this except I have the Edge Panel "My Places" which I really like because I can set up a profile for work and have my phone go to vibrate when I pull in the parking lot and can get to the apps easily that I use most.
Well every now and then I have noticed that the profile has switched off of work and to home while I am at work, sitting at my desk and not moving. This has become more frequent in the last week. So when I hear the profile change I have looked at Google Maps and sure enough my GPS lock is showing that I am home. After about 30 seconds this all of the sudden updates back to my work location and the My Places profile updates right away.
I am sure if I did not have the My Places profiles set-up I would never know, but has anyone else ran in to this issue, and if so is there a way to fix this? Thanks

Similar issue here, except mine shows I'm home or wherever my last location was when I had my gps on when I'm trying to check for a route to somewhere, only fix that seems to work is closing and reopening google maps, thought it was a google maps issue, guess not.

"GPS SIGNAL LOST!!" in the middle of the night when I'm sleeping

I've seen a few threads here where people get "GPS Signal Lost" when the using Google Maps and the screen turns off, etc. That sounds really annoying, but that is NOT my problem.
My problem is my phone going "GPS SIGNAL LOST!!!" super loud in the wee hours of the morning and waking me up. Three times it's happened so far in the early morning. And it happened again just now -- I checked in my running apps and I don't have Google Maps running at all, or really any app that would utilize the GPS. I do notice the little "GPS" symbol (kind of looks like a "pin" in the Google Maps app) showing in the status bar and I don't think it's normally there.
Anyone have any ideas on how I can disable this? Or find out which app is mysteriously running in the background?
I recently installed "wahoo fitness" which keeps track of my runs kinda like Strava, and it definitely uses GPS, so this is my primary suspect; is there some way to see if it spawned an orphaned background process that is utilizing my GPS? Or more generally, is there any way to see which processes are requesting GPS?
Thanks for your help!