What is turning off my GPS / Location Service? - ZTE Axon 7 Questions & Answers

When I go to use Google Maps for navigation, I often get the message "To continue turn on device location which uses Google's location service". The problem also affects ViewRanger, an app I use for walking. GPS appears to turn off during a walk so I lose the track of my route. In this case the message is "GPS is disabled in the settings. Please enable it."
I recognise this happens after the phone has been "asleep" for a while but have not been able to measure how long it must be asleep before the problem arises. I think it is at least 30 mins.
It feels like a "battery saver" problem, but I can't see any obvious power saving setting to turn off. ViewRanger is set in App Power-saver to have no optimisation policies.
I have had my Axon 7 since Jan 2018 and this problem has only occurred in the last few weeks. My model is A2017G on stock Oreo B03 and unrooted. The problem did not emerge when I first moved to Oreo. It may have started when I moved to B03 though I think GPS was fine for a while after I moved to B03.
Something is turning off location services in the background; how do I find out what it is? Is there some sort of log I can read? What other solutions are there? Many thanks in advance, Evan

I moved from stock Oreo B03 to B04 (via B02) and wiped the cache. All now seems to be well; ViewRanger recorded a 4 hour track with no problem yesterday. Slightly strange though as I had previously wiped cache while on B03 and found that didn't fix my problem.

Too good to be true
grantem2000 said:
I moved from stock Oreo B03 to B04 (via B02) and wiped the cache. All now seems to be well; ViewRanger recorded a 4 hour track with no problem yesterday. Slightly strange though as I had previously wiped cache while on B03 and found that didn't fix my problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It did all seem a little too good to be true and, sadly, Location Services again began "turning off automatically" only a few days after my upgrade to B04. I have attached 2 screenshots from the notification log for when I started recording a route in ViewRanger at 15:07 and again 3 mins later at 15:10 when tracking appeared to stop. The logs mean nothing to me, so any insight would be very welcome.
In the meantime, I uninstalled ViewRanger, deleted all ViewRanger directories, restarted the phone, re-installed ViewRanger and wiped cache again. After that, for now at least, Location Services are again behaving.
As all this appears to point the finger at ViewRanger, I will raise direct with the application owners too.

grantem2000 said:
As all this appears to point the finger at ViewRanger, I will raise direct with the application owners too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ViewRanger, support were very responsive and supportive. They made a convincing case that the problem is not caused by ViewRanger, not least as the app has no capability to turn off Location Services.
But something is still turning off Location Services when the phone goes to sleep. How can I tell what is doing this?
In the meantime, wiping cache solves the problem for a few days, but, so far, it has always come back.

I have the same issue and that's why I think this phone's gps is useless. I find this gps not in accurate way to detect the coordinates even in all previous firmwares (nougat, all ver of oreo)
The auto turned off gps services maybe the case of software, but I think the hardware is bad either.
This is the worst part as I work using GPS a lot but I still love this guy's music features. I ended up using secondary phone/tablet to run some geographical apps, sad cant have em running in one phone only.
Update: my GPS get fixed on B04 with locked bootloader, it seems fine and fast to get POI. It's usable now. Guess the previous rom has bugs on GPS or it's broken by other apps I used before

Related

KitKat: Location settings annoyances

Hi there. For the last couple of weeks it seems that my Google Maps is having trouble getting a coarse location in battery saving location setting. I mean, it might work for some time, then after a few hours it will be all like "Waiting for location...". Locus Pro maps have similar trouble too (EDIT: No it doesn't!) ... BUT... BUT... Foursquare seems to get the coarse location just fine. The rest of the apps (maps etc.) will come around too after a reboot. I noticed this happening after a CM11 nightly, but since then I've deleted everything at some point and installed Paranoid Android and this issue persisted. Has anybody else experienced this? Also, isn't it extremely annoying that this Google agreement pops up every single time you switch location off/on? This can't be on purpose. Anyway, I'm curious of your experience with KitKat roms and coarse location behavior and other stuff.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
I think it always like that for me. For google map, you need to switch to high accuracy for it to lock quickly. After the first lock on, then, you can use other mode (device only or battery saving).
I always had great and fast precision with just the wifi on (when in the city, of course), no need to turn on the real gps (unless I'm looking for directions or doing some running). Now I have to reboot to recover, so this is not normal. Something obviously happens mid-day, I still haven't pinpointed what/when, that breaks this, until next reboot.
I have found that if I switch off/on location entirely OR switch from WiFi/mobile location to GPS only and then back to WiFi/mobile location then my location cannot be found by Google maps or android device manager (haven't tried any other location based apps to see if they also fail to work).
I have to reboot or clear google play services data to get my WiFi/mobile location to work again.
Note this is on a moto g phone not a nexus 4 but to me it seems like the issue the OP described. Maybe a KitKat bug.
scott_doyland said:
I have found that if I switch off/on location entirely OR switch from WiFi/mobile location to GPS only and then back to WiFi/mobile location then my location cannot be found by Google maps or android device manager (haven't tried any other location based apps to see if they also fail to work).
I have to reboot or clear google play services data to get my WiFi/mobile location to work again.
Note this is on a moto g phone not a nexus 4 but to me it seems like the issue the OP described. Maybe a KitKat bug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EXACTLY the same on my N4
boardlord said:
EXACTLY the same on my N4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I created a bug report
https://code.google.com/p/android/i...=4&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars

[Q] Maps using up battery, even when Location Access is off. Solution?

Today for the first time since I got my G2 a few of weeks back I used Maps to double check my location in an area I'm not overly familiar with. So I toggled Location Access on, found where I was via GPS, then turned it off. All good so far.
However, later in the day, noticing that the battery was dropping quicker than you'd expect, I looked in the battery stats and saw that Maps was consuming a extremely large percentage (nearly 50%!). I tried a force stop but that didn't seem to have any real effect. I re-checked Location Access, all off, didn't seem to be any other option.
So what's the deal, is it a G2 thing (I'm currently on rooted stock 4.2.2), a general Android problem or Maps misbehaving? More importantly what, bar a reboot or not using Maps, is the solution? Do I need to buy the enhanced versions of Titanium Backup and Greenify to effectively put Maps into stasis or is there a more elegant way of doing it?
A quick, inconvenience way to solve this issue is rebooting the phone.
votinh said:
A quick, inconvenience way to solve this issue is rebooting the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. Is it Maps bug or something specific to the G2?
Honestly, I have no clue.
I turn off location reporting to save battery. If you are on an AT&T Rom Carrier IQ could be the problem.
Greenify?
I have the same problem! Even greenified it, but it says still draining battery. The only way is to reboot!
Any help?
I'm using Cloudy stock 2.0

Location Services Issue

Starting this week I've been experiencing a serious battery drainage in my device.
I've noticed this drainage happens at a time when Location Services appear to be working, for no apparent reason.
Now, I always have Location Services on, but I can never see it in the upper bar (the one where you can see the time, Wi-Fi connection, battery) unless I use an app that relies on it.
However, in the past few days, I see Location Services up there even though I'm not using any app that relies on it. What's worse is that it stays there even after I close all apps. In regular cases it tends to remain there as long as the app that needs it is running. As soon as I close the app, Location Services disappear from the upper bar.
If I turn off Location Services it will go away. However, once I turn it on it will be up there again. It will only go away if I reboot my phone.
Do you guys have any idea what may be causing this? I bought by Nexus 6p by the end of February and hadn't experienced this issue until this week. Before that, my battery usage was normal, and I could go a full day without having to charge my battery.
This issue, on the other hand, can drain my battery in the span of 1 or 2 hours.
Already noticed this problem and found the reason: Maps!
igorrj said:
Already noticed this problem and found the reason: Maps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But I haven't used them.
For example, today I faced that problem solely by opening up Facebook. Then I rebooted my phone, opened up Facebook again but the problem didn't happen.
Now, I'm thinking this isn't happening by simply opening Facebook or Twiiter, but whenever I open them through the notification bar.
This is really odd.
I noticed the same battery drain. One night my phone batter wound up being pretty much dead. Today I noticed significant drain and when I looked at battery use, I saw where the consumption seemed to increase and observed the location services icon at the top of the phone that wouldn't go away even after making sure all apps were shut down. I don't really have many apps on my phone (certainly not ones that need location, so I suspect a recent update to Maps.
My first step was to delete and reinstall the updates. so let's see if that fixes it. If not, I'll just remove the updates and run that way until another version comes out. I suspect is just a goofed install or we would hear far more complaints of this issue.
I was literally getting ready to make a post about this. Sure enough, force-closing Maps stopped the issue. Glad to see it wasn't just me.
I'm having the same issue. I get the location icon on my status bar at random times and it stays there until a reboot. It eventually comes back. Pretty annoying as it is causing my phone not to deep sleep. I'm on stock with Franco kernel.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
I'm having the same issue on latest stock firmware on both my SM-N910T3 & SM-T700. Started noticing the location icon all the time about a week ago, just about when it came out with the latest update on 4/1.
Well, uninstalling and reinstalling the updates to Maps didn't fix anything. I have uninstalled the updates and will monitor.
ZabiGarma said:
But I haven't used them.
For example, today I faced that problem solely by opening up Facebook. Then I rebooted my phone, opened up Facebook again but the problem didn't happen.
Now, I'm thinking this isn't happening by simply opening Facebook or Twiiter, but whenever I open them through the notification bar.
This is really odd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Facebook is, by far, the worst app you can have downloaded. It is the cause of general phone issues and bad battery life. I uninstalled both FB and FB messaging and my wake lock issue was fixed and, in turn, my battery life is noticeably better
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
I did a full master reset of my phone and am only running default applications. I still get the runaway location services. Before I did that, I downgraded Maps and that seemed to help. But then my phone automatically updated it. I know I can probably fix that situation but I'm surprised we aren't seeing more people with the problem.
Nexus 5x owner here (but posting my experience since this is literally the only thread on this anywhere).
Symptoms: Similar to everyone in this thread, location icon was popping up and staying resident in the top status bar. This was happening even without an event launching and causing massive battery drain. This was atypical of usage since my phone is basically not even used (essentially a notification machine with light text usage).
Checking the location menu, everything was listed as light usage, except for Maps as heavy usage (even though Maps wasn't even launched or in the recents menu)
Variables: Unfortunately, since my phone has been perfect since launch, I haven't been paying attention to all the updates granularly to isolate what was causing this. But, I do know for sure it happened after the April Monthly update and after a Maps update.
Troubleshooting: I was hoping it wasn't a system update issue, so I started poking around in the Maps settings to see if maybe a new Maps service was launched that was auto-enrolling users and potentially causing battery drain. Nothing to note, but I did notice I was signed out of Maps, which seemed weird. So I went ahead and re-signed into Maps with my Google Account.
Results: I honestly didn't expect this to have any impact, but the location issue hasn't come up after signing into Maps. It's been ~ 3 weeks and 4 battery cycles since I've had the location issue.
I'm not sure if signing in helped or maybe a server side Maps update fixed the bug, but if you're still having the location issue, it's worth a shot to see if you're signed into Maps (and sign in to try to fix the location issue).
If this does work for you, please report back since it will help in data gathering (and also we can let Google know the exact details of the issue and the potential fix so this bug doesn't hit in future versions).

WIFI turns on and off constantly

when turning my wifi off it seems it goes into some weird loop of turning on and off constantly by itself, it doesn't seem to be trying to connect just flipping the wifi switch on and off none stop.
noticed it because i had a huge battery daring overnight and while trying to fix it i saw the switch going off and on all the time.
when turning it back on it seems to connect normally .
did a network setting rest but it did nothing ...
I'm guessing a factory rest will fix the problem but I'm hoping to avoid such a overkill solution :crying:
does anyone else had this problem and can help me fix it?
thanx!
avivzamir said:
when turning my wifi off it seems it goes into some weird loop of turning on and off constantly by itself, it doesn't seem to be trying to connect just flipping the wifi switch on and off none stop.
noticed it because i had a huge battery daring overnight and while trying to fix it i saw the switch going off and on all the time.
when turning it back on it seems to connect normally .
did a network setting rest but it did nothing ...
I'm guessing a factory rest will fix the problem but I'm hoping to avoid such a overkill solution :crying:
does anyone else had this problem and can help me fix it?
thanx!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was on a new custom rom ?
Or did it just happend on a rom that have worked perfect for days?
And have you seen which app or system app been casuing the drain?
LyLu said:
This was on a new custom rom ?
Or did it just happend on a rom that have worked perfect for days?
And have you seen which app or system app been casuing the drain?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
original samsung rom.
just happened (i have the device for a a while everything was fine) its the android system that drains the battery in the battery status.
when i leave the wifi on it stops and works fine ...
Have you turned off ''Keep Wifi During Sleep''? I know this can drain battery.
It's not so easy to troubleshoot on an orginal none rooted phone.
You can try clearing dalvik and cache.
Turn it off and then on holding power and vol down button, then clear cach/dalvik and restart.
Try uninstall update beaming service for samsung then restart
If still persistent try uninstall update microsoft onedrive and skype then restart, just in case
I found it after factory reset (forgot internal data backup :crying and update all apps, this problem occuring after the last 3 updates (beaming, onedrive, & skype) which more suspect beaming service update make that problem
Your not alone
You're not the only one who suffer from this exact problem, on Friday or Saturday the same problem started occurring with my phone too, WiFi turns on and off in a loop and huge battery drain!
I saw an increase of 6% of battery drain per hour, so I ended up on 9% total drain every hour. :crying:
I have original Samsung Rom and phone worked prefect until now, no settings or apps installed before this happened either.
What rom version are you guys on?
I'm having the same issue. However, I'm on PhoenixX Rom. Major battery killer and has only just started happening within the past few days.
Since my phone has been unplugged, 3 hours ago, looking at BetterBatteryStats, It is showing com.google.android.gms as having quite a LOT of wakeups. 40 per hour (everything else is about 2). Don't know if this is normal as I don't remember it before the Wifi issue.
Looking into what the wake ups are caused from, Location and heartbeat were the major culprits. So i have turned of WIFI scanning when not on and also the body sensors for Google Play. We shall see.
LyLu said:
What rom version are you guys on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See attachment.
Easy fix. Just disable Wi-Fi scanning.
the_scotsman said:
Easy fix. Just disable Wi-Fi scanning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its not a fix at all . it dosnt scan for wifi , just turning it on and off non stop.
like pressing the light switch agin and agin
I had this after installing "GoodLock" software from Samsung! Uninstalled and everything is ok
same here, just noticed I wasnt on Wifi and the switch is just flicking on and off by itself. Standard S7 with all the updates installed
Been struggling with the same for some days (4 - 5) I haven't been able to get exactly whats triggering this. I'm on stock rom with root. I've reinstalled firmware clean again and re downloaded my apps but it is still happening randomly. Some times after a few attempts to switch wifi on (even when it is toggling by itself) it manages to keep on. Sometimes restarting makes it work again. One thing I'm almost certain its that this usually happens after I turn wifi OFF and then try to turn it back on.
It's been crazy and the phone starts to overheat after a while off this on-off loop.
Any ideas?
its very wierd it started to all of us in the past few days-weeks . seems like samsung has a bug they need to hurry up and fix.
AT&T just pushed out the October Security update for the S7 family, I'm guessing something that came along with it is creating the problem.
mine did a software update last week and I've been away in airplane mode so it could have started then. I've just disabled scanning and that seems to have got round the issue and I'm now connected to WifI
I'm not sure whether it is a Samsung Issue or a Third party one... It is true that something recently affected all of us, but as far as I know, it could be a third party app that wasn't well developed for our phone.
I've noticed the same problem on my phone and it's also only started up in the last few days. On stock Sammy rom, unrooted. Will be monitoring this thread to see if the experts here can narrow down the culprit.
I had the same issue and I was able to stop the toggle by turning off the wifi scanning in Location - Improve Accuracy - WiFi scanning. It's a fix for now. I think it may be an app that may have been updates that is persistently looking for location updates.

gps issues?

just received my s8. going back from work I decided to turn on the navigation to check if gps is working. It was stuttering so I downloaded some gps info app and there is no fix on my galaxy. The location when stationary is kinda working, shows it more or less precise but when travelling it jumps around.
How long the first fix should take? Any ideas? Anyone with the same issues?
ok nevermind
After 45min outside it fixed the location.
Hello mates,
I am planning to order s8 tomorrow. How you find it?
Regards,
Not sure if the s8 is like other samsung devices, but power savings modes can interfere with the gps locking.
Not sure if its still a thing but I think the first lock can often take a bit if there isnt perfect signal. I know back in the day when flashing various ROMs the initial GPS lock wasnt always quick unless I had really strong signal to the sats.
I find the attenuation of the gps signal on my gs8 to be very strong. If I'm holding the phone it seems on the lower half of the phone during navigation the signal degrades. If I put it on my leg flat it attenuates to the point of occasionally dropping signal. If it sits upright in my dash phone holder it seems to work fine. Is this normal and is anyone else experiencing this?
---------- Post added at 01:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 AM ----------
By the way, I have gps toolbox downloaded and have redownlaoded the agps and reset the gps data numerous times
I've been having gps issues as well, especially when using waze. Basically, signal disconnects and can't reconnect (or it never connects in the first place...) until you turn off location and then turn it back on again...
First fix is always the longest, because without knowing location GPS doesn't know what sats to look for and needs those sats to download data. Also when I first turned my phone on it was on Korean time zone. Finally, to get fastest fix allow phone to read network/wifi location (I think you need to manually set it to on) to read approximate location, to sync sat table etc. Since I use GPS daily with Google maps I can't remember waiting for proper fix more than few seconds, even when surrounded by very tall buildings and its always right on the money. Now you should be good to go with fast fix also, unless you turn GPS off for longer period of time.
I am also having issues getting the gps signal to lock. If i turn location off and then on it seems to work. Does anyone have a work around?
I was having odd GPS lock issues myself. I turned off the feature that lets it connect passively to wifi and bluetooth to attempt to "improve" location. After i turned those off, my GPS has been a lot more consistent. It by default uses your cell service and GPS antenna, which personally I feel is enough, i don't need to be getting location data from random wifi points and bluetooth signals that could be messed up, since I personally don't want to rely on other peoples devices that possibly are misconfigured.
This is of course my theory. In general it really could be a problem with the GPS in the device. I'm not really certain. Anybody else have results with this sort of change I made?
I think using BT and WiFi even when those services are turned off is overkill and I agree, it could cause more problems than benefits, I never turn it on. Hi accuracy is my setting and I think that uses cell towers and I think it may use my home Wifi, when I'm logged into it, but not sure. Bottom line it works very well on my phone and it can even tell when I'm in different rooms around my house. For example right now I'm in my office on 2nd floor of 10 floor building and my location on map is within 10 yards of actual location and I'm not even anywhere near any window, so it should not work, but somehow it does .
I have the same issue. I downloaded a navigation app and planned a short 2 mile trip to my local store just to check it out but it didn't follow me on screen it was only updating every 3 or 400m, like you discribe - jumping around. When I open Google maps and it shows the orientation of my phone I discovered my compass was 180° out. I downloaded a GPS resetting tool from the App Store and this worked for only a few minutes but now my compass is again 180° out even after I used to reset tool. Any help would be much appreciated
After reading this thread I tested Google Maps on the drive home and the GPS was fine. Also works fine on a couple of biking apps. For the biking apps I use GPS Keeper Pro to keep the GPS on all the time for better accuracy. Not sure if it is needed, but on other phones I got in the habit of using it. For driving I don't use GPS Keeper.
Corrupted cache
I cleared my cache in recovery mode and then the gps worked fabulously. Problem I had was that gnaps would lock on if stationary and would go haywire if asked to navigate. Cleared cache in recovery and then used the app. Worked flawlessly. It must be some corruption in the cached files with a recent ota installed.
100% Worked for me.
Recovery mode Power + Vol up + Bingsby let go when logo comes 2sec. wait and choose clear cache.
After GPS works again.
Before I tried everything. Also Total reinstall. But no luck.
Thanks million times for the hint.........
Ditto here. I was really getting aggravated bc i need to view maps (not while navigating, but while driving) to see these FM and county roads, and it would update every ¼ Mile.
Cleared cache and all is well now...
Now just waiting on a perfect root for s8+ QGL ????
same problem please help
amritnoronha said:
I cleared my cache in recovery mode and then the gps worked fabulously. Problem I had was that gnaps would lock on if stationary and would go haywire if asked to navigate. Cleared cache in recovery and then used the app. Worked flawlessly. It must be some corruption in the cached files with a recent ota installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did the problem came back after wiping or clearing the cache?
---------- Post added at 05:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:56 PM ----------
MaRyNoFear said:
100% Worked for me.
Recovery mode Power + Vol up + Bingsby let go when logo comes 2sec. wait and choose clear cache.
After GPS works again.
Before I tried everything. Also Total reinstall. But no luck.
Thanks million times for the hint.........
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did the problem came back after wiping or clearing the cache?
amritnoronha said:
I cleared my cache in recovery mode and then the gps worked fabulously. Problem I had was that gnaps would lock on if stationary and would go haywire if asked to navigate. Cleared cache in recovery and then used the app. Worked flawlessly. It must be some corruption in the cached files with a recent ota installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Old Post but new solution for me thanks funny thing because I thought wiping cache from the device maintenance was the same I guess not ??*??
GPS issue
Hi to all. I did all the above mentioned things and factory reset except clear cache. Isn't factory reset clear cache also?
Should I try clear cache?
Thanks
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ga...rdware-fix-t4101705/post82610627#post82610627

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