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GPS won't show my location

P

pTac

Member
I love my Fascinate but the GPS will not show my location. It just says that it is unavailable even though it is turned on and should work fine. Anyone have any ideas to fix this???
 
Unfortunately, the Fascinate is pretty much a failure when it come to the GPS. It works for many people (though not acceptably well) that have a Fascinate with Android 2.1. If you update to 2.1 Update 1, the GPS works exactly as it should - quickly and with accuracy. However, with Android 2.2, the GPS goes back to being nearly worthless. For that reason, I'm hoping I can wipe Android 2.2 from my phone and go back to 2.1 Update 1. The GPS is very important to me, and I've also had more force closes than ever since updating to 2.2, so I have every intention of trying to ditch it.
 
Try GPS AIDS. It helps a lot The app can seem a bit intimating but just work through it.
You would break anything using it and for me GPS works with AIDS ... most days.
 
I downgraded to 2.1 Update 1 (DI01) and the GPS went back to working as it should. I'm very leery of trying 2.2 or higher again for a while.
 
How long did you wait? sometimes it might take up to 5mins. After 2.2 update, mine locked under 30sec. but after phone replacement, it takes 3-4mins to lock it. :(
 
The ONLY way my GPS ever works is if I activate Wifi. I don't actually select a Wifi, but instead just turn it on, I enable all 3 GPS boxes, and I use Google maps. Whenever the Wifi is turned on, it connects immediately.. if not sooner.
 
ohhnoregrets said:
The ONLY way my GPS ever works is if I activate Wifi. I don't actually select a Wifi, but instead just turn it on, I enable all 3 GPS boxes, and I use Google maps. Whenever the Wifi is turned on, it connects immediately.. if not sooner.
Click to expand...

Wow! Huge improvement. Locks in instantly! Thanks!


EVERYONE SHOULD TRY THIS!
 
My gps works perfect, I walked home from work yesterday 3hr walk with gps on using google maps. It locked on in under a minute and was dead on the whole 3hrs
 
I did little test for myself.

With turned-off VZM location services, it would take forever or will not lock my location.

With turned-on VZM location services, it would lock my location in under 5 second.
 
When ever do a data wipe i always turn the GPS on through the settings menu the first time. Just turning it on through the pull down does not seem to engage it for some reason. I also have noticed about equal acquisition times with and without the verizon and google locations turned on. If you are rooted you can try GPS aids from the market when ever I have had an issue this has solved it.
 
ohhnoregrets said:
The ONLY way my GPS ever works is if I activate Wifi. I don't actually select a Wifi, but instead just turn it on, I enable all 3 GPS boxes, and I use Google maps. Whenever the Wifi is turned on, it connects immediately.. if not sooner.
Click to expand...

Hmm. This is odd indeed. Are you sure that your GPS is actually working in these instances? Google Maps uses wifi location data too, so if you turn on Wifi, it may be using ONLY wifi locations to tell your approximate location.

Does your GPS work with other applications in this scenario? Not Google Maps, but anything else? I think if you use an app like GPS Status, you'll probably find that the GPS is still not working ..
 
If you try the Mapquest app, many seem to lock in the GPS signal almost immediately. What I found though is that mapquest turns on your wifi automatically when the program loads. So I tried that with Google Maps and guess what.... ? It worked. Turn on wifi, when you turn on your gps (again doesn't matter if there are any wifi hotspots available, you don't need to connect to any) and I get near instant lock. And yes, GPS is working because the accuracy is very high and I can turn wifi back off after the lock is made and everything tracks perfectly.
Not sure what is happening here, but hey, it works, so I'm not complaining.
 
nunyazz said:
If you try the Mapquest app, many seem to lock in the GPS signal almost immediately. What I found though is that mapquest turns on your wifi automatically when the program loads. So I tried that with Google Maps and guess what.... ? It worked. Turn on wifi, when you turn on your gps (again doesn't matter if there are any wifi hotspots available, you don't need to connect to any) and I get near instant lock. And yes, GPS is working because the accuracy is very high and I can turn wifi back off after the lock is made and everything tracks perfectly.
Not sure what is happening here, but hey, it works, so I'm not complaining.
Click to expand...


That is interesting. This is what I see too, except for this: "and I can turn wifi back off after the lock is made and everything tracks perfectly." It does not do this for me. For me, the phone then loses the lock, which indicates it was using wifi, not GPS. Further, when I use the GPS Status app I can see that turning on wifi does nothing for my GPS. I am glad others are having better results, but not me .. :-/
 
This is what works for me:
1. Always turn gps on with the settings menu. The pull down doesn't work.
2. Always run "GPS Status" immediately after turning the gps on via the settings menu. It speeds up the lock, and displays the number of satelites aquired as it goes.
3. If "GPS Status" doesn't show any satelites aquired after 10-15 seconds, I pull the battery and do a restart. It may be a pain, but its quicker than waiting for a lock, which may never happen. After the restart, turn on gps via the settings menu, then run "GPS Status", and it locks on very quickly.
4. I recently read in another forum that if you are experiencing gps locking problems, you should reset (re-orient) the phone's compass. No explanation as to why this works, but many people have reported that it does. I havent tried it yet.

Hope this helps!
 
Thanks for the suggestions folks, but none of them work for me. I tried them all multiple times. The only thing I haven't done is a hard reset yet, and I don't plan to. That last update definitely hosed my GPS.
 
nunyazz said:
I guess you are not interested in rooting to change your modem?
Click to expand...
I am a bit intimidated by some of the rooting threads I have seen. While I am warming up to the idea a bit, I am not sure if I am brave enough yet to take the leap.
 
tried everything here and it does not work, i do not remember updating anything recently but i do have the 2.2 version and it does not work at all now (it sued to work) honestly this is a total fail and i do blame android, more then half the apps i need require GPS, i have a rooted machine.
my GF loughs at me everyday now when this or other feature fails she bought iPhone 4 when i bought my Fascinate for 100 more and boy it is worth it, her iPhone is just 10 times better, this is my 3rd android device and it just sucks.
i have having thoughts of jumping ship and buying an iPhone. how frustrating
 
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