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All things GPS

Is this a poll?

  • Yes, it looks like a poll.

    Votes: 42 26.3%

  • No, there is no way this is a poll.

    Votes: 31 19.4%

  • Why in the world is there a poll here?

    Votes: 87 54.4%
  • Total voters
    160
I did the GSM reset on my Samsung Cantlocate and the GPS worked much better for 2 days and now it won't hold a lock for more than a few seconds.
 
ZDroid1 said:
Great. So I permanently lost ALL my stuff for nothing.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

I suspect backup will become a norm for you now:D I learned the hard way too on my previous phone. So i implemented a scheduled regular backup with Titanium Backup, and have been happy that I did so. It has paid off.
 
Today, as with most changes, its variable. It takes FOREVER for me to get locks but as weird as that sounds again today when I tried navigation after it finally could lock on to sats, it was pretty good. Not as good as last night but it was usable. I need to read up today on whether the other settings I modified matter or could be negatively impacting my results. I changed them because initially I couldnt get any sats after this change.
 
My GPS has been working for about 5 days now. When it starts getting cranky I go into LBSTestMode, delete the GPS data, immediately reboot, and that seems to keep it working. I'm not saying that is what is keeping it going but it seems to help a bit.

I was shocked- last night I was in the backseat of a car on a thickly overcast rainy night and the GPS locked and stayed locked without a problem. Very odd. When my friend asked me to fire it up I assumed it wasn't going to work.
 
Folks, all these remedies don't solve the problem. You are losing data and modifying your phones for no reason, at the end of the day, Samsung is the only one that can fix this.
 
The reason for this post is solely to inform people of thier options, I am not writing this just to complain or vent.

I really like the Captivate, but for me personally the GPS issue is a deal breaker (i realize this isnt the case for everyone). Anyway, I went to my local AT&T store and explained my issues, the manager was well aware of the problems and seemed to think there was no fix coming anytime soon. She allowed me to exchange straight up for an iPhone 4 at no cost even though I am almost 70 days into my contract.

Again, this is not a reply to say the iphone is better (i actually prefer the captivate), its just to let people know that there is potentially an option out there for people past their 30 days who are not satisfied with the product.
 
MSchaff30, just called my local store and the gentleman I spoke to was great. He had the phone himself and returned it for the same issues we are all complaining about in this forum/thread. He had the lock delays, off to the side navigational issues, etc. He took down my information and promised to have a manager call me within the hour. I hope and pray this means I can once and for all return this phone. Refuse to wait any longer for Samsung to deliver a fix. It's a shame, the phone has a ton of potential and with the exception of the GPS issue, I have no other complaints.
 
So now that we have a dedicated GPS thread, I thought I'd ask a few questions that have been on my mind about the Captivate's GPS behavior. Maybe some of the folks who really know the nitty gritty about GPS, like our friend Mr. GPS, will have some insight into this. I'm not sure if it offers clues into what the Captivate's GPS problem really is or if other people's experience is similar, but it seems potentially interesting.

Anyway, if I walk outside and launch GPS Status, it typically takes a few seconds and then gradually starts seeing satellites, but not yet using them. So I get 0/2, 0/3, 0/4, and then somewhere around 20-30s after I launched it, typically, it will get a lock and a location, usually reporting something like 3/4 or 4/4 (used/seen). But, and this strikes me as weird, it generally loses that initial lock almost immediately, within a second or less, dropping back to 0/3 or 0/2. Then over the next 30s, it starts seeing more and more satellites, 0/4, 0/6, 0/7, 0/8, and then, 30s or so after the first lock, it gets a second, better lock, usually something like 6/8 or so. It then almost immediately gets worse again, but usually doesn't lose lock completely, just drops to 2/6, or 3/5 or something. At this point it generally holds a lock of sorts more or less indefinitely (if I don't move), but the number of sats used/seen fluctuates wildly, as do the various SNRs. I find this behavior pretty strange. Why does it always lose that first lock so quickly? Only to subsequently get a better one? That really doesn't feel like a hardware issue like bad antenna or anything, because why would it vary?

The other thing that seems strange to me is that if I then quit out of GPS status and go into maps, it starts blinking the GPS icon at the top and stays that way for a looonnng time, typically a minute or more. Shouldn't the driver still have the data from when GPS status was running a mere instant before? Why does maps seem to need to re-aquire the lock all over again from the beginning? I thought the driver was supposed to cache recent data-- this is the premise behind apps like Tracker Booster, which sit in the background and repeatedly query the GPS so the data will always be fresh, allowing GPS tracks to be smoothed out. Maybe the maps app makes some call that forces the GPS to restart from the beginning? Anyone know?

Anyway, these are just a couple GPS conundra that have been bugging me recently. :)
 
Diclaimer: This thread contains language refering to the "GPS Problem" the "JH7" update and Froyo 2.2. If you are not interested in these topics please do not read this article.

Ok, so as some of you know from my last post, after the JH7 update, my phone went to hell. The GPS still didn't work worth a damn and my battery life dropped to 7 hours or so with very mild use. I decided I cannot tollerate these issues anymore and cannot sit around waiting for Samsung to fix it. I use this phone both personally and professionally and I NEED to be able to rely on it, and, quite simply, I cant.

I am passed my 30 day return period by a longshot now, but want to be able to return it to Best Buy and go back to using my old phone until; AT&T gets other high end Android units form different manufacturers, I can get an high end Android unit unlocked and works on AT&T (maybe the G2?) or the Captivate gets truely and fully fixed. So I would likely have to prove to Bestbuy the phone is defective and that Samsung has not fixed it, and wont for a while.

I first emailed Samsung support hoping they would reply back so I could print the email and take it to Best Buy for proof. They emailed back and told me to call them...

So today, I called and got a guy who bairly spoke english (overseas no doubt). I wanted to talk to someone who spoke English and who was higher up on the food chain. SO I kind of BSed around with the first guy and used a lot of "technical speach" about the issues and testing I had done. Within a few minuts he transfered me to level 3 support. I talked to a guy named Ben.

I told Ben my story and he told me that my battery was likely bad. About the GPS he told me something like," The Jh7 firmware update was only intened to add a few features, an app, and optimize GPS. Samsung is aware that the optimization seems to have mixed results among different users. Samsung is aware that there is an issue with the U.S line of Galaxy S phones that is causing the GPS to not perform as expected. We expect that the release of Android 2.2 will correct this issue."

I asked him when we could expect 2.2 and he said, We are expecting to have Android 2.2 ready to "pass on to service providers" sometime near the end of this year or early next year. Then it will be up to the providers to release it to their users"

I know that for the last few months people have been giving reports that Samsung support has said all kinds of things and in many cases completely different from eachother, so, I called back! I used the same "technical mumbo jumbo" to get passed on to level 3 support again and talked to a guy named Chris. Chris told me almost the exact same thing that Ben did. That the GPS issue "is expected" to be fully addressed in Android 2.2 and that would be released to carriers towards the end of the year or early next year.

Now take this information for what you will. Im not looking to start trollings or any crap like that, I am just mearly passing on information I recieved from 2 different Samsung Level 3 support techs. I have reason to beleive that if the GPS will ever be fixed, they wont release any new updates for it until froyo, and that we wont see that for at least another 3 months on the Captivate. If you are like me and cant wait any longer for Samsung to fix this thing because you rely heavily on the missing/broken features, or dont want to wait and see if Samsung will keep there promise this time, then you should probably look into returning it soon. If your GPS works, or isnt a big deal to you, maybe you will get a nice Christmas/New years present of Froyo from "Uncle Sammy" and this thing will be really awesome. Just be prepaired to wait a few more months.
 
  1. We admit we have become powerless over the Captivate's GPS issue—that our smartphone lives have become unmanageable, we lost our data, we wasted a lot of time, we neglected our loved ones (i.e. the rest of the phone's features).
  2. We believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. We promise to no longer bitch and whine about the problem, and just enjoy the phone for what it is.
  4. We promise to remove lbsTestMode from all our home screens.
  5. We pledge to never try "just one more GPS setting fix", or "just this one more factory reset fix".
  6. We shall never drive around for an hour testing different GPS settings and modes just to see which combination works best.
  7. We shall uninstall all GPS status/test apps from our phones.
  8. We promise to simply accept the lack of GPS functionality as an accomplished fact, and just learn to love the Samsung Captivate anyway, and stop trying to fix it.
  9. Having recognized this truth, we promise to spread it to others -- but without starting any new GPS threads (except for this one).
  10. If Samsung fixes the problem, then that's cool. Otherwise, that's cool too. F--- Samsung.

Click "Thank You" to effectively sign the Pledge. Feel free to add to the list.
 
All of Samsung's promises:

- GPS fix/improvements by end of September, so far EPIC FAIL
- Another post on FB stated that Samsung support said the GPS fix was not worth implementing on 2.1 because there would be changes in 2.2, so they rather focus on 2.2. The ETA on such fix was October 20th. Can't validate the claim but another story just like this one.
- AT&T puts out documentation for JH7 with no mention of a GPS fix/improvement, Samsung claims this is the fix and so does AT&T shortly after. Once again, EPIC FAIL.
- Now your story, about 3 to 4 months before we see a Froyo fix.


Possible truth behind all this:

- Samsung is possibly going to have to do a recall of the Galaxy S line in order to resolve this issue. The lies keep on coming and nothing gets resolved. Not only that, this latest updated removed some items from the phone without us being told ahead of time to make an educated decision.
 
I think Cuerbo may be referencing the contents of a post as per lquited below for same topic on SGS:

Re the problems with the Galaxy S:-
The problems are all down to the new combined Broadcom chip which is used to cover GPS, BT & Wifi.
As you already know both the GPS & Wifi have issues on the Galaxy models.
This has been found to be a driver issue with the Broadcom chip.
Samsung passed the problem to Broadcom who fixed the drivers and then handed it back over to Samsung.
Now problem one.... Samsung then had to engineer the fix into the Filesystem but this was then found to also be in error.
This was fixed and was just about to be released as the GPS fix (which would also have corrected the Wifi problem) but just at the last minute it was halted as Froyo was about to be released and this had yet another different Filesystem which was found would alter all the hard work on putting the new drivers onto the system.
So a decision was made to halt the release, work the fixes into Froyo and then release it this time as a combined Froyo and GPS/Wifi/Filesystem/Lag fixes.

However..... last minute checks found an error and this has put it back.
It should now make it to mid October and I am confident this will happen.

As to does it fix the problems...... No idea.
Is it already out in one of the other releases..... Absolutely not.
None of the present releases holds any of the 'official' fixes, be that GPS/Wifi/Lag/Filesystem.
Click to expand...

I'm frustrated. I don't want to move away from AT&T, but they have no other phones I want. I'm starting to watch to see if/when the HTC Desire HD may come to AT&T.
 
I've only had my phone for a couple of weeks, and for the most part I love it; however I am growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of GPS.

Truthfully GPS isn't a feature that I would use that often even it were fully functional, but the nagging thoughts that I paid for a product that is not fully functional is beginning to eat away at me a bit.

I would be perfectly fine with waiting for a true GPS fix is Samsung would come out and own up to the issue and communicate clearly with what progress they've made to address the problem and give a proper time table for when the fix will be implemented.

Just my $0.02
 
Thanks for this info:

Infinite-t said:
he said, We are expecting to have Android 2.2 ready to "pass on to service providers" sometime near the end of this year or early next year. Then it will be up to the providers to release it to their users"
Click to expand...

I hope others out there who take the time to call Samsung/AT&T or find other sources of information regarding this issue continue to post it here, and I hope the mods tolerate that and don't keep lumping all threads together. I come here partially for information like this.
 
Thanks, I dont have facebook so I didnt see that post. So it sounds like they know what is wrong and are chasing their tail to fix it and really dont have a solid Idea of when that will be..
 
xxbrysonxx said:
I've only had my phone for a couple of weeks, and for the most part I love it; however I am growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of GPS.

Truthfully GPS isn't a feature that I would use that often even it were fully functional, but the nagging thoughts that I paid for a product that is not fully functional is beginning to eat away at me a bit.

I would be perfectly fine with waiting for a true GPS fix is Samsung would come out and own up to the issue and communicate clearly with what progress they've made to address the problem and give a proper time table for when the fix will be implemented.

Just my $0.02
Click to expand...

We're on the same boat. I too don't need GPS that often. But it bothers me. However, if you think about it rationally, a broken feature that you don't use that much shouldn't be that much of a deciding factor. I knew from day one that GPS was not a deciding factor to me.

All the other features on the phone that I actually do care about, are far superior to the other Android phones offered by AT&T. That's what matters in the end.
 
Just got off the phone with AT&T, store I purchased the phone from. They are looking into my case and will give me an answer within the next two days. By answer I mean, phone goes back and I walk out with an IPhone4 or my 2yr agreement gets cancelled and I'm off to Sprint.
 
I had the One Click Lag Fix and did the factory GSM reset, which wiped my phone clean- including the paid for backup app and its data. If you do it, make sure you disable OCLF first. Thankfully my contacts were backed up on ATT and on Kies. I recreated the apps from memory. Now I'm running Cognition 2.1.4 and with the GPS tweak (google server, supl socket secure to off) it locks on quick and tracks me correctly. I tried it on a 30 minute dog walk yesterday and during my 20 minute drive to work. It's solid. Cognition also makes the phone very snappy. Battery life is at least as good if not better than before. The only thing is, with custom ROMs OTA updates will mess your phone up, so always wait for new custom ROM or disable any fixes before updating. Not for the casual user.
 
ulbonado said:
So now that we have a dedicated GPS thread, I thought I'd ask a few questions that have been on my mind about the Captivate's GPS behavior. Maybe some of the folks who really know the nitty gritty about GPS, like our friend Mr. GPS, will have some insight into this. I'm not sure if it offers clues into what the Captivate's GPS problem really is or if other people's experience is similar, but it seems potentially interesting.

Anyway, if I walk outside and launch GPS Status, it typically takes a few seconds and then gradually starts seeing satellites, but not yet using them. So I get 0/2, 0/3, 0/4, and then somewhere around 20-30s after I launched it, typically, it will get a lock and a location, usually reporting something like 3/4 or 4/4 (used/seen). But, and this strikes me as weird, it generally loses that initial lock almost immediately, within a second or less, dropping back to 0/3 or 0/2. Then over the next 30s, it starts seeing more and more satellites, 0/4, 0/6, 0/7, 0/8, and then, 30s or so after the first lock, it gets a second, better lock, usually something like 6/8 or so. It then almost immediately gets worse again, but usually doesn't lose lock completely, just drops to 2/6, or 3/5 or something. At this point it generally holds a lock of sorts more or less indefinitely (if I don't move), but the number of sats used/seen fluctuates wildly, as do the various SNRs. I find this behavior pretty strange. Why does it always lose that first lock so quickly? Only to subsequently get a better one? That really doesn't feel like a hardware issue like bad antenna or anything, because why would it vary?

The other thing that seems strange to me is that if I then quit out of GPS status and go into maps, it starts blinking the GPS icon at the top and stays that way for a looonnng time, typically a minute or more. Shouldn't the driver still have the data from when GPS status was running a mere instant before? Why does maps seem to need to re-aquire the lock all over again from the beginning? I thought the driver was supposed to cache recent data-- this is the premise behind apps like Tracker Booster, which sit in the background and repeatedly query the GPS so the data will always be fresh, allowing GPS tracks to be smoothed out. Maybe the maps app makes some call that forces the GPS to restart from the beginning? Anyone know?

Anyway, these are just a couple GPS conundra that have been bugging me recently. :)
Click to expand...


I agree and can confirm the above behaviors. My Captivate locks with the split-second-lost lock after anywhere between a minute and a half to two and a half minutes, but the enduring-lock does usually come about 30 seconds after. My enduring-lock is typically fine even if I move/drive around, and usually get stronger (i.e. from 3/10 or so to say 9/9 or so) over a period of about 15 minutes.
I also think it cannot be a hardware issue, not only because of the ability to lock and see satellites, but because I am getting equal SNR values on the N1 and G1 phones when compared side-by-side. The N1's lock is nearly instantaneous (literally less than 5 seconds), while the G1 does take up to a minute sometimes, but the SNR values are almost always the same, and if not they are very close (the only exception is that the N1 usually sees an extra satellite the other two do not).
 
I took it out for a test drive today and this has been the best its ever worked. Locked very fast and stood on-track MOST of the time. I did notice that Co-Pilot Live worked better than Google Maps. I did have the settings changed in Lbs so it work better or worse for the stock settings.
Overall its an improvement ! Still not as good as my Bluetooth GPS ;)
 
Phandroid has posted that the fix is now out via KIES for the Vibrant. Will be interesting to see how that goes.
 
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