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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've been through a lot of roms. Its incredibly fun. Recently I noticed that my location on weather apps wasn't updating properly. I've always found that the Gps is crap, but using the mobile networks was an easy way to get weather information or find local shops.

I've restored my phone to stock and the location is still not working. I was hoping to find some help here. :)
 
sremick said:
Yes, there are multiple ways to pre-fetch satellite position data via the constellation database which can help with initial lock, but most peoples' problems are not with initial lock, but instead with maintaining lock and overall GPS accuracy.
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mine actually followed me in the car on saturday. was a total shocker.
 
I ran GPSRestore a few weeks ago with no results...then yesterday, I noticed my GPS was locking in, so I tried the navigation on Google maps...it locked in and stayed locked the entire way home...I was shocked...
 
I did the GPS Restore as my phone started losing GPS locks on a routine basis; even when driving on a relatively straight highway it lost signal 5+ times over a 12 mile trip. I didn't time it but the GPS spent more time out of lock than it did with a lock. Very annoying. GPS Restore didn't seem to make things any better but then again I hadn't fiddled with my GPS settings at all since I got the refurb phone.

I finally gave in and hooked up my Pharos II bluetooth GPS and was unhappy to note the almost instant 2 foot accuracy and no loss of lock during my normal route to work and back. The Captivate is lucky to get a 16 foot lock and usually runs 49-32 foot on a good day. Not to mention the fact that it LOVES to tell me that I'm a quarter mile off the freeway on some surface street. Granted the Pharos has a larger antenna and is a dedicated GPS device rather than a multiple use platform but my ol' Fuze did a pretty wonderful job most of the time. Cappy beats the crud outta the Fuze in almost all other respects but can't hold a candle in GPS performance.

I'm starting to think all Captivates should be sold with the option for a GPS upgrade which would include either a white cane or a seeing eye dog at the owners choice.

I don't know how many times I've seen that Google Nav has me off on a side street, even making 90 degree turns just because that's what the street it thinks I'm on does. This is one seriously GPS challenged phone.
 
DynaBlue said:
I don't know how many times I've seen that Google Nav has me off on a side street, even making 90 degree turns just because that's what the street it thinks I'm on does. This is one seriously GPS challenged phone.
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Try using GPS when plugged in. Accuracy should improve.

I've espoused a theory that GPS is underpowered on battery and that's when locks and accuracy fail when GPS is run on battery only.

My Captivate's GPS worked great out of the box (well, I did have to jumpstart it with GPS Test) -- but I always had it on charger. Accuracy and locks were/are impeccable *on charger*.

Then I did a few tests using GPS on battery-only...And prior to GPS Restore, accuracy was as you described, having me a block off, etc. BUT once I ran GPS Restore (you'll get the best results if you have your phone plugged while you run it) -- now my accuracy on battery is *almost* perfect. On charger remains impeccable.

So try GPS on charger and compare to on-battery. You should see a significant improvement.
 
I rooted yesterday and installed copilot live. Without running gpsrestore, I got a lock in 5 seconds then tried GM and the same. All this was done inside my house.
 
BookLover said:
So try GPS on charger and compare to on-battery. You should see a significant improvement.
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Fully charged, plugged in, or not, the GPS on my phone will lose lock when moving. It is particularly bad when navigating on and off-ramps which loop around on themselves, but will also go bonkers when making sharp 90deg or greater turns.
 
Buddha64 said:
Fully charged, plugged in, or not, the GPS on my phone will lose lock when moving. It is particularly bad when navigating on and off-ramps which loop around on themselves, but will also go bonkers when making sharp 90deg or greater turns.
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Are you rooted? Some users who rooted and/or custom ROM'd did not see any improvement even after GPS Restore.

A few folks reported reflashing back to custom ROM and then ran GPS Restore and then saw improvement in their GPS performance.

You may have gotten a bad GPS, or, if rooted/custom ROM'd, that prevented the GPS Restore fix to resolve your GPS issue.

All I can say is all was good for me BEFORE GPS Restore and got better AFTER. But I am stock, unrooted.
 
My phone is stock, unrooted. I kept this phone stock just in case the leaked Froyo ROM was part of the difficulties with my original phone which was returned for random shutdowns.

I always use the charger in the car and used GPSRestore while plugged in. I agree with the looping/90 degree turn observation; my phone frequently gets confused and loses my position lock when I make a turn from one road to another. The little arrow will keep merrily moving down the road I just turned off of for several seconds until the phone finally realizes that I'm just not there any longer. That actually made me wonder if there was a software issue with the navigation program just not polling the GPS and compass often enough but after seeing that my BT GPS doesn't have that problem using the same program on the same phone I abandoned that theory.

This is the second Captivate I've owned and both were mostly lousy with GPS performance. I'm keeping this one in the vain hope that official Froyo comes out before my 90 day refurb warranty runs out and fixes or at least improves the GPS situation.
 
I see a lot of discussion here about GPSrestore. At
http://capfaq.com/w/GPSnav

there is this, which surprisingly says all the utility does is restore default settings for GPS in the Captivate:

"On November 30, 2010 Samsung released a utility called GPS Restore which they touted as a new potential solution for users' GPS issues. Unfortunately all this utility does is reset the internal GPS settings back to their defaults... the very default settings that didn't work for most people which is why they tried changing them. Nonetheless, this utility has helped some people so it appears a certain subset of users with GPS issues were either self-inflicted by entering in bad settings, or resulted from corruption of the settings somehow..."
 
It must be doing something else or additional, as users have noticed that after running gpsrestore, nothing changed in the supl settings to bring it back to the original settings
 
fldude99 said:
It must be doing something else or additional, as users have noticed that after running gpsrestore, nothing changed in the supl settings to bring it back to the original settings
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I had the same thing with gpsrestore, no changes to the supl settings and no noticeable change in performance.

I think it might be doing something in preparation for froyo, but what I don't know.
 
sremick said:
Yep. Hence the name: "GPSrestore"

It restores your GPS settings to the stock defaults.
Click to expand...

Not only that. It apparently, removes a patch installed by the carriers that were installed on top of the Samsung GPS driver. Purpose of the patch was to save battery power. These patches are installed on top of all GPS drivers on smart phones, but apparently this patch affected the driver on Samsung phones for some reason. From what I've been told, fixing the patch didn't work out, so the solution was to remove it completely.

The guy couldn't explain exactly what the patch actually does, except that it does affect the settings set in the driver itself (not the LBS settings)
 
Buddha64 said:
Who is "the guy?" Is he from the same organization as "them?"
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The guy is actually a Samsung tech.
This information was given to me by a friend of mine. We both work for a defense contractor. He is working on a program for the Army, and they use Android-based phones. So their development team has pretty much every android phone on the market for testing. As you can imagine, GPS functionality is pretty important to them. They've been bugging Samsung about GPS problems for a while and once GPSRestore came out, they contacted Samsung again to get information on what exactly changed.
And that was the explanation given to them by Samsung.
 
So would this gpsrestore be recommended to all users including the handsets that seem to have a functioning gps? Kinda like the flu shot? I'm inclined not to fix what's not broke (at least to my perception and needs)
 
fldude99 said:
So would this gpsrestore be recommended to all users including the handsets that seem to have a functioning gps? Kinda like the flu shot? I'm inclined not to fix what's not broke (at least to my perception and needs)
Click to expand...

I did the restore and my GPS was fine before.

Was *great* after.

But I never messed with any settings to start with.

If you fiddled with your GPS settings to get to where you are now, it may not be a good idea.
 
George0211 said:
.. a program for the Army, and they use Android-based phones. So their development team has pretty much every android phone on the market for testing. As you can imagine, GPS functionality is pretty important to them...
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I can more than imagine how important GPS is to the Army. So, the Army is investigating the use of android phones for GPS? Curious...
 
Buddha64 said:
I can more than imagine how important GPS is to the Army. So, the Army is investigating the use of android phones for GPS? Curious...
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No, they are not using android phones for GPS itself. It's a system being developed that runs on Android phones that also uses GPS.
I don't know the specifics, I don't have the need-to-know for it.
 
George0211 said:
I don't have the need-to-know for it.
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It's no secret that the Army is investigating issuing smart phones to soldiers. As to whatever system you're chatting about, irrespective of your lack of "need-to-know," you seem to know more than you need to know - assuming such a system is actually being developed. I'm just saying, myself a part-time green-suiter and DA Civilian, I wouldn't speak about such things in a public forum. Especially considering I signed an non-disclosure agreement with the government to get my clearance - as all employees and contractors of the Federal Government had to do.
 
Buddha64 said:
It's no secret that the Army is investigating issuing smart phones to soldiers. As to whatever system you're chatting about, irrespective of your lack of "need-to-know," you seem to know more than you need to know - assuming such a system is actually being developed. I'm just saying, myself a part-time green-suiter and DA Civilian, I wouldn't speak about such things in a public forum.
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the fact that the system is being developed is not classified.
 
George0211 said:
the fact that the system is being developed is not classified.
Click to expand...

Plus add in that Android Forums makes every effort to be max attentive to such issues - staff is sympathetic to all who serve - and pays close attention to discussions involving this sort of thing (in this case, me personally, I try to catch every post here as it comes in, as I have a qualified background for this).

This is a non-problem, I'd have stopped it if it were. It's been an on-going discussion in the public press this year, and here's a sample of the latest blurb -

Smart phones in combat: Army may issue iPhones and Android phones | Technology | Los Angeles Times

You're both free to google for more like that one, and bring up a discussion in the Android Lounge - Android Forums or the The Lounge - Android Forums.

And fwiw - GPS started out as a military resource and counts nuclear detonation detection (useful for treaty monitoring, for example) among its missions.

Ok - issue solved, back to GPS on the Captivate, please.
 
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