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GPS Abruptly Stopped Working?

S

Squidward

Newbie
This weekend, returning from a roadtrip, I fired up my Navigation and got only the "Searching for GPS" notification in perpetuity. Network location was working. Chalking it up to cloudy skies and just general Murphy's Law, I carried on without thinking much of it. After about an hour on the road, the skies had cleared and I tried again...same thing. My brother was in the car who also has a droid. He tried his and GPS located and worked just fine.

Yes, my GPS is on. :) I've turned it on and off several times, went into and out of airplane mode, of course rebooted. Did a battery pull today. Still not working. Uninstalled most recent updates on the Maps app, didn't work. Reinstalled the updates...well, why would that make it work.

The GPS "broadcasting satellite" icon comes up in my status bar when attempting to locate...just never succeeds. It seems to be not working for any App that requires GPS (i.e., not just Maps or Navigation)

Soooo...any ideas? Much appreciated.
 
I think that we might be having satellite problems. I had the same problem this morning in WNY. It worked fine this afternoon.
 
But satellite problems wouldn't explain one phone having working GPS in the exact same spot as another phone didn't, would it? And this has been sustained for about 36 hours now...
 
Sometimes this problem is caused by a certain app taking control of the GPS receiver and not giving it up. Did you download anything that might use the GPS recently? Have you tried rebooting the phone?
 
Download GPS Test.. great app as it show shows many satellite your connected to and gives their strength level and where in the sky they are located. good tool to have around.
 
In some cases I've had to reactivate to get GPS working again. It's extremely unlikely that it's clouds or an issue with the satellites themselves.

I suggest taking the following steps (go to the next if the step doesn't resolve your issue):

1. Cycle GPS off and then on.
2. Power cycle the Droid.
3. Reactivate (*228, option 1).

GPS Status is a handy app to have.

Also, remember that GPS on the Droid is assisted so it does attempt to retrieve Ephemeris data to obtain an initial lock. I suspect there's a common issue there or with falling back to standalone mode. The GPS receiver on my BB 8310 (which was always standalone) never had such problems.
 
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