• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help [ISSUE] GPS on the Evo Shift

K

KoG

Newbie
So, as the title suggests, I'm having issues with my phone's GPS. In the Foursquare app is where I noticed it, so I chalked it up to poor satellite signal or shotty app. But I checked the signal via Google Maps, and my location bounced from network locale and GPS locale (though my GPS locale was not at all accurate). I tested this out in the middle of town, so it's not a failed signal thing. I've checked all of my settings. I'm at a loss, because it sometimes works. Am I missing something?
 
Hello my name is 3skimo and although I have been using an Android based phone for some time now, I am brand new to the Android Forums.

I have a question regarding the GPS on the Evo Shift. Does it work? I ask this because I currently have the Samsung Moment and other than its hardware limitations I love this phone. However, the GPS on this phone is utterly useless. I have tried many times to use it and it has worked only once. The GPS is so useless it is actually the sole reason that I am looking to upgrade my phone (and pay full price without an upgrade discount).

I am not sure if this horrible GPS is a reflection of my Sprint service (which I doubt because everything else works) or if it is a problem with the Samsung Moment.

Has anyone had issues while using the GPS on their Evo Shift?


Thanks in advance,

3skimo
 
Hey 3skimo welcome to the forums. I also came over from the moment and so far the gps has worked great on this phone. The moment's gps was total crap and it took atleast 3 to 4 mins to get my gps to lock. On my shift I usually get a lock within seconds.
 
Same here. Moved from Moment to Evo Shift and I have to admit, the GPS on the Moment wasn't the greatest. It was just really slow in my case. Shift is so much better.
 
The GPS on the Shift is great, I use Google nav all the time. In fact i just leave my GPS on cause i dont really see any more of a drain on the battery.
 
my only issue with the GPS so far is accuracy on a cloudy day. i'm stuck in 50-75 meter accuracy (3 satellites) with heavy cloud cover. waiting for a sunny day...my HTC Imagio would find me within 3 meters in about 8 seconds flat - I used that phone for geocaching often. The Shift is my first Android phone and so far i'm very happy with it...but I do find the GPS leaves me wanting a little so far. I do like that they bundled in the ability to change the amount of cached memory for google maps though. I have cached full detail maps of some of my hunting spots so that when i'm there and not in a good service area the GPS will still function. I've tried it by enabling airplane mode and it runs on the cached maps just fine.
 
My GPS sucks!!! Literally shows my location accurate to 1000 meters, which it horse crap. How am I supposed to use my phone for navigation when it shows my locations 5 streets over from my actual location.
 
The GPS is a mixed bag. I used it over the weekend walking around the streets of San Francisco, and it was always spot on - accuracy of 3 meters or less it said. Inside the buses, trolleys, etc. it reported that it was accurate within 80 meters, which was good enough for my purposes.

Normally I'm in sunny Southern California and the GPS during navigation in the car is very accurate as well. But when I was in Cleveland, OH recently and the weather was bad, it wasn't very accurate for navigation purposes in a moving vehicle. It frequently thought I was a street over, etc.

That said, it is leaps and bounds better than my old Samsung Moment - I was never able to use the GPS indoors or outdoors, even on a clear sunny day. I'm finally able to 'Check In' on facebook and use Google Maps, Navigation, etc.. its awesome.
 
OK, those with GPS trouble, and the chance, please install and check out - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.chartcross.gpstest - it's free.

Also: homescreen -> Menu -> Settings -> Location -- check both of Use wireless networks and Use GPS satellites and ensure that your 3G radio is on (using either HTC widget or under settings -> wireless.. -> check Mobile network).

These phones use aGPS and rely on help from the towers, depending on a number of factors.
 
Chalk me up as one who has had nothing but major problems with my GPS. I dl'd the GPStest, but I didn't understand what it was doing. I was indoors and the few bars/lines that came up were red and orange. I'm not sure I know what that meant. But when I'm out and about, and I turn on the GPS then open Google Maps I still only get my location from towers. This is after several minutes of waiting to see if the GPS signal will work. If I do get an accurate GPS location, it still jumps around from my location to a nearby tower. I've also done all the things you recommended, EarlyMon. To no avail. Frustrated.
 
GPS test software should show when you're outdoors and with a skyview - at least 4 satellites with a good signal.

When traveling through cities that leave you surrounded by tall buildings or the like, you may expect handoff from GPS to the towers - but when enough sky is clear, you may expect handoff back to GPS.

If you've done the above suggestions, then these are the right steps to try - in this order:

1. Pull battery for 60 seconds, put back in, use phone as expected. (Not indoors - it's not designed for that.)

2. Factory reset - saving your stuff, resetting, and restoring detailed instructions are here: http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-support-troubleshooting/141369-how-fix-froyo.html

3. Return phone for replacement due to defective hardware.

Test inside and outside of vehicle - it could be something about your vehicle - not impossible, just kinda odd.
 
Not to cloud the waters with another post (there is another) about the Evo Shift 4G and it's lackluster GPS but I'm making some headway with the issue. I need to get Sprint and HTC's attention though.

I have 2 HTC ES4G's and both have the same problems with the GPS. It will NOT hold a lock more than a couple minutes. My wife's phone is still at original factory settings with no upgrades to firmware, PRL or HTC software. Mine has all updates.

our navigation is all but useless. Telenav and Google both continually re-route every couple minutes because the phone will triangulate to cell towers as soon as it loses the satellites. This usually puts me about a half mile to a mile from my real location causing the navigation to re-route, only to do it again when the GPS finds me again.

I downloaded GPS Test by Chartcross (Free) from the marketplace on the ES4G and a similar product on my company HTC Imagio. The Imagio will INSTANTLY grab 7-10 satellites and often shows resolution in the 3-7meter range. The ES4G on the other hand will bounce from zero to 7 satellites and everywhere in between. this is in my car, or out on a picnic table in front of the office, in my back yard...it doesn't matter. sun or clouds...no change. the Imagio is rock steady...in fact I used to do some geocaching with it. I had an AT&T Tilt before the Imagio and it's GPS was the same...that's the device that got me turned onto geocaching in the first place.

I've called into Sprint Tech Support, there are no GPS chip updates...I TRULY believe this is a software issue right now, and have no reason to believe otherwise. Sprint is willing to replace my phone and i'm scheduled to go get a replacement on thurs or friday (3rd party reseller kiosk that didn't stock any phones is ordering me one...company store would not do the swap). I plan on immediately firing up GPS Test and Google Maps in their parking lot to see if it's any better. I want to also compare it to the Evo. and any other HTC handsets they have on hand.

I love the ES4G but the GPS has me wishing for a different phone. I'd sacrifice a little battery life for a GPS that works. Might be upgrading (?) to a Evo instead of the shift if this isn't fixed.

If any of you could see if you duplicate these findings I would love for you to chime in. you can get GPS Test HERE

and another heret

both work the same for me...

Thanks in advance for your help...
 
I've done alot more testing and have found that the ES4G indeed is having issues with the GPS. Across multiple handsets...and more testing to come.

I need to find a screenshot utility that does not require the phone to be rooted though...sprint does not particularly care to see a rooted phone when you call for support I'd imagine. I could be wrong, but i'd simply rather not chance it just yet.

I started a new thread on this EarlyMon, feel free to combine them if you wish but I personally want to call some attention to this issue...both my ES4Gs are useless for navigation after having used them for a couple weeks now.
 
I haven't had much luck using the GPS on my Evo Shift. In fact, unless it often tells me I'm in Vancouver or New England (I live in Oregon). I gave up and went back to using my Garmin.
 
I am also having issues with the GPS. Telenav is pretty much useless. Just cycles through Getting GPS signal, getting directions, and retying GPS signal. Nothing ever happens from the percent status bar. This occurs, outside, inside, and in my car regardless of weather. Google Maps take a little while too however, it works fine and a couple of minutes. Pretty annoying. Im just happy that I am not the only one
 
For those with the problem and GPS Test, if you're willing, please try this experiment, report back -

1. Power down phone
2. Pull battery out for 60 seconds
3. Bring phone back up, nothing special
4. 3G on and allow tower navigation in settings
5. Immediately go in to GPS Test and see if the results change

Thanks - maybe we can track this down to some sequence of conflicting processes, and a clean start might give some info on this.
 
I've had my shift for a few weeks now and my gps works mint! I rarely restart my phone, and im frequently multitasking with other apps while running the gps.
I am a property inspector, who drives to anywhere from 15-60 different locations per day, covering 80-250 miles per day, 5+ days a week. ALL of which requires constant gps usage. and since getting my evo shift, all of my gps usage has been on the phone with google navigation. i tried telenav briefly, and strongly disliked it (previous phone was palm pre with sprint navigation (older version of telenav) which i actually liked).
in 3-4 weeks of this, so far i have lost gps signal and reverted to tower locating only 3 times. the first time it took about 3 minutes to regain gps signal. the 2nd and third times it happened i simply closed navigation, disabled gps location, renabled gps location, started navigation back up, and immediately had gps signal again.

i would guesstimate 85% of the time my accuracy is within 3 meters, the other 15% i dont know the exact accuracy numbers cuz i dont pay attn to that, but roughly 15m with a few random much larger blips when in a tunnel or under a large bridge. I've never been re-routed due to inaccuracy, and I've never been shown to be on a different street than I'm on.
all of this occurs in a vehicle of course (a car and a truck), and has stayed consistent no matter what the weather is.
 
Update: its the UPDATE! Today while working I decided to install the newest update of v5.3. Immediately I startes encountering all of the issues people above are describing. Namingly, like clockwork I would lose gps signal less than 2 minutes in every single time. Tried restarting, tried hard reset, nothing changed, kept losing signal never to get it back on its own. Also would take severeal minutes to achieve signal at the start each time.

So I uninstalled the updates and went back to the factory installed oem version (4.5 I think?), then restarted the phone, and immediately everything was perfect again. Never lost signal, rerouted quickly, achieved initial signal quickly, you name it it was flawless.

At the end of the day I decided to try again. Restarted phone, installed updates, restarted phone again, and gave it a shot. Immediately it was severely problematic in every imaginable way.

So that does it for me, factory installed version it is, for good. Until an update works equally or better.
 
Just got a EVO Shift 4G and am very happy with it except for the GPS functionality. I have location always turned on and when I go to Google Maps for navigation it takes a long time for it to pick up where I am located and sometimes it takes so long I just give up and have to call someone for directions. What is going on? Is there anything I can do?
 
I feel that this is one of the major downfalls with the shift. I love this phone and the GPS is annoyingly bad. Sprints stock gps doesn't work at all for me and google maps barely works accurately. I came from the htc Hero and that phone was a nightmare however the gps always worked. sad cuz the hero was a POS. LOL
 
Mine worked until I flashed CM7, then it broke. And there is a fix for rooted phones, but I cannot get it to work for me. I am also pretty upset about the fact that it doesn't work, because the shift is a great phone. I hope that a solid fix comes out for everyone, not just root users.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom