4 years later, the samsung GPS is still a POS

[Bateluer]

S1 was long fixed, but since the GPS was never really good anyway, people kept blaming it on the phone. Fact is it's not that great. However, once fixed, it was about as good as the HTC phones like the HTC Nexus One and stuff. Overall they weren't great.

No, the S1s were not fixed. The Vibrants and Captivates were left with only a token fix, which basically just had users use cell tower triangulation in addition to the GPS. It was next to useless for any turn by turn driving. TMO eventually got the Galaxy S 4G, which was identical to the Vibrant but with some GPS tweaks. The Captivates got nothing.

The Epics and Fascinates were improved, but still less accurate than the other devices out at the time.


Edit - Is the OP going to be edit his title to be less stupid?

 

[shortylickens]

It was actually a software issue with the GS2 related to the phone being unable to use A-GPS data stored from earlier sessions. I could get mine to lock in ~10 seconds if I first cleared and then refreshed the A-GPS info using a third party app. Otherwise it took 30 seconds to 30 minutes. The fact that Samsung decided to use this as a way to encourage purchase of new phones rather than offering a fix over several generations of phone with this problem has left me reluctant to buy another Samsung device, despite the general attractiveness of a Note 2.

The Note 2 is infinitely superior to the S2.

 

[waggy]

my Driod 2 was great with the GPS. fast lock and accurate.

My GSIII when i first got it was terrible. took a long time to lock and then had me in New England area. it was insane.

I took it into Verizon and started showing me as being in IL. ...but 15 miles West of where i was.

looked on the web and found others with the same issue. they suggested downloading a few aps for the GPS. it started locking faster and correct place.

haven't had a issue since.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

my Driod 2 was great with the GPS. fast lock and accurate.

My GSIII when i first got it was terrible. took a long time to lock and then had me in New England area. it was insane.

I took it into Verizon and started showing me as being in IL. ...but 15 miles West of where i was.

looked on the web and found others with the same issue. they suggested downloading a few aps for the GPS. it started locking faster and correct place.

haven't had a issue since.

My GPS on the GS3 wasn't working properly either.

Recently, some guys on XDA learned that if you tighten the screws on the back of the GS3, GPS would work 100% again, and it sounds like voodoo, but it worked. My GPS is rock solid again.

But yeah, your particular issue was probably a corrupted AGPS file.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I know that for some people on the Galaxy Note 1 (mine didn't have this issue), the GPS antenna itself came loose inside and required opening up the Note and adjusting the connection to make it work well again.

 

[Binky]

Phone hardware not made by "android."
ROM not made by "android."
Kernel not made by "android."

But...the problem is...android? Seriously?

 

[whoiswes]

GSM Gnex and Nexus 4, both lock within 15 seconds and are accurate to within 10 feet.

Only times I had trouble when was I dirty-flashed a new ROM.

 

[you2]

Did you run a GPS tool to determine what the quality of the actual GPS lock. Many times the phone will use wifi/cellular trangularation (which is rather inaccurate) when it cannot actually get a GPS lock. Unfortunatley if you turn on location services and GPS a lot of aps will pretend that they are using GPS lock when they are not.

Weak rant.

Why does my GPS never lock and when it does it's always several hundred meters away. If i'm traveling on interstate, it shows me over 3 blocks. WHAT THE FUCK?

FWIW, I've had these issues on my captivate, all the way back to the first Google phone(slide out g1), the infuse, and now my Gnex.

I have been using roms(JBSourvery v5 atm) for a long time. Is it the 3rd party kernels itself or should I go back to stock JB?

It's very frustrating.

 

[zerogear]

Maybe you should use stock on GNexus? I know this never happened on any of my phones.

 

[exdeath]

GPS on my stock HTC DNA is great. It worked properly on my Droid X too but it just took forever to acquire. DNA acquires within seconds.

 

[GTaudiophile]

GNex owner. No GPS issues. Locks on fast. Works great.

 

[slightlyhuman]

man forgot i made this thread. lots of replies.

i recently updated to JBsourcery V5. hell of a lot better but haven't tried GPS yet. will report back after i scan through the post.

:beer;

 

[slightlyhuman]

Phone hardware not made by "android."
ROM not made by "android."
Kernel not made by "android."

But...the problem is...android? Seriously?

jesus christ no need to rip a shirt off hulk hogan.

i'll fix it before you call my mom.

 

[slightlyhuman]

goto settings -> apps -> google services, clear data, then goto google maps, clear data, then reboot. after it boots up, open up google maps, it will say "updated to newest version!" then it should re-sync your gps completely. hope this helps.

edit: i use a GSM galaxy nexus and i've had this problem before.

i don't have anything under "google services"

 

[Binky]

jesus christ no need to rip a shirt off hulk hogan.

i'll fix it before you call my mom.

You may want to tone down the profanity and insults. This isn't the off-topic forum.

FWIW, my current Gnex isn't great at locking onto the GPS satellites, but I blame the rom and/or the kernel. I'm just too lazy to update them right now.

 

[slightlyhuman]

You may want to tone down the profanity and insults. This isn't the off-topic forum.

FWIW, my current Gnex isn't great at locking onto the GPS satellites, but I blame the rom and/or the kernel. I'm just too lazy to update them right now.

i don't see any insults really but thanks for the post. i was like you too. i finally upgraded to v5.1 and it's pretty slick. using it as a daily for now and have a backup of it. i did try the lock gps or some similar app today. it never locked ONCE. man. i'm pretty certain it's the rom itself because when i bought it from vshah(thanks) i remember it being awesome. then i picked up a few n4's, sold one and kept the other for 2 weeks and it died out of nowhere. got a refund and went back to gnex.

i'd like to go back to stock but the painlessly ways to flash today is so much easier, it's just hard to keep up with because there are so many. i remember the g1 days when people were terrified of bricking, etc. it was a PITA to flash weekly then. partion swap on the SD card, etc.

 

[tommo123]

IMO the gps hardware is fine it's the config file that sucks. its barren and (in my case) has the wrong country in there by default. i replaced that gps.conf file and always get a gps lock in less than 5 seconds.

not sure if it uses my note 2s glonass though.

 

[thecapsaicinkid]

The GPS stack on android seems to get stuck in a state where it can't get a lock and won't recover itself without forcing it to reset with a reboot or killing apps. Seems like an Android driver issue to me. Seen it with all the Android devices I've owned.

 

[shortylickens]

The GPS stack on android seems to get stuck in a state where it can't get a lock and won't recover itself without forcing it to reset with a reboot or killing apps. Seems like an Android driver issue to me. Seen it with all the Android devices I've owned.

I've seen it with none of the Android devices I've owned.

So basically we have no solid conclusions at all.
We need better data to make any declarations.

 

[tommo123]

my htc desire had probs like that, even after a gps.conf swap out - but the galaxy s2 and note 2 haven't done that in my case

 

[zerogear]

I know that for some people on the Galaxy Note 1 (mine didn't have this issue), the GPS antenna itself came loose inside and required opening up the Note and adjusting the connection to make it work well again.

If that's true then it sounds like the GPS module isn't making contact with the GPS antenna (on the back/chasis)