GPS poor signal on HTC One M7

[yhelothar]

I bought an HTC One M7 from another member here. The phone, overall, is great, but the GPS is incredibly spotty. I've driven around many areas here in Los Angeles and none of the places get a clean signal. With the GPS Status app, it shows 23 satellites detected with 0-9 connected, with 0 being predominant. When I do have connection to satellites, the accuracy is above 150ft. I've driven down 15 miles of freeway(10fwy) without it locking a satellite once.

I have a Garmin next to it and it works flawlessly.

When I received the phone, the device was wiped. I googled and some said they had success by calibrating the compass and deleting the past satellite data. I tried both with no success.

I find very few people with a similar issue as me with regards to the M7 on google. I see many people having issues with their M8 where they needed to open their phone and bend their antenna, but it doesn't seem to be a widespread issue for the M7.

At this point I feel like I'm running out of options.
The seller says no returns despite describing the phone as near flawless, which I would much rather try to figure out a fix for this either way. He says he's completely unaware of the issue as the GPS worked fine for him.

Anyone have any tips?

 

[Bateluer]

I've weak signal with my m7 where I'm at now, but I use it on a regular basis in Phoenix for Navigation and can only a few one off instances where I couldn't get a GPS lock. But that was in Maps, rarely look at the GPS Status app.

I'll try when I leave work in a couple hours, see if it makes any difference with locking sats outdoors.

I assume your preowned m7 is running the latest official 4.4.3 build from HTC and not rooted/rom'd though.

 

[cronos]

I've never had any problem with the GPS on my M7, and I've had it for more than a year. I was actually depending on it for GPS when I traveled last month to cities I've never been to.

If the phone is rooted and has custom recovery, you may want to try flashing the radio file from your carrier. It may help.

 

[Bateluer]

At home, where I have near full LTE bars, my m7 locks 12 satellites in about 20 seconds.

 

[WelshBloke]

Download GPS status from the play store. Hit the spanner in the top right, then manage agps state.
Reset, then download.

 

[yhelothar]

Download GPS status from the play store. Hit the spanner in the top right, then manage agps state.
Reset, then download.

Yup done that. As mentioned in op, I've reset the GPS data.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yup done that. As mentioned in op, I've reset the GPS data.

And then downloaded some new agps data?

 

[luv2liv]

i have my m7 for 1 year now, from brand new, n things are fine....
running 4.4, android revolution rom HD 41.0, not sure if that matters

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I feel like EVERY phone out there has a complaint about GPS.

But almost every phone that I reset GPS data with, I can lock in 20 seconds with LTE. It would be nice if sites started testing GPS performance and did a full airplane mode GPS lock test.

 

[yhelothar]

And then downloaded some new agps data?

Yeah I hit the download button as well. I didn't mention that.

 

[yhelothar]

Do you guys think it's reasonable to get a refund despite the seller saying no returns considering the item doesn't seem fully functional? Maybe it's something else I need to try, but I feel like I've tried everything I could find in an hour of googling.
If a seller on ebay says no returns, but if the item isn't fully functional as described, that is grounds for a return.

 

[WelshBloke]

Do you guys think it's reasonable to get a refund despite the seller says no returns considering the item doesn't seem fully functional? Maybe it's something else I need to try, but I feel like I've tried everything I could find in an hour of googling.
If a seller on ebay says no returns, but if the item isn't fully functional as described, that is grounds for a return.

People saying "no returns" for an item is bullcrap, unless its advertised as not working.

The only use for it is to stop people returning things because they have changed their mind or the like, which you shouldnt have to accept anyway.

If its not working or not as advertised then return it.

You could contact the seller and see if hes got any ideas. Maybe hes flashed a faulty ROM onto it?

 

[cronos]

I don't know, but for someone like me who probably sell something once every three years, I really don't want to bother with people returning what I'm selling. I am going to give the best description possible, including any semi working stuff, if any, but if a buyer decides to buy it, that's it. I don't want to hear about it anymore. Who knows what he might have done to it in the few days he had it.

 

[yhelothar]

I don't know, but for someone like me who probably sell something once every three years, I really don't want to bother with people returning what I'm selling. I am going to give the best description possible, including any semi working stuff, if any, but if a buyer decides to buy it, that's it. I don't want to hear about it anymore. Who knows what he might have done to it in the few days he had it.

How do you propose a GPS may stop functioning after a few days of use?

 

[Crono]

"No returns" is tricky, because the seller is up front about not wanting to absorb any risk or take on the liability if for any reason you don't want to keep the device or if it's damaged. On the other hand, it's advertised as a fully functioning device so you are right to expect it to work.

It comes down to what the AnandTech forums policy is, which means you might want to ask a mod to arbitrate, unfortunately. If the seller insists it was working and you definitely are sure it isn't you probably both have no recourse but to abide by whatever the mods say. That's assuming there is no warranty left, and that there is no obvious sign of damage from shipping (if there were, you could go through the carrier if the item was insured).

The fact that the GPS is "spotty" in your experience, though, may mean that it isn't entirely broken, just that for whatever reason the radio isn't working right for you. Anything involving radio like WiFi or GPS is tricky, and unless it's not working at all, I don't know if the seller is or should be responsible. If I bought the phone and everything else seems to work fine, I would just sigh and eat the cost. That's the downside of buying stuff in person to person sales, especially with that "no returns" stipulation; it's basically a "caveat emptor" situation going in, and for the future I would just buy from companies (where you can almost always return according to their time frame) or avoid buying from users who specify "no returns". That should be a red flag, if not quite as bad as "as-is", especially if it's not an item under warranty.

I had an M7, and had no issue with GPS, so if you are looking to buy another one I doubt it will have the same issue. I did have the purple/blue camera haze after a few months, though, and it got worse apparently after I sold it to a friend (luckily he was okay with it, but I had no idea how bad it would get in low light). I think they fixed that issue on later units, but I know I'm not the only one who had that problem with the early M7s.

 

[cronos]

How do you propose a GPS may stop functioning after a few days of use?

Things break, especially electronics. Your choice of words though, "after a few days of use" implies that it worked early on, which means it made it even more likely that it was working fine when he sold it and it's not his responsibility.

Having said that, have you tried flashing a radio file as I suggested above? I wasn't just taking a shot in the dark. I have owned an M7 for 1.5 years and have seen and experience something similar.

 

[yhelothar]

Things break, especially electronics. Your choice of words though, "after a few days of use" implies that it worked early on, which means it made it even more likely that it was working fine when he sold it and it's not his responsibility.

Having said that, have you tried flashing a radio file as I suggested above? I wasn't just taking a shot in the dark. I have owned an M7 for 1.5 years and have seen and experience something similar.

I just saw your reply.

No that was meant to state that I didn't try the GPS until a few days after owning the phone. I don't test every single function of the phone the first day I get it.

As an update, I followed a thread on xda developers where they mentioned the default gps.conf file was poorly written and some modders wrote a better one. Many people said they had better lock ons to satellites with it. I tried it and now it doesn't even find any satellites.

 

[yhelothar]

UPDATE: I bought a for parts phone off of ebay and replaced the board that the GPS was on. That fixed the issue. So it's confirmed that it was a hardware issue.

 

[doggiefrizzle]

UPDATE: I bought a for parts phone off of ebay and replaced the board that the GPS was on. That fixed the issue. So it's confirmed that it was a hardware issue.

Would you mind providing some details on how to fix that including where can the replacement be purchased? Greatly appreciate your help. Been having GPS issues forever.

Thank you

 

[sonitravel09]

My HTC One is about 30-40 m off.