What to do when GPS won't work?!?

[deadken]

I use my Android phone to track my running via Sports-Tracker. A few time it takes quite a while to get a GPS location (I don't start running until it has my location). Up to 30 seconds, and I don't care. But, sometimes, it won't pick up any GPS signal. It just happened again. I turned on GPS, I started Sports-Tracker and...... nothing... I waited a minute.... nothing... I walked around and did a little stretching... nothing... I stopped sports-tracker, restarted sports-tracker, nothing. I turned off GPS, waited about 10 seconds, and then started GPS again, nothing....

I finally turned off my phone and then restarted my phone. Now it is working. Is there anything I should be doing when this happens? I remember being able to see what satellites my (car) GPS is locked onto, is there a way to see that on my phone? I'd really like to determine if this is a phone problem or an application problem before I buy the app.

BTW: Sports-tracker just shows where I finished my last run and the GPS meter in RED when this problem occurs. Sometimes the GPS meter switches to WHITE and then the map re-calculates to where I am. Other times, it just stays RED.

-Thanks, Ken

 

[MSCoder610]

GPS Status & Toolbox will show the # of satellites locked and info about them -
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2

 

[KeithTalent]

I was running into the same problem when using Endomondo, but I used GPS Fix followed all of the instructions) and have not had a problem since: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidlab.gpsfix

KT

 

[Rottie]

use a traditional compass….

 

[baseter]

I noticed that if the 3g is off, he will have a hard time finding the location.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I was running into the same problem when using Endomondo, but I used GPS Fix followed all of the instructions) and have not had a problem since: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidlab.gpsfix

KT

the number of 1 star reviews is questionable, and i still don't understand how that app works... gps by default keeps the receiver on til location is fixed... sorry if it's me but i feel like there's a bunch of "fixes" out there that don't really "fix" much. In some cases some phones may be borked, but for the most part there's a lot of placebo. It's like the people who use "battery apps" and "RAM management apps."

 

[wirednuts]

do you have airplane mode on? on most phones, the gps is part of the cellular radio and it wont lock until you turn on the radio and it sees a cell tower. you dont have to have the phone activated, and once you lock it will hold until the phone shuts off. you can turn airplane mode back on and it still works fine... its just that initial lock it needs to talk to a cell tower.

 

[XenIneX]

Sometimes, when Google has updated the Google Maps app, GPS on various OS versions has refused to work until I've unchecked ALL of the GPS settings and re-enabled them. Leave the main "Location services"/"Access to my location"/GPS setting enabled, and uncheck everything below it; then check them again. I assume it was blocking GPS until I reconfirmed that yes, Google owns my life.

Sometimes the GPS service has trouble pulling down the ephemeris data from the aGPS servers, or that data gets corrupted. Use the aforementioned GPS Status & Toolbox to redownload it.

Sometimes the people porting Android to your phone's hardware are ham-fisted morons, and the bug-ridden firmware running on the baseband processor craps itself. Reboot.

 

[Gerle]

use a traditional compass

Yeah that will help him how?

 

[WelshBloke]

do you have airplane mode on? on most phones, the gps is part of the cellular radio and it wont lock until you turn on the radio and it sees a cell tower. you dont have to have the phone activated, and once you lock it will hold until the phone shuts off. you can turn airplane mode back on and it still works fine... its just that initial lock it needs to talk to a cell tower.

What phones do that? My S3 doesn't, I'll check a few others later.

 

[podspi]

Certainly the phone won't be able to download/refresh the aGPS data in airplane mode, yes?

 

[wirednuts]

Certainly the phone won't be able to download/refresh the aGPS data in airplane mode, yes?

yeah and you would think it could get that data over wifi, but it doesnt seem to. whatever it is, you gotta let the phone see a tower for a few seconds, then it will lock and stay locked until you reboot the phone.

 

[WelshBloke]

Certainly the phone won't be able to download/refresh the aGPS data in airplane mode, yes?

Yeah, but you don't need that data to get a lock and the data is valid for quite a time and over a wide area so you definitely don't need to download it everytime.