GPS not working?

[rinranryan]

Hi there,

I recently got a Samsung Galaxy S2 and was interested in using the GPS to track my running using Endomondo. I initially installed it and the GPS wouldn't work, it just said 'Finding Satellites' permanently. I carried on and randomly it just worked one day, I'm not sure if I changed anything. I used it successfully once more but when I went to use it again it says it can't find the satellites.

I looked at some forum posts and they said to get an app called GPS status. This app tells me that the phone has picked up about 10 satellites but it will never lock onto them to give an accurate position, it gives it to the nearest 900 metres which is useless. It also starts to pick up satellites, then randomly it will go back down to 0 before starting again.

Does anybody have any similar experiences with this or could anyone suggest anything which I could do as I am considering taking the phone back which is a bit of a hassle! I tried a factory reset and that hasn't worked and all the settings are turned on.

Cheers for any replies

[mark22]

Try gpsfix for a quick lock. It shouldn't behave the way yours is though, is the phone from a different region?

[rinranryan]

I tried that and it didn't work, also my phone is from the Uk and I live in the UK so there shouldn'y be any problems there. Any other ideas?

[proxima]

(Hi rinranryan, we meet again!)

I am having the same problem. My S2 really struggles to get a GPS fix. Using various GPS test tools shows that: 1 - the signal is often weaker than another phone (HTC Desire) sitting right next to it. 2 - even when the signals get good (e.g. 7 or 8 satellites 'in view', standing outside in unrestricted view of sky for several minutes), they don't get a 'fix' - i.e. they stay grey, not green, on the GPStest display. If it does eventually get a fix it always takes a long time (up to 20 minutes), and often drops again soon after.

Not going to be good enough for me I'm afraid, as I use GPS heavily - do I have to return this phone? Do most people have more success (i.e. have I, and rinranryan, got duff phones?) or is it a general problem with this model?

Thanks for any help.

[Rich Holder]

No problem with mine.... What firmware are you running ?

[proxima]

No problem with mine.... What firmware are you running ?

Thanks for replying. I used Kies to upgrade as it advised from 2.3.3 to 2.3.5 yesterday. I think the full 'version' string was:

PDA:KJ3/PHONE:KI1/CSC:KI2(VOD)
The phone says:
Baseband version: I9100BUKI1
Kernel version: 2.6.35.7-I9100BUKJ3-CL647431
root@DELL155 #2


Any help you can give me would be appreciated. Good to know yours works, i.e. they're not all this bad - that's the information I've been trying to find out. Vodafone have kindly (!) offered me a refurbished replacement or a repair, but not an actual brand-new replacement, because I've had this phone too long (i.e. more than 7 days - I've had this 14 days including today). Sigh.

[Rich Holder]

Pretty much the same as mine except I'm on o2. Interestingly I used to be on Vodafone PAYG and had a problem with GPS on my old Samsung Wave. Turned out to be a specific APN required for the GPS. Might be worth trying to talk to someone sensible in Vodafones tech support dept.....

[proxima]

Thanks - that's the best help I've had all day. Googling hard now, but it looks like you might be onto something. (I still expected the GPS to be able to pick up a fix *on its own* without the network, but maybe I'm just wrong on that and smartphones do rely more on the network than I realised. Makes you wonder how (or if) they work when outside network coverage, but that's problem for another day).

Thanks again - I'll let you know, not least for the benefit of everyone else who seems to be having this same problem.

[proxima]

All please see this thread: http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Samsu...t/false#M51684 - Vodafone are going to escalate the issue if they get enough information. Rich (I realise you're on O2) - if you have access to your phone's filesystem, can you look at /etc/gps.conf and see what NTP_SERVER is set to? A lot of people seem to be saying that for UK phones, it should be set to UK (or at least Europe), some of us on Vodafone are finding that ours are set to 'north-america' and a few people seem to think that may be the problem.

[Rich Holder]

Sorry to deflate but I am set to North America too.......