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Touch Pro GPS Hell?

I have a fairly new touch pro and have been having nothing but trouble with the built in GPS. At first I thought O2 had released a customised model without gps because it could never get a fix. After going through all the tweaks it now gets a fix somatimes. I can only get a fix if moving at over 30mph. Even then it takes 10 minutes! I can leave it for an hour outside with poer and if it is still it will not get a fix.
Tomtom 7 asks if I am indoors because of the poor signal even when outside.
It is driving me mad trying to find something that will help get a fix in less than 3 minutes (even that is a long time). A dedicated sailing gps will get a lock in under 30 seconds even inside my house. Even my other half's iphone will get a lock indoors in less than a minute.
Lastly when the GPS does have a lock the altitude is always wrong. It shows +60 meters when at sea level (literally with waves crashing at my feet). The altitude readings sometimes go down as I go up or up as I travel down.
It is rather bad considering the retail price of the device.
Anyone have some suggestions as the rest of the phone is rather good (battery life could always be better).

Come on....
There's several threads about this. Use the GPS Tweaks Cab in the lag thread it fixed the loss of lock issue.

Something I noticed about the GPS.

Took a 300 mile each way car trip over the last 2 days. I had my Captivate and 4 year old Tom Tom XLS with 9 month old update. We didnt need the Tom Tom until about 10 miles from our destination. Turned it on at the same time as opening Navigation on the Captivate. It took around 5 minutes for them to get a satellite lock. The interesting thing was they locked at EXACTLY the same time.
Now, the Tom Tom (TT) usually locks in 30 seconds or less if I turn it on near home. If I'm over say 100 miles from home it takes several minutes to lock on. I had heard this is due to the TT looking for the same satellites or number of satellites as when it was last locked on.
So that said, when we were leaving, I turned on the TT and Captivate and did the same thing. TT locked in about 30 seconds, Captivate in about 5 minutes. When we were 100 miles from home I turned off the TT and Captivate. Turned on again at home and they both took exactly the same time to lock on again - about 5 minutes.
I noticed a similar lag with my Tilt 1 if I didnt download the quicksat updates. If they were installed, the thing locked on very quick.
So could the Captivate have no historical data of the last lock and thus is always trying to track and locate satellites that are not visible, gives up then locks onto new ones?
Am I smoking something?

With everyone complaining about the gps, I have had absolutely no trouble with it. Being very inaccurate with the famous blue circle around it is only when it does not have a CLEAR view of the sky. I bought a holder that sticks on the windshield and it locks on in about 2-4 minutes, and it deadly accurate from there. I have the cheap tom tom and the captivate is just as accurate as the TT. Actually locks on faster than my TT if Im moving. I've tested it a lot to see if I can have trouble, but unless I block its view.... I have 100% reliable operation out if it.

klloyd said:
With everyone complaining about the gps, I have had absolutely no trouble with it. Being very inaccurate with the famous blue circle around it is only when it does not have a CLEAR view of the sky. I bought a holder that sticks on the windshield and it locks on in about 2-4 minutes, and it deadly accurate from there. I have the cheap tom tom and the captivate is just as accurate as the TT. Actually locks on faster than my TT if Im moving. I've tested it a lot to see if I can have trouble, but unless I block its view.... I have 100% reliable operation out if it.
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2-4 minutes sucks bad for locking and needing a 100% clear view of the sky is also bogus. What happens if you don't live in the flat rectangle known as Kansas? The GPS on these flat out sucks. I have a 10+ year old "cobra" handheld GPS that locks faster and holds lock / is more accurate.

I live in that flat rectangle, and it still would get lost.

OP
I think you are on the right track. In addition to othe issues with the gps, such as incorrectly intrpreting the time zone and having GMT 5 hours off, regardless what other people say, it seems to be starting in"cold" mode always, whic means it needs to download all the positional data first, determine the satellites positions and the attempt to get a fix. This takes about 5 min in any gps, simply because the transmission rate of the gps satellites is very low.
Your tomtom attempts to take a shortcut assuming it's not too far from where it was turned off last time. If true, it can get a fix in 20 secs or less, if false, it would take 5 min.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Mine always locks in within 20 seconds, whether I am moving on stationary, hot start or cold start. I've even tried turning it on 100s of miles from my usual location and still locks and holds while driving to 32ft accuracy. I am already on my second captivate, the first one liked to turn off randomly. The first one didn't have a gps problem either.
I did do the supl.google fix to both though. They were slow with factory settings.
Under LbsTestMode do you have it set to HotStart and MS Based?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

jmgelba said:
Took a 300 mile each way car trip over the last 2 days. I had my Captivate and 4 year old Tom Tom XLS with 9 month old update. We didnt need the Tom Tom until about 10 miles from our destination. Turned it on at the same time as opening Navigation on the Captivate. It took around 5 minutes for them to get a satellite lock. The interesting thing was they locked at EXACTLY the same time.
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Click to collapse
I did notice the same thing when I was on a trip in Wyoming two weeks ago. I hadn't turned on either GPS (in this case the car one was a Garmin) and when I did both locked at the exact same time (probably after about 3-4 minutes after turning them on). It was quite surprising because I thought the Garmin would go much faster than my Captivate, but this was not the case.

I was extremely lost last night in the city with buildings all over on a cloudy night. Gps found me and directed me in about 1 min coming from a car garage .
I've noticed it locks faster if you back out of Google maps while its finding your location and go back in. It seems to get a lock quicker. Same goes for navigation, I enter a destination and hit navigate, if it don't find a lock within say 10 seconds like it usually does for me ill hit back once and then navigate again. Then it usually finds a lock fast almost instantly ..
I do get the blue circle while navigating sometimes , but it moves along perfectly . Ill even just use google maps without the navigation and watch myself move on the map nicely...
I usually get from 4 to 7 satellites out of 12 or so.
Works for me, if it can be better cool, but its done me well so far can't complain too much.

I tried using it last night. Not sure how many satellites it locked on to, but it did give me the accurate to 5 meters message in Maps.
That said, it was ever so slightly off (probably 6 or 7 meters instead of 5) and my compass is blown. Even after calibrating it, its still a few degrees off (15 - 20 maybe?).

tired of GPS

I broke the Box.Ho a htc touch pro for a year, I also sent in for service but nothing to do with the gps does not get along.
Delays monstrous position, sudden loss of GPS signal, to fix the sometimes 30 min
I'd decided to change it but what smartphone? I would not take another tricked ... Do you have any advice

Just got my wife a dell venue pro, and that thing locks in about 10 seconds inside our house, without a data plan. That's a true gps lock, not the bandaid A-GPS variety lock. The fuze/tp gps is pretty much a steaming pile.

Did 2.3.4 fix your GPS (and other location-related) issues?

Thread title pretty much says it all: Did 2.3.4 fix your GPS (and other location-related) issues?
Please also reply with your answer and exact phone model, including open/branded, country and carrier.

Yes.
The compass is now always right, not randomly out and unresponsive.
T

Yes, I now always get a GPS lock within few secs unlike earlier when it takes forever or sometimes just doesn't work at all.
Also my location related issue where my phone thinks I'm somewhere in India, Mauritius or sometimes Russia is now fixed. Since I got 2.3.4 i never encountered that issue. So I'm happy
I have a Nexus S (AWS version) with Wind Mobile in Canada.

Navigation can never get a lock, usless!!! 2.3.4 i9023

Indoor GPS reception (like just beside the window) is extremely poor (~120 seconds to first fix compared to 10 seconds for Nexus One).
Outdoor GPS reception depends on the mood of the Nexus S. Sometimes it takes less than 15 seconds, other times it never gets a fix. No such issues on my Nexus One; less that 10 seconds to first fix 99% of the time.

i didn't use any GPS related stuff before i updated to 2.3.4, so i really can't say, if it has been bad before.
right now i used the navigation software and got a lock within seconds..
no problems at all.. I9023.

Yes. Used to take several minutes to get gps lock.
i9023

I definitely can't get a lock indoor, is my GPS chip defective ? In the same room my iPhone can locate me with GPS on ...
Outdoor I can get a signal within 30 seconds but is it normal not to be able to locate me in my own apartment ?

Bls440 said:
is it normal not to be able to locate me in my own apartment ?
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Click to collapse
Normal for GPS, yes. Network location (via wifi/cell towers) should still work, though.

Thanks for your answer. But I can see that a lot of users manage to get a lock indoors. Some youtube videos testify this aswell (and it is gps geolocalisation, not cell towers). Also, my iPhone can locate me in the same room using gps within seconds ...

Gps sensitivity varies between devices and Nexus doesn't seem to be very sensitive. Regardless of that, the GPS was never meant to be used indoors so, while you maybe be able to compare sensitivity it's not a good way to test the GPS.

GPS has always locked in around 15-20s for me.

It's not about locking speed, it's mostly about accuracy and stability, or lack of it.

Same with 2.3.3 - sometimes it get fix in 15 second, sometimes 2-3 minutes. If I use Navigon, it runs, but randomly looses signal - then it seems to get fix, but with wrong position (sometimes 4-500 meters away from the real pos...) On highways it works perfect for hours, but if I go in town it looses signal between buildings /under trees. I hope google can fix it, seems like it just holds the minimum amount of satelites to get position (but why, battery saving?), and if something hides 1-2 sats is looses fix till it finds another one. It might be good with correct gps and shorter battery time...

i never get a lock with gps since 2.3.1 ... and compass is totally ****ed up does not work at all and after reboot it just stands still, this sucks and I need Google to fix this crap!

I too have an issue with 2.3.4 NS4G on Sprint. The GPS usually doesn't lock, or, if it does, takes several minutes to do so. I have turned network location off to solely rely on the GPS radio to no avail.
Is there a fix for this?

Is there any way to make the GPS better?

I use my phone for geocaching and so it is very important that the GPS is accurate, problem it that the accuracy is usually around 39 feet which is not nearly good enough for what I need it for. Is there anyway to fix this or does the phone just have a bad GPS?

I practically always get down to 10 feet in a few seconds, unless I'm in a canyon or under dense trees.
Download GPS Test and see what it really going on. It'll show you actual GPS satellite locks and signal strengths. I'm at 30ft right now and I'm inside my house and behind dual pane tinted windows.AVG sat signal is in the low 30's.
I've found you can clear up GPS issues sometimes by clearing the AGPS data via GPS Test and then refreshing. Just seems to get confused once in a while.

Thanks for the help, I've already done that though. I dusted off my note 2 and it locks on immediately to 20+ satellites with 10 foot accuracy while my nexus 5 maybe gets 10. I think I will stick with my note 2 for geocaching.