since one month I am a proud owner of the Fairphone 2 (FP2). I offen use the smartphone for navigation apps, specially for c:geo (geocaching app). In other topics (e.g. how is FP2 GPS accuracy ) I can read that GPS (or GNSS) is working absolutely fine. The accuracy would be perfect and the fix is super fast.
But unfortunately not for me.
When I turn on my GPS it takes several minutes to get a fix at all. Often no fix is possible. Has someone of you similar problems? Or is somewhere a workouround to (at first) find out what happens and (further) find out a solution to get a better accuracy? Perhaps it may be a hardware problem? Maybe I should set any checkmarks in the operating system, of which I have never heard before?!
I hope someone of you could give me some hints. The actual navigation situation is not reasonable.
Thanks in advance
best wishes Uli
What are your GPS settings? Wifi and/or/xor GPS?
I think most of the âGPS fix in secondsâ cases are due to an active Wifi connection and localisation via GPS AND Wifi.
Have you excluded actually bad GPS signal? (No buildings/roof/trees/whatsoever around you).
Spielmops uses his FP2 with GPS only (standard) and compares the accuracy with a Garmin Etrex Vista (handheld navi). Fix is seconds later than the Garmin, accuracy ist Âą2m within free area and good weather (same as Garmin).
I have an issue with GPS as well. But Iâm running the OpenSource version of FPOS, self-compiled. And I patched the sources to use Unified NLP.
It takes a while to acquire the satellites. And I observed that once I stop the app requesting GPS data, and restart the app or start a different app using GPS, the GPS satellite acquisition starts over again.
I guess something is wrong with saving the last position, thus requiring a full reacquisition of satellites. And this takes quite a while.
Hey folks,
first of all, many thanks for the fast replys.
Ok, more details are needed:
my FP2 is on Android 5.1, build no.: r4275.1_FP2_gms36_1.1.7, kernel: 3.4.0-gcd7fdcf
for a better accuracy normaly my WiFi is on (OS settings: high accuracy) - but in case of trouble to be inconsistent with one another I tried to change not only all OS settings but also each hardware setting, e.g. only GPS / GPS + WiFi / GPS + WiFi + mobile data / GPS + mobile data => without better results
for testing in the best case - actually I am on top of the Erz-Mountains without any clouds or buildings nearby. The best condition for trinangulation with 3 GPS satellites. Accuracy is +/- 40m.
@root: the problem is, that I couldnât get any fix with any GPS app. And if I get a fix after 3-4 minutes, a few seconds later the fix crashing down -> with the same app.
I generate screenshoots with the two GPS checker apps: GPS Test + GPS Status, so that you can see the results of the apps.
âGPS Testâ holds the GPS position for seconds, but also the position crashed after seconds. Here you can see the accuracy in the right upper corner - its gray because of no signal - I was too slow with the screenshot. You can also see the measured GNSS signal strength of the satelites which are in view. Compared to my old Samsung Galaxy S2, the strength differs over 30dB and in the used satellites, which are between 4 and 8 in the S2.
UPDATE: I installed the GPS Test also at my girlsfriend smartphone (SGS3) and tried it at the same place, with the same settings and the same environment. Here the different screenshots:
The sudden position crash occured once. But this is a known issue of âGPS Testâ and not necessarily a problem of the phone itself.
Your very poor signal however. As I assume you dont cover your FP2 in tinfoil or attached a nfc sticker right above the GPS antenna - its maybe a defective module. I think the best is to contact support.
thanks a lot for your effort. Yes, your results seems obviousely better. I followed your advice and opened a ticket for the support. I hope they could help me.
If the support has an answer for this (and its general enough) I will post it here. Also I will give a notice if it was a special problem.
Hello,
since I have experienced very similar issues as @uli, I just wanted to ask if there are any news or progress regarding the slow and poor gps-fixing issue?
My situation is a little different from @uliâs because I live in a city with a high density of buldings. Though I had better gps-experiences with my three previous devices.
Whatâs aching me most is the fact that some apps canât make use of gps at all. Like Ventoo, a bike-computer app with simple logging and monitoring. I donât get one fix during my whole 25mins ride to/from work. On Maverick, where found sattelites are always shown on a grid, I get fixes in about 2-4min while I wait for the kind of shy sattelites to appear
on 28th March I wrote my support request about the above mentioned situation. On 13th April Iâve sent a request because of a missing answer. On the 19th of April Iâve got an standard answer (with an apology and they give hints to support articles) and the instruction to contact the the support again if any proposals wonât work.
On May 4th, at http://www.fairphone.com/asksupport I contacted the support again with the issue: âI experience a problem / My product is brokenâ, but unfortunatelly with no answer until now .
Even I suggest that they send me an new GNSS-modul and I will change it by myself.
Thats the status quo. @anon48893843 can you help me?
Thanks for the quick answer. I sent a support-request today too, weâll seeâŚ
When the battery of my FP1 started to bloat, the contact to the support was very quick, personal and satisfying. I can imagine that theyâre just very busy right now. There must be loads of work to do at this moment.
Gute Nacht
Hey Uli, thanks for explaning and our apologies for not responding earlier. Iâm going to make sure that you will be offered a solution (a working phone) today! Thanks for your patience.
Same problem here. I have FP2 with the latest Fairphone OS version 16.06 installed. The no fix problem has appeared after the last update, that Iâve done yesterday, before the GPS was working fine. Yesterday I went for a run and it was impossible to obtain any kind of GPS fix with Strava. GPS status was reporting up to 16 satellites available but I never got a fix. I waited almost 30 minutes. Iâve tried also to reset the AGPS data and clear cache but without any results.
Did you have received any suggestion from the support yet? Iâll try also today to get a fix, otherwise Iâll contact the support too.
that seems that your problem occurs through a software update and less through a hardware error, like in my case. My situation was from the beginning of lifetime of my FP2.
Maybe there is a way to reset your last update and use the previous version as long there is no further update.
Thereâs a discussion of GPS not working properly in Fairphone Open OS, but that seems to be general to the 16.X line. Did you by chance you actually switch from regular Fairphone OS 1.x.x to this version in the update you mention? This post, which explains how to distinguish GPS and software problems using âdevice onlyâ location access, seems to be a relevant place to pick up on the discussion:
Yes I switched from the standard Fairphone OS to the Open OS. I have used the Fairphone OS for almost a month (Iâve my Fairphone since mid-april). GPS was working flawlessly. Then switched over to the Open OS to get rid of much of the unused google apps and have root access. And since I cannot get a fix on my GPS. As a solution Iâve installed FasterGPS and tweaked my GPS settings as suggested in another topic on this forum (GPS doesn´t work on FP Open OS). Iâve set the NTP server for my country, changed the INTERMEDIATE_POS value to 1, and added XTRA_SERVER_1 to 3 .
After all that I could get a gps fix if I set my gps on device only and after waiting between 10 to 20 minutes. If I set the location option to High accuracy is impossible to get any kind of fix. At the hardware level I think that there are no problems because both GPS Status and GPS Test shows the positions of the available satellites. From the location where I tested my GPS there are always between 16 and 22 satellites available. From the same location my Garmin edge unit doesnât take more than 2 minutes to get a lock.
Good save the patient users ![quote=âClaudio_Brenni, post:17, topic:15997â]
both GPS Status and GPS Test shows the positions of the available satellites
[/quote]but no position? Is so, then it must be a calculate error/bug âŚ
Problem solved with the upgrade to Fairphone Open OS 16.07.1 and with a new version of the pico GAPPS package (the 20160820).
now accuracy and fix occurs in maximum half a minute and goggle services doesnât crash any more when the location is turned on.
I recommend to all having this problem to upgrade to the newer version, it resolves not only this bug, but improves on a lot more glitches and small problems that I was experiencing before. Since Saturday no more sudden freeze and screen glitches
