There are a couple of system components that can activate GPS, which may escape the attention of privacy apps. Not sure if I recall correctly, but the camera could be one of them (if GPS location info is turned on in settings). I remember this as being fairly persistent until the system had a good idea of the location (i.e. the only thing that made it stop was turning off location access in the system settings). A couple of different system apps run under the same app id (making it difficult to figure out what exactly is triggering something) and XPrivacy by default doesn’t restrict system apps (which also includes Google Play Services, if installed).
Bizarrely, there also seems to be a link to the use of mobile data with some SIMs (e.g. this topic). As this also doesn’t appear to be linked to a specific app, this probably also wouldn’t trigger a notification.
I have exactly the same problem since two days, without me changing anything. I have already tried quite some things to get rid of the gps-signal - the overall settings which permit apps to use GPS switched off - they switch on, as soon as I am using mobile outside of wifi-mode. I have resetted the fairphone, used the save mode - downgraded it to cherry 1.6, upgraded it again to kola.nut, resetted it again - at the point where nothing would work anymore, the gps still did swich on - since it also did so in the completly plain state after resetting, without a single app installed, I am quite convinced it is a fairphone issue.
and another thread, where it only occurs with a specific SIM (can’t find it now). Not sure whether this is an obscure error handling certain networks, or whether this is somehow intended behaviour.
Hey - thank you for your hints - no, I have not set time and date according to gps but to the network itself, so this should not be the issue - i have not changed my sim, nor anything else, which makes me wonder, why it still happens - if it would be intended, I should at least get, why it would be so, no?
Reading around a bit, it seems this happens on more MTK phones. It also appears to be a combination of MTK phone and carrier, and can appear suddenly. There are a couple of suggestions that making some changes in engineering mode makes it go away until a reboot. I can’t verify anything of this, nor have I found an explanation as to why this would work, but if you want try this at your own risk: open the phone app and type *#*#3646633#*#* into the dialing pad to start engineering mode. Scroll right to the ‘others’ heading, select SWLA, tap ‘Assert Modem’ and finally tap ‘Enable Software LA’ - there will be a network disconnect and reconnect. You may then also need to disable and re-enable location in the general settings.
i still could not solve the problem…
but at least your threads helped me in that way, that i now can say:
the gps keeps turning on, when i use mobile data!
if i use wifi or no data-service - gps stays off.
so maybe its not caused by a specific app… but why did this problem start in the first place just a couple of days ago?
i have my FP1 since 2014 (without any problem), did not update the android-version (yet) or even installed any new apps (the days, before the gps-error occured)…
did you find any solution to this problem. Me and my wife we both have an FP1U and are using 3Drei (an austrian operator). We didn’t install any apps or updated the OS.
A few weeks ago the GPS was activated every few minutes. I followed the discussion and came to the following coclusion:
+) did a factory reset/wipe, install Stock Android, installed Fairphone OS again etc.
nothing helped.
I tracked the problem down to the same source as you mentioned above: as soon as I switch on my data connection, GPS is turning on.
A call to 3Drei didn’t not help at all - as expected. I need the data connection, so the phone is actually useless for me without a solution. Would be great if anyone has an idea - simply turning it off is not a solution
i made an online “sim-card update” from 3Drei - but nothing changed.
my friend has orange and the same problem (but as far as i can remember,
orange and 3Drei are the same company/network). since he uses another
simcard, thanks to dual-sim, he tried to use the data-service with the
second provider (telering) - and the gps did not turn on!
so there has to be a problem with 3Drei-dataservice and GPS on FP1.
seems i found the problem - but still no solution…
GPS gets switched on after I switch on Mobile Data
FP1U
using only one SIM card
Austrian network provider Drei
first occurred around Jan 15th 2017
I did not install any new apps for several weeks before this started
but I regulary update the installed apps (could therefore be an update issue; but it seems the problem occurs only in Austria? So maybe not)
two days after the problem started, I switched off every GPS permission I could find in the Settings, but it did not solve the problem (and I have been using the FP since 2014 with several permissions for apps active without GPS problems before)
the problem occurs even when I close all apps before I switch on Mobile Data (though I noticed that in Settings / Apps / Running I can still find a few apps running, like Fairphone updater, various Google apps like Playm Google Services etc., Battery warning, Telegram, Contacts, but no apps I would expect to use GPS data)
