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.
This made me think of the time & date settings: Do you have it set to “Use GPS time”?
This:
and
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.
1 Like
When traveling, I noticed it happened in other states, but not in mine anymore, so I’m pretty sure it’s carrier related.
1 Like
I have the same problem and I have tried this, too. Unfortunately it doesn’t help. Any other solutions?
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)…
does anyone have a clue?!
If this is caused by your mobile operator, maybe they changed something in their configuration.
Hi,
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 
Thank you,
Regards Rene
i have the same austrian provider (3Drei).
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…
That’s a tough one! Could you open a topic in #software:bug-reports, where we can make a structured collection of all the details that we have?
I tried but I have no rights to do this.
Rene
Ups, sorry, I levelled you up! 
still not possible, button “new topic” is greyed out.
Basic is not enough.
@Rene_Sendlhofer I temporarily leveled you up to regular user. Now it should work.
1 Like
Hi,
Unfortunately I experience the same problem:
- 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)
Hope this can be solved soon…
Thanks,
Katharina
1 Like
If one of you attends our next Austrian Fairphoners meetup we can do some debugging. It sounds as if this was easily reproducible.
I experienced the same on my FP2. I checked in the location settings and found out that the “dialer” app - the phone app itself - was the culprit. This felt very dodgy to me, because I had a sense someone wants to track me. I was probably right with this assumption, and the “someone” being “the usual one” - means Google, because since I am using a completely Google free phone - FP Open, no GAPPs installed, I have not experienced that again.