GPS verly slow, OSMAnd~ not

My GPS signal is very slow (or seems to be) and my apps seem having problems with the signal.

  • OSMAnd~ seems to not get it at all.
  • Telegram gets the GPS signal, but it takes about five minutes until I see a result.

Is it (most probable) an issue of the apps, my FP itself, the OS itself or of some phone setting(s), e. g. in Settings → Apps & [notifications] → [the app itself] or Settings → [Safety] & [place of location] (→ Privacy (→ [place of location]))?


OS: Fairphone Open 21.20.0-rel.2
Apps: OsmAnd~, Telegram FOSS (both F-Droid)

I’m not sure whether Fairphone Open OS utilises the Qualcomm GPS almanac… if it doesn’t then I think that might explain why gps takes a long time to lock on. Then there’s also Google location services which use WiFi to get a coarse location (using Google’s database of WiFi access points collected during streetview mapping).

Has the GPS always taken long to lock on, or has this only started happening recently?

As a sidenote, I use a dedicated GPS device to track my bike rides and it takes at least 5-10 minutes to lock on, when powered on at a new location far from its previous location (its manual states this is normal).

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I’m pretty sure that Lineage is comparable in that respect: My FP2 with LOS is not allowed to use anything else than the GPS receiver to determine its position and usually I have a fix within a few seconds after starting the app that wants to use the position. So several minutes or no fix at all doesn’t sound normal.
Have you tried a simple GPS app like SatStat to see what you receive at all? That helped me debugging the issues that I used to have with location services some time ago.

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On my FP2 with Fairphone Open finding a GPS position is quick - if mobile data is enabled. If not, it also takes some minutes.

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