Develop Bugs

[Q] Compass started acting up after upgrading to Froyo

I have upgraded my HTC Desire to Android 2.2. Unfortunately I have realized that after that update, an embedded compass started acting up. I mean it's not showing the North anymore. It seems to me that it's not an issue with some particular application as I have tried with several ones available on the Market and it needs to be some bug with new OS. Anyway here is what I have figured out and what I have already done in order to get this sorted out. At this point of time, it even looks like I have just some kinda workaround:
Once I pick out 'Calibrate' menu item in Compass v1.1 (developed by Snaptic, Inc.) and then according to the instruction, start off waving my phone in a figure 8 pattern to reset the magnetometer on my device, it's not gonna fix the issue but when I start rolling my phone in a hand (side to side then top to bottom) and then it seems to me that the issue is sorted out as finally compass points out the North, but after I close the application and open it again (or open any other compass based app) the magnetometer is broken again So all what I can do is to reset the magnetometer as per above-mentioned instruction again. It just looks like the device is not able to save some compass calibration setting anymore.
Anyway I was just wondering if some of you already faced this same issue and know how to fix it permanently. I would appreciate it, if you could share any thoughts with me. Thanks in advance.

Hey folks, I don't believe that nobody experiences that issue too. Maybe you just haven't noticed that yet? Anyway could you please just check if your compass works as intended after the upgrade to Android 2.2? Personally, I really believe it's a bug with Froyo.

I think mine is also acting weird.
Wenn starting Google Maps and using streetview in compass mode it only looks up and down and I cannot look from left to right.
When i roll the phone a few times in my hand it starts working.
But after closing Google Maps and starting it again I have to do the rolling again

I was wondering that compass problem too. With ver.2.1 everything worked like a dream as I use compass mostly geocaching. After updating in every app I've tried the compass stucks pointing to approx. to the lower left corner of the screen. Sometimes calibration helps but it stuck again after a while even the app is running all the time.
"Compass" app kinda could wake up after waiting a while but usually it doesn't. In any other software won't work at all as I've tried, 5secs after calibration but nothing more.

JLillia said:
With ver.2.1 everything worked like a dream as I use compass mostly geocaching..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@JLillia: Also in my case the compass worked as intended on android 2.1.
Anyway thanks for your answers guys! I really appreciate it! So it looks like at least 3 folks here are experiencing some issues with digital compass after the upgrade to the Froyo on HTC Desire
Wonder if there is anyone here who could disagree with us and say that the upgrade didn't cause any compass degradation on his/her device at all...

I can't say if it worked properly with 2.1, didn't use the compass a lot before.
With 2.1 I needed to calibrate it a few times, but probably not as much as I need to do now. I'm using the "compass" app and it directly tells me it detected an abnormal magnetic field. After calibrating it again, it points north. Haven't checked the correct north with a real compass, so it may have a slight difference.
I put my phone down at the table at 0 degrees N. I turn off my screen, and turn it back on. It is now pointing 90 degrees E. But the interesting thing is.. the east is actually located west, compared with the previous north :?
When I rotate my phone it displays only E or SE, always between 90 degrees E and 130 degrees SE. I can't even find north.
I can rotate my phone 180 degrees (Pointing south), it displays 130 degrees. When I calibrate the phone and I rotate my phone 180 degrees (Still south) it displays 160 degrees S. Which is kinda strange. And when I try to find the 180 degrees point, and rotate my phone again, it displays 35 degrees NE.
After another calibration the values seems to be okay...
My conclusion? Don't trust the compass at all unless you have a real compass to compare.

That person with the exact opposite experience is me
I complained on 2.1 here with many others about the compass going haywire every time you took it off-screen and its lack of stability and consistency. HTC 2.2 totally fixed this issue for me. I've calibrated it once about a week back and it's still accurate every time I'm opening it and in Google Earth.
Beware, the compass draws a lot of power in use so it'll drain the battery very fast. About as fast as playing a 8Mbps 720p VC-1 vid.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

My problem is kinda dame that with Nakebod.
As I said compass stucks pointing to the lower left corner, it infact tells I'm holding the phone towards 120-130 decrees east, where ever I turn the phone to. Calibration helps for a while as after that the compass points approxamtely to north which is enough direction to me, but after a while or at least after swithing apps or taking compass background and back on, it stucks again to the 130 decrees.
Of course I am not using this kind of device as "for real" but I'd like to have it at least somewhat accurate. As geocacher I use compass as a tool with my hobby and I was quite happy with Desire because of the quite accurate GPS but after the update the compass is practically useless.

Just a quick update, I made a quick phone call to HTC support this morning and raised that issue. The support analyst recommended the factory data reset to see if it helps. I guess it's just a standard answer so at this point of time I'm not gonna proceed with that and erase all data on my phone. (Btw, I wonder if it's possible to backup all current data from my unrooted, unbranded Desire?)
Furthermore he promised to get back to me in next few days with some official resolution of that issue so I will keep you updated.

Try calibrating your magnetometer by waving your phone in 8-shaped moves.

I emailed HTC customer care also about the issue and the answer was to factory reset the phone. Of course that was the first thing I had already done at the minute I noticed the problem in first place so I wasn't quite fond of the idea. In fact I have reseted phone three times after the update and allways the result was the same; compass stucks.
Well, I thought that maybe I have some weird app that messes up the compass so I tried one more time...
At first after the reset I downloaded only EStrong file manager, compass and c:eo. Compass worked most of the time! I kept resuming backups and compass did stuck occasionally but not very often (+ abnormal magnetic field). I am not sure what I did leave out of the phone but now the comapss works quite fine. It is a lot more sensitive for magnetic fields than in 2.1 but usually calibration works to it.
So, the conclusion is, that even for some reason first times the reset didn't work, it did help after all. Just backup your data and give it a try. Doesn't cost more than some time. The compass DOES stuck still but is most of the time usable.
At least I left out MoreLocale2, Metal detector and some games. And I DIDN'T calibrate G-sensors after reset.
So, there is still some issues with update and compass but it COULD also be somewhat application related...

G-Sensor calibration might be the answer! Following the first factory reset yesterday which cleared the compass problem initially I reinstalled all apps and calibrated G-sensor to find the problem came back. Then I factory-reset once more last night and reinstalled all apps but didn't do the re-calibration, left the phone on for the night - no problem in the morning. Feel tempted to re-calibrate to proof the point now.

Please inform here how did it do if you re-calibrate. I have an ongoing geocaching challenge, so I won't try that until I'm sure that I don't need the compass for couple of days. After that I'm going to test if calibration is the problem as soon as possible.

I have the same problem. Have tried everything but hard reset. Still, compass worked a lot better on 2.1 :-(
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

nitemarc said:
@JLillia: Also in my case the compass worked as intended on android 2.1.
Anyway thanks for your answers guys! I really appreciate it! So it looks like at least 3 folks here are experiencing some issues with digital compass after the upgrade to the Froyo on HTC Desire
Wonder if there is anyone here who could disagree with us and say that the upgrade didn't cause any compass degradation on his/her device at all...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My compass works fine on HTC Desire on Android 2.2.

Try 3d compass, and use its calibration option. Always works for me.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

nitemarc said:
Just a quick update, I made a quick phone call to HTC support this morning and raised that issue. The support analyst recommended the factory data reset to see if it helps. I guess it's just a standard answer so at this point of time I'm not gonna proceed with that and erase all data on my phone. (Btw, I wonder if it's possible to backup all current data from my unrooted, unbranded Desire?)
Furthermore he promised to get back to me in next few days with some official resolution of that issue so I will keep you updated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonder how does HTC support team's SLA look like in terms of resolving client's tickets as my one hasn't been resolved yet... Anyway it seems to me that HTC is not going to confirm that OTA update to Froyo could caused that compass issue.
That's why I decided on factory data reset and it looks like that helped with getting this issue sorted out. After the hard reset, my first step was an initial compass calibration and that's really all what I did. The digital compass is not maybe so precise and accurate as it used to be on Android 2.1 but finally roughly (I would say with 15° margin) points out the north so there is a progress

Just to add my 2c, I can confirm that the compass has become useless since I upgraded to 2.2 on my device. Doing the figure 8 in Compass app has short lived benefits.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Neither does my compass react in any application (tried Compass, Places directory, Google Navigation) after update to Froyo.
Calibrating with the 8 movement or G-sensor calibration does not help at all.
However, it always starts working normally when I tilt the phone to the side (so that I look on the slim side of the phone) and then start a short forward and backward rotation with the rotational axis going thru the display.
I need to repeat this every time I unlock the phone and the compass keeps on working until i lock the phone again or until I switch the application.
Weired.

I have the same problem, and it is a bit annoying. The compass works correctly if I wave the phone like in the video posted, but I have to do this every time I start an app that uses the magnetometer. My phone was not like this on 2.1.

[Q] Compass issues

I have seen several threads reporting compass issues in this forum. I posted one a few weeks ago as well. I have done some troubleshooting and I have now realized that my compass works fine unless I am in my car. This is very strange because I have had this car for several years and I have gone through several phones and have never had this problem. It's like my car is some kind of Faraday cage!
The symptoms are especially visible in google maps. Apparently they use the compass heading instead of the gps course to determine which way to turn the map. The arrow in the center almost always shows me driving sideways down a road. Also if I use the famous GPS Status app, the compass arrow in the middle never comes close to the actual GPS heading. Specifically, my compass always like to point somewhere to the west. If I am travelling to the east (090), my compass will point somewhere to the west (perhaps 270). But if I am travelling due south (180), the compass may point to something like south west. And if I am travelling to the west, there is a good chance the compass will be in agreement and also show me travelling to the west. Maybe I should alter my driving habits to only drive to the west.
But all of these symptoms go away if I am out of my car. If I go for a walk, the compass is fine. It is so obvious that I can stand outside of my car and get a heading, and then take the phone in my car and get a completely, wildly different heading.
I have tried the compass calibration in the GPS Status app, but that has made no difference.
Are there any engineering key codes that can test the compass, or perhaps change the sensitivity on it or something? Is there anything else I can do other than the compass calibration? Anyone have any idea what in my car might be throwing off the compass in the first place?

[Q] Has the google maps compass gotten any better?

I had the Note II and I always had trouble with the compass in gmaps. Specifically, if you are just looking at the map without having a destination entered (perhaps to review traffic), the compass would never work. The heading marker pretty much had a mind of its own. Well, I upgraded to the Note III, thinking that the problem must be fixed. Nope! Wrong! Nada! Same problem.
Well, I am probably getting close to upgrading again, and I was wonder what I can expect with the Note 4. Has it been fixed?

i have never had an issue with my note 2 or 3 or even 4 now!

MrGibbage said:
I had the Note II and I always had trouble with the compass in gmaps. Specifically, if you are just looking at the map without having a destination entered (perhaps to review traffic), the compass would never work. The heading marker pretty much had a mind of its own. Well, I upgraded to the Note III, thinking that the problem must be fixed. Nope! Wrong! Nada! Same problem.
Well, I am probably getting close to upgrading again, and I was wonder what I can expect with the Note 4. Has it been fixed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... on my phone the compass in Google Maps is there to show which way is north on the map. Not which way I'm facing although now that you mention it I do seem to vaguely remember there used to be a mode in Google Maps which would use the compass to change what was shown on the screen based on which way the phone was pointing.
I believe that got removed from Google Maps a couple years ago. At least I haven't seen it for a long time.
If I'm right, it's a "feature" of the app rather than a limitation of the phone(s).

I'm not talking about the red and white compass in the upper left corner. I am talking about the blue arrow in the middle of the screen that represents your heading. When I drive down a street, that arrow should also point "down the street" on the map. The arrow on my screen points in pretty much any direction other than the correct one.
Here's a thread that I started a couple of years ago that still gets posted to occasionally by other people that have the same problem.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=44662834#post44662834
Additionally, google sky map is pretty much impossible to use for the same reason. The google apps have no idea what direction the phone is pointing.
*#0*# Calibration can help, but it usually reverts back to the broken state after a few minutes or after a reboot.

it shows me walking or driving the right way and google sky map works perfect as well and i dont even have GPS on high accuracy. i used sky map to see what a bright star was a couple nights ago and maps today and both are fine

MrGibbage said:
I'm not talking about the red and white compass in the upper left corner. I am talking about the blue arrow in the middle of the screen that represents your heading. When I drive down a street, that arrow should also point "down the street" on the map. The arrow on my screen points in pretty much any direction other than the correct one.
Here's a thread that I started a couple of years ago that still gets posted to occasionally by other people that have the same problem.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=44662834#post44662834
Additionally, google sky map is pretty much impossible to use for the same reason. The google apps have no idea what direction the phone is pointing.
*#0*# Calibration can help, but it usually reverts back to the broken state after a few minutes or after a reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not based on which direction the phone is pointing, it is based on which way the phone is moving. Has to be moving for the arrow to move. GPS in maps measures movement

I believe this is an inherent issue with the magnetometer/compass in all cellphones. All you have to do is shake the phone around (or swirl the phone around in a figure 8 pattern) to calibrate the magnetometer with the maps app open. You'll find that it is accurate afterwards.

GPS location & direction in Google Maps

When using Google Maps, I'll press the circle to center in on my location, and the arrow is supposed to show the direction I'm facing. About half the time, it shows me facing about 30 to 90* in the wrong direction. The arrow will move left or right as I do, but still faces the wrong direction. There have been occasions when it will show the dot and arrow moving and facing backwards while I'm driving. This hasn't affected Navigation, as it still accurately shows my location. Has anyone else noticed this, or have a solution?
What I've tried so far: Sensor Calibration under the *#0*# menu.
Also, I had this issue on my Note 4 as well.

Welcome to Samsung crap GPS. Crap radios as well, the radio on the edge drops more signal then on the Note 4.

DigitalChris602 said:
When using Google Maps, I'll press the circle to center in on my location, and the arrow is supposed to show the direction I'm facing. About half the time, it shows me facing about 30 to 90* in the wrong direction. The arrow will move left or right as I do, but still faces the wrong direction. There have been occasions when it will show the dot and arrow moving and facing backwards while I'm driving. This hasn't affected Navigation, as it still accurately shows my location. Has anyone else noticed this, or have a solution?
What I've tried so far: Sensor Calibration under the *#0*# menu.
Also, I had this issue on my Note 4 as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless you're military... I wouldn't so much worry about where my "GPS arrow" is facing... and just hope that it is an accurate location. Apps like Skymaps, etc will have that "un-usability" but for the most part... if your pretty close to the street, and the location of your device is mostly on point.. I would just get use to it.
Wouldn't say it's a Samsung defect either.. it's more of a "expecting your phone to perform as well as a satellite GPS tracker" issue...
Like I said, would just try to get use to it. Most often, when I cross an intersection, my phone shows me crossing ab ok about the same time. That's all that should matter. The directional point is something that will never work like it does in COD, etc. Lol
Sent from my SM-G928T using XDA Free mobile app

The part that bugs me is that for years I've never had this problem on any android phone, now all of a sudden it's an issue on two samsung phones in a row. :^(
Sent from my SM-G928T

I have a temporary fix that must be done while an app is using the compass. Rotate the phone two full circles on all three axis, one after the other. Like turn the phone full round as if taking a panorama, then a full circle like capturing a panorama of the floor then sky, and lastly a full spin like the phone is on a turntable in front of you. The compass should be stellar right after this and at least prove to you that it CAN work.
I asked some hardware buddies of mine at Qualcomm and they told me some reasons why it sucks on phones. The magnetometer that scans relative magnetic field strength does not self calibrate whenever it is subjected to new fields. This happens very often as you pass through varying fields all the time. If the phone was kept away from all of these, the phone still would need calibration as its own operation creates magnetic fields that may tamper with its magnetometer depending on placement and shielding.

hate to say it.
DigitalChris602 said:
When using Google Maps, I'll press the circle to center in on my location, and the arrow is supposed to show the direction I'm facing. About half the time, it shows me facing about 30 to 90* in the wrong direction. The arrow will move left or right as I do, but still faces the wrong direction. There have been occasions when it will show the dot and arrow moving and facing backwards while I'm driving. This hasn't affected Navigation, as it still accurately shows my location. Has anyone else noticed this, or have a solution?
What I've tried so far: Sensor Calibration under the *#0*# menu.
Also, I had this issue on my Note 4 as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not experience this problem at all and keep my phone in the hub between the front seats in my car and use Android auto in my car. However the poster above is correct about resetting your magnetometer. May be your magnetometer is faulty or fried. Also what position do you keep your phone in the car? That could make a difference, I would rotate phone until it shows you the right direction.

Gyroscope/Accelerometer Flipped?

Hey Guys,
Just wanted to see if anyone else has noticed that when viewing Google Maps on the watch, the map rotates in the opposite (incorrect) direction as you rotate? For example, if you are looking "North" and you turn left, the map should rotate clockwise to point you "West". What I'm seeing is the exact opposite. Another test I performed was to install an app called Bearing and of course it showed the same behavior as Maps. If I was looking "North" and started rotating left, the compass would spin counter-clockwise and "East" would come up. I know that the exact direction will not be correct due to a lack of a magnetometer but rotation should still be correct. Anyone else see this?
Thanks!

..

MuF123 said:
I think this is wrong assumption and that you can't really get what you want without compass.
Any app that relies on magnetic coordinates should not move at all on hwatch...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, they do move smoothly and relatively accurately just in the opposite direction so they must allow for gyro/accelerometer input. Either that or I have a magic watch. Also, after reporting it, Huawei is looking into the issue. I'm just curious if others can try it on their watches and report direction of spin....
Thanks!

Same here, i think it's a bug of map due to the lack of compas.

suitengu said:
Same here, i think it's a bug of map due to the lack of compas.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for checking, suitengu! I agree with your theory. Some software locks position or refuses to install, as it should, due to the lack of a compass. Apparently not Maps or Bearing.

I've investigated a little more. At launch maps take the phone's compass as reference, after it uses watch's gyro to turns the map.
The gyro are inverced in Gmaps, don't know if it's google of huawei fault.

Interesting to see more people notice this issue, as I already reported it in January.
here
It may well be that the Maps app uses mainly magnetic compass for the rotation and the gyros are used to filter/smoothen the rotation of the map. Not having the compass inputs messes up the algorithm...
Would like to know if other AW watches that do have compass experience different behaviour.

OnnoJ said:
Interesting to see more people notice this issue, as I already reported it in January.
here
It may well be that the Maps app uses mainly magnetic compass for the rotation and the gyros are used to filter/smoothen the rotation of the map. Not having the compass inputs messes up the algorithm...
Would like to know if other AW watches that do have compass experience different behaviour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the LG G Watch R it's perfectly fine. Map rotating in the right direction only with the gyro sensor of the watch. I think we need to wait till Huawei fixes this.