[Q] Phone location unavailable indoors - Droid Incredible Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Aloha,
I have found this problem on many different ROMS, my girlfiend's stock moto Droid, and my friend's new Droid X. I am currently running Sky Raider 3.3 with 2.15.00.07.28 radio. On all these phones with froyo it appears that Verizon's cell tower triangulation (aGPS?) no longer works. Symptoms include: location unavailable on google maps indoors, this did not use to be the case. It used to give me a big blue circle of an approximate location, then pinpoint location when I stepped outdoors. Although, GPS does work perfectly outdoors still. HTC weather and clock has no location or gives a location that is far away based on wifi, if I have it on. Widget used to give exact location and applicable weather when indoors. Google home page says location unavailable which means I can't search for nearby things when indoors. Also 3rd party apps that need location cannot find phone's location if indoors. Again this was not the case untill a few weeks ago. Everything used to work fine indoors and out. I have all location settings selected and have tried many solutions from many websites to no avail. I also called Verizon and of coarse they were no help. The customer service lady even said that she noticed the same problem when updated to froyo on her phone. I am in Hawaii, she was in Washington. Sorry for the long explanation but this is driving me crazy. Thanks for any insight.

Related

New Google Maps, includes low end software based GPS for Hermes

www.google.com/gmm
I did not see this when I searched so I thought I would post it.
Latest version of google maps (2 beta) is out and it includes my location (tower based locater)
Its not great but depending on your location it can give pretty good fix as to where you are (and provide directions/searches nearby). Pretty useful tool, I find the performance better than Navison.
I always wondered why a gps locations couldnt be created using cell phone towers!
Thanks for the heads up!
Downloading now!!
When you click on Menu click My Location to find your location via softgps.
Aww..my location is temporarily unavailable
*edit*
This works better when NOT connect to computer via USB cable LOL
This is totally sweet!
Wow, very nice. Just tried it out and it is accurate to a few blocks.
I've been using for a while now...I like it.
Gives you a decent starting point as opposed to typing in address. In directions...just use "my GPS Location" as a starting point and it will use the nearest tower as your starting point.
Looks like I might hold off on the tilt a bit longer. ($149 on premier has me tempted)
-AD
Very cool! Simple, Fun, & Progressive for our non-gps Hermes!
Well I installed it and My location is not available.... But thinking about it I read somewhere that it uses Celular broadcast, and I am afraid T-Mobile NL does not provide celular broadcast maybe because it is an 1800 MHZ network ???
Google Maps 2
This is an uterly brilliant program! For the first time, I can use my phone, without a GPS receiver, to find my approximate location, view the map or satellite picture, and find the nearest pub, garage, hotel etc. Wow!!
Works like a charm here! Pretty amazing stuff. We just went out tonight, got hungry, wanted pizza....and google told us where to go!
Churchill said:
Well I installed it and My location is not available.... But thinking about it I read somewhere that it uses Celular broadcast, and I am afraid T-Mobile NL does not provide celular broadcast maybe because it is an 1800 MHZ network ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably. Couldn't get it to work either.
Isnt Proximus Belgium 1800 Mhz too? Works here and very accurate.
Can confirm also works well on Telstra (Australia) GSM/UMTS networks.
Nifty bit of software.
Many thanks to aaronsmckee for alerting us to it.
Churchill said:
Well I installed it and My location is not available.... But thinking about it I read somewhere that it uses Celular broadcast, and I am afraid T-Mobile NL does not provide celular broadcast maybe because it is an 1800 MHZ network ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That might be it... or it may be that Google has not added the tower id number for NL yet (it is still in beta). The way the app works is that it draws down the tower id number from the tower your using to connect with. Then it matches it up against a DB that google has of all the tower ids. So it might just be that they have not yet added NL yet or perhaps just your particular carrier (I would be intrested to see what results NL users with different carriers get).
Tower ?
Let me ask a quick question. The location indicated. Is that the actual location of the tower or and approximation of your position ????
angelome said:
Let me ask a quick question. The location indicated. Is that the actual location of the tower or and approximation of your position ????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its not the tower location. I work ~2 miles from home and at work it said i was within 1400 meters of the location. Which was pretty close, when I was at home it gave the same location (well about 1 block difference from the one at work) but said I was within 5000 meters of said location. Pretty neat program update. Its not the tower location because I looked at satelite view and there isn't any tower anywhere close to the blue dot
Very nice! Works ok on weak GSM signal near Swindon (UK) on T-Mobile. At home it shows within 1 ml of actual location. Now - will they enable some interaction with Google Map so you can send a web page link to someone that will show where you are on Google Map . Lots of potential with this one.
illavbill said:
its not the tower location. I work ~2 miles from home and at work it said i was within 1400 meters of the location. Which was pretty close, when I was at home it gave the same location (well about 1 block difference from the one at work) but said I was within 5000 meters of said location. Pretty neat program update. Its not the tower location because I looked at satelite view and there isn't any tower anywhere close to the blue dot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe there is some extrapolation based on signal strength but the tower is the key identifier (from an article about it)
"Cellular networks work in this way that neighbouring base stations form "cells" in which users can make phone calls. Interestingly each base station sends unique "cell identification" (cell ID) so if you know where physically each base station is located you can extrapolate physical location of a phone! Apparently Google has database of cell IDs and Google Maps application sends to Google list of neighboring base stations and in return Google servers are returning approximate geographical location of your phone! "
GPS-A
This is probably based on the GPS-A(assist) technology that 911 uses. I would guess that it uses signal strength(distance), and multiple towers(direction) to make its guess. Its pretty neat really. just installed it tonight. I had given up on google maps in favor of live search, but I think I may have just changed my mind. trying to figure out where you are, to tell it to find you kind of sucked when you were wwalking around a new town that you had never been before. This one is definatly a keeper.
Tried last night. My locationw as temporarily unavailable. I switched to 2G only and voila, it found me (well, sort of)
On Orange UK.
Tried it on mine, and got my location within 1400 meters. Its not bad, very useful if you wake up hungover in a doorway somewhere.....
Works in NJ
I had also given up on Google Maps in favor of MS Live but I may have just changed my mind. I loaded this last night, drove for about 40 minutes on highways in northern NJ, and it was reasonably accurate. It showed my location on the highway for the most part which makes me believe the location indicated is not the tower location. Now, the location on the map leads or lags wherever I might actually be but that is OK. I was in Central and Northwest NJ in the "boonies", way out in the hills.
All in all, pretty impressive. I am sticking with it and hope that there will be continual improvements.

Htc Sense weather location wrong

Im running mighty's latest rom as of now and when i try to do my location in the weather tab, it puts me in kingston jamaica or karlovac which i dont even know where that is. anyways google maps gets my location correct and within 20 meters. any one got any help? btw ive run quick gps, didnt work.
AFAIK, at least with the stock VZ ROM, location for weather is picked up from the tower location, not GPS location. So that fact that Google Maps works OK doesn't really help much. You might try posting in a thread for Mighty's ROM.
SecretAgentMan said:
You might try posting in a thread for Mighty's ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now why would anyone want to do that when they can just start a new thread?
There is probably a Menu on your Weather tab. Check the settings and make sure you have enabled the Automatic Updates.
Did you enable Location Services? Don't ask what it is. Do a search and find out for yourself. You will feel much better about yourself.
It is 19 degrees here, so if my weather tab wants to put me in Kingston Jamaica, I will go get packed now...
I also have this issue - with standard HTC Rom jan. '10
Hi,
I have the same issue, different locations of course ;-)
My location places me in the middle east instead of western europe...
If it takes my location from my tower location it doesn't make any sense....
Help...
I'm getting the same issue, it also thinks I'm near Kingston in Jamaica.
I'm in North Wales, UK so was quite confused to pick up my phone see the clock on Eastern Caribbean time and 25C with thunderstorms...bit weird as it was snowing outside at the time.
Google maps also thinks I'm in Jamaica. Is this an issue with Google location services?
J
Kind of the same issue, but not really.
Ok, I kind of feel everyone's pain here. Since Sprint was gracious enough to release the Win6.5 & Touch Sense 2.5 upgrade (FINALLY, YOU SPRINT ********), I upgraded last night. Initially, it had said Minneapolis, MN. I am in MN, but not in Minneapolis. I am in Brainerd, MN.
Long Story short, a couple of times, I seen it actually default to Brainerd, MN. But Went to look again and found that it went Back to Minneapolis.
I guess what would really be good here is an application or extension of the HTC Sense Weather program that would allow for you to explicitly define what you want to see on your "Home" tab in HTC Sense.
Basically, the GPS, Tower, whatever it is... would be an excellent tool for travel and shouldn't be disabled, but only made as an option as part of the above suggested suggestion. If I could select it when I am traveling, and choose which city I wanted when I am not, this would be so much better.
Lastly, is there a way to make it updates it's location? Or even change and/or remove the "Detected" city?
Any Help would be appreciated.
This is really frustrating me now...
I've just moved house, and my phone is insistent on me still living in the old town. I can go anywhere and it will update to the nearest town correctly, but as soon as I'm back on my wireless network at home it always goes to my old home town.
I can remove my wireless network settings and just use 3G at home, and it gets the correct town. It's ONLY through my home wifi network that it chooses my old town!
Weather location
I think I have the same problem. My weather location isn't updating. I think it has something to do with the new radio 2.09
oedsdemeer said:
I think I have the same problem. My weather location isn't updating. I think it has something to do with the new radio 2.09
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you used any other apps (like google maps) to verify your ability to get a good GPS lock since upgrading to that radio? Somtimes after flashing to a new radio it's necessary to reestablish that ability before your My Location will update properly
Hey all, I don't know if this issue is the same as what I was having but I know how frustrated I was so I figured I'd pass along my results (I did finally solve it)
EDIT: crap, I can't post outside links. Go to AndroidForums and search for a thread called I feel like I'm in the effin twilight zone it was created by me (same username).
In my case (Win6.5 TouchPro2):
Open GoogleMaps, let it use GPS, let GPS get hold of the satellites. Wait for a few minutes, let it download the map to show your location. Exit GoogleMaps.
Now MyLocation is correct, hence weather shown is correct.
HTC HD2 weather location wrong.
uuuummmm, solution is embarissing.
Click on the time.
Choose my location (that will use the gps)
If your gps is not working, select your location.
Regards,
totter

GPS over GPRS without GPS comunicator for DASH

I have seen on samsung simple phone i don't remember model... however so it has google earth and it was working by internet and was shoing my place in about 10Mtrs corency... so can we or do we have some kind of program to make that on HTS EXCALIBUR?????? i have tried google earth for smartphones but anyways it's requesting GPS device...
It is possible to triangulate your location to a certain (horrible) accuracy using Cell Towers in your area. I believe there are actually programs that do it (I have used one). The best accuracy i have ever gotten was within 150 Meters, standing still. That is the second down-fall..you can't use triangulation efficiently when moving (if at all...)
So unfortunately, there is not real good way to do this. For decent results, you would want a GPS.
It is possible to triangulate your location to a certain (horrible) accuracy using Cell Towers in your area. I believe there are actually programs that do it (I have used one). The best accuracy i have ever gotten was within 150 Meters, standing still. That is the second down-fall..you can't use triangulation efficiently when moving (if at all...)
So unfortunately, there is not real good way to do this. For decent results, you would want a GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Google Latitude which uses some sort of cell tower triangulations on my DASH and it works out pretty well. I was able to get within 80 meters and if you actually look at the Google map that is in the Latitude, my position is actually spot on.
My Google Maps Street View puts me within 50 meters.
Now is this using a DATA Connection? (I noticed the title said GPRS). That could make the difference. Whenever I tested out a program like that, i would be using little to no data connection, but if there is a greater stream of data being transferred, that may affect the response (or make it easier for the phone to identify the closest 3 towers)...
xXx
so what kn of settings I must give in GOOGLE LATITUDE that it shows me my place by GPRS? i pushing on MY LOCATION but program is saing that my location is unavalibe... I live in armenia can it be areason of error?
Virtual GPS
There is a program by Kamlex called Virtual GPS. There is a free version and a pro version. It uses no internet access and gets your location through the cell towers.
When using Google Maps, just set your gps com port to which ever port the VirtualGPS is using (usuallly 3) and it will locate you to the nearest tower. I will post the program here.

HTC Weather Location Problem

Hello
I hope this isn't a repost.
I was wondering if anyone else is having an issue with the weather application not showing your correct location. Mine was working fine until Wednesday evening and now it just displays United Kingdom (Current Location). It does update the temperature and Google Maps knows where I am using cell location.
Anyone know of a fix or is this a wider issue with the the accuweather site?
Thanks
Paul
Mines been on the blink for a couple of weeks now. Some times it works and other times it just says UK
Same here - however, when I am in Bath (where the office is), Bath is shown, anywhere else on route now just says United Kingdom.
mine is the same went daft a few weeks ago worked for 1 day on wednesday and know is dead again just saying UK and thats it
Yep. Mine gone bat sh*t stupid too.
Even with gps on, it still doesn't get it right.
Ended up doing a work-around by going into the weather app, deleting all the irrelevant locations (paris, madrid etc) and manually added my city. Won't change when I go somewhere else, but rarely leave my city limits and its better than generic uk weather.
Not too fussed about it. Accuweather (who do the weather info for this widget) are not too crash hot on details anyway. Yesterday I was sat in my office, and it was raining so hard, it was hard to hear over the roar of the rain on the roof. My weather was saying "mostly sunny". Lol. Said the same after I refreshed it, and every uk news station saw this down-pour coming since tuesday.
You are better off having a link to the met office (if you in the uk) on your home page. Or just look out the window!
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Mine too. Just says "current location" and nothing else. Has done for weeks.
Does anyone know if there is a fix or planned fix for the problem?
As i`m aware there is no fix, it was easy to fix on WiMo, maybe we should spam HTC for this ?
Weather newer worked on my location, but 2 miles away everything is fine
I think they're updating the locations all the time. Mine used to say Bamber Bridge even though I live in Leyland. It played up saying current location as United Kingdom and then started working again and shows my correct location.
I don't think there's any fix for this apart from manually adding your correct location until they get it fixed.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Ok thanks I'll spam them.
I wouldnt be so bothered but this was working last week and I've checked, Sheffield is still a real place....
weather location problem - fix!
I have been looking through other threads and have just found something that seemed to solve this problem.
Turn on the wifi (don't have to connect to any network, literally just have it turned on) and refresh the weather page and the location changes to your current location. Turn the wifi off and it's fine.
It has worked for me so far... I hope this helps someone else. (Phone: HTC Desire HD)
squelia said:
I have been looking through other threads and have just found something that seemed to solve this problem.
Turn on the wifi (don't have to connect to any network, literally just have it turned on) and refresh the weather page and the location changes to your current location. Turn the wifi off and it's fine.
It has worked for me so far... I hope this helps someone else. (Phone: HTC Desire HD)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesn't work for me. Thanks for suggestion though..
That was a solution for phones with winmo and manila 2.1 cooked in. Maybe try newer radio? I only assume that you all are using stock Desire rom... if not maybe check for update from chefs?
I had same issue with stock rom. After movind to Leedroid ones problem disapeared.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
From what I can tell from my experience with the Desire weather widget, having accurate location data is largely dependant on connection quality. By this, I mean that if you're connected to wifi, you're going to get a much better read on things. When using GPRS, the weather seems to get a bit more vague - I'm lucky if I get "United Kingdom", since most of the time it will just say "Current location". I can't say what experience you'd get with EDGE or 3G, since I don't live in an area with either.
Your best bet is to ensure you give your phone every available avenue for location data. On a Desire running Froyo, from the Home screen, press:
Menu -> Settings -> Location
Make sure both "Use wireless networks" and "Use GPS satellites" are ticked, then back up out to the Home screen. Go back in to the weather widget (for reference, I mean the clock / weather combo widget here) and refresh it. Give it a little bit, and it should (about 75% of the time) update to your proper location.
Some times when this probably won't work / you may still have trouble:
- When you have your device connected to a computer for the purposes of USB file transfer, tethering or HTC Sync.
- When you are connected to a wireless network using an invalid IP (such as having a static IP set to 192.168.1.x in a 0.x range).
- When you find yourself inside a faraday cage, a mile beneath the surface of the Earth.
This is all likely just common sense stuff that most people are doing already, but hope it helps some of you.

Location wrong without WiFi/GPS/Edge

Hey guys,
I tried searching on google but to no solution.
The problem is when I switch off all forms of data except cellular coverage, my location changes to a City where I'm not at. I went to that place maybe thrice since I got the phone.
My location in Maps, Weather or even location saved along when I take pictures will be that other/wrong location.
Its easily fixable by just starting one of the data services, but why should I even face it in the first place.
Its happened on all ROMs and wipes don't fix it. Done a full wipe twice from cwm.
My GPS works normally when I'm using maps, it takes about 30 seconds to get a lock on my location.
Any workaround or solution or fix? (except for not keeping data switched on all the time)
Thank You.
Cheers.
death__machine said:
Hey guys,
I tried searching on google but to no solution.
The problem is when I switch off all forms of data except cellular coverage, my location changes to a City where I'm not at. I went to that place maybe thrice since I got the phone.
My location in Maps, Weather or even location saved along when I take pictures will be that other/wrong location.
Its easily fixable by just starting one of the data services, but why should I even face it in the first place.
Its happened on all ROMs and wipes don't fix it. Done a full wipe twice from cwm.
My GPS works normally when I'm using maps, it takes about 30 seconds to get a lock on my location.
Any workaround or solution or fix? (except for not keeping data switched on all the time)
Thank You.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Location without GPS is online service. I hope that answers your question about "fixing" it.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
There's three things at play in plotting location: 1) GPS, 2), aGPS, and 3) Geo-location
GPS is the onboard chip functioning alone to pick up satellite signals and lock on them. You can test how well your GPS chip alone works by putting the phone in airplane mode and rebooting it.
All aGPS does is use a wireless signal (Wi-FI or cellular) to help the chip get its first lock faster. Once lock is established the chip is on its own.
From Wiki...
"Assisted GPS is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix (TTFF) of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by the U.S. FCC's 911 mandate making the location of a cell phone available to emergency call dispatchers."
Geo-location uses wireless signals alone to approximate position. Devices w/o a GPS rely on this for location based services.
From Wiki...
"Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar, mobile phone or an Internet-connected computer terminal. Geolocation may refer to the practice of assessing the location, or to the actual assessed location."
Once the chip locks, it memorizes the position of the satellites. So if you had your wireless on to get first lock and then turned it off the chip is still using the satellite locations aGPS helped it find. If you want to test the performance of your chip itself reboot it in airplane mode. Download GPS Test from Play. It'll give you a much better picture of what's happening with your phone. I just tried it on mine and indoors it locked and got down to 15’ accuracy in less than a minute. Conditions affect performance but, at least outdoors, yours should do as well or better than mine. If it doesn’t, it’s a h/w problem.
tkolev said:
Location without GPS is online service. I hope that answers your question about "fixing" it.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BarryH_GEG said:
There's three things at play in plotting location: 1) GPS, 2), aGPS, and 3) Geo-location
GPS is the onboard chip functioning alone to pick up satellite signals and lock on them. You can test how well your GPS chip alone works by putting the phone in airplane mode and rebooting it.
All aGPS does is use a wireless signal (Wi-FI or cellular) to help the chip get its first lock faster. Once lock is established the chip is on its own.
From Wiki...
"Assisted GPS is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix (TTFF) of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by the U.S. FCC's 911 mandate making the location of a cell phone available to emergency call dispatchers."
Geo-location uses wireless signals alone to approximate position. Devices w/o a GPS rely on this for location based services.
From Wiki...
"Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar, mobile phone or an Internet-connected computer terminal. Geolocation may refer to the practice of assessing the location, or to the actual assessed location."
Once the chip locks, it memorizes the position of the satellites. So if you had your wireless on to get first lock and then turned it off the chip is still using the satellite locations aGPS helped it find. If you want to test the performance of your chip itself reboot it in airplane mode. Download GPS Test from Play. It'll give you a much better picture of what's happening with your phone. I just tried it on mine and indoors it locked and got down to 15’ accuracy in less than a minute. Conditions affect performance but, at least outdoors, yours should do as well or better than mine. If it doesn’t, it’s a h/w problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that was a very informative post.
Well I switched on GPS and put my phone in airplane mode and restarted. The Maps App keeps saying "Your current location is temporarily unavailable" and I can't figure how to use the GPS Test yet.
Okay, I did get a lock-on from the Maps and the GPS Test app. I went closer to my window lol . Now I'll see if my location comes up wrong.
Edit:Location came up accurate in weather.
Edit2:Location is accurate in a photo I clicked with everything off.
By accurate I hope you understand what I mean, when all the data goes off the phone should still think its in the place/location where it was when the data was on. Ii.e Surat in my case. But what used to happened before today(gps in airplane) was without data the phone will think its in Pune, which is a 12 hours drive from here.
I'm not the only one who's faced this, some say its a bug in sense :/
Anyways here's a thread I saw earlier
http://www.htconesource.com/forum/htc-one-x-discussion/1042-incorrect-location.html
The answers the guy gets are retarded.
To be sure, are you saying that when only on mobile data and relying upon that, you cannot get an accurate location down to 1 KM?
If so, this sounds like a software issue or a carrier issue.
If your GPS has poor reception then I would advise getting warranty repair. It might have the same issue as the Wifi antennas do.
Yeah just so you know pure GPS is line of sight, you have to have a clear view of the sky to work (no clouds either).
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Hunt3r.j2 said:
To be sure, are you saying that when only on mobile data and relying upon that, you cannot get an accurate location down to 1 KM?
If so, this sounds like a software issue or a carrier issue.
If your GPS has poor reception then I would advise getting warranty repair. It might have the same issue as the Wifi antennas do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jonshipman said:
Yeah just so you know pure GPS is line of sight, you have to have a clear view of the sky to work (no clouds either).
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No no.
My location when all services are on shows up fine. But say I have a weather widget and all my data services are off, instead of showing the location detected last when data services was on the widget and other settings will show another city.
I'll explain it with an example.
Lets have a hypothetical country with all the letters as its cities.
I stay in 'S' at present. I have visited 'P' and 'M' a couple of times but I'm back to 'S' now. On the occasion that my data services switch off, intentionally or because of weak coverage. Instead of showing 'S' as my location in the weather widget, app and geotag the phone will show 'P' which I had visited days ago.

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