Develop Bugs

GPS performances without data use?

I'm researching to buy a smartphone and considering the investment involved I would rather make the right choice. With this in mind I do have a few questions for those who already have a unit in hand.
I'm curious as to the Rhodium's GPS performance when used without the AGPS fonction, or any similar mode requiring use of GPRS/EDGE/3G.
The reason is quite simple: my work takes me abroad very often and as you all know data roaming fees are insanely high. Therefore I would like to be able to use my future smartphone (possible the Rhodium) without incurring said fees.
I have no problem with downloading satellite information once in a while via wifi or active synch connection on the other hand.
So, what kind of performance does the Rhodium offer in my scenario? Would I be plagued with low accuracy and insanely high fix time like some of the other HTC models or can I expect usable performances?
Thx!
Pat
P.S. As a side question, how reliable is the "nodata.cab" file to kill gprs/edge/3G connection? Can I expect it to reliably completely disable my cellular data connection or does it "crap out" sometimes?

This will be my first winmo, so I don't have 1st hand experience with nodata--I have downloaded it preparation though, as I plan not to buy a data plan. However, screenshots of the TP2's setup screen seem to indicate you can shut off the data radio without it, so it might not even be necessary. Nodata works by editing the winmo registry entries, so if it works at all on a device, in theory, it should work consistently.

GPS over Wi-Fi only works perfectly.

Pat007 said:
I'm researching to buy a smartphone and considering the investment involved I would rather make the right choice. With this in mind I do have a few questions for those who already have a unit in hand.
I'm curious as to the Rhodium's GPS performance when used without the AGPS fonction, or any similar mode requiring use of GPRS/EDGE/3G.
The reason is quite simple: my work takes me abroad very often and as you all know data roaming fees are insanely high. Therefore I would like to be able to use my future smartphone (possible the Rhodium) without incurring said fees.
I have no problem with downloading satellite information once in a while via wifi or active synch connection on the other hand.
So, what kind of performance does the Rhodium offer in my scenario? Would I be plagued with low accuracy and insanely high fix time like some of the other HTC models or can I expect usable performances?
Thx!
Pat
P.S. As a side question, how reliable is the "nodata.cab" file to kill gprs/edge/3G connection? Can I expect it to reliably completely disable my cellular data connection or does it "crap out" sometimes?
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Click to collapse
The GPS receiver in the Rhodium is better than the Fuze and on par with the Pure (from my experience). A lot of the GPS performance will be affected by which radio is installed, but for the most part, almost any one of them will give reasonable GPS performance.
You will notice somewhat of a lag (depending upon your location and the strength of available satellites) to getting the 'first fix'/lock after a soft reset. The soft reset essentially wipes out the GPS receivers memory as which satellites are available and has to start from scratch, downloading the almanac from whatever satelites it can find. This can take up to 12 minutes, but most people are finding it takes a lot less time. For me, if I'm outside, it usually takes about 5 minutes or less for 'first fix'. After that, time to a fix is usually in a matter of seconds after turning on the GPS receiver.
Using the QuickGPS and other such tools, which download satellite data from various internet sites, can help somewhat, but I haven't found it making a huge amount of difference.
I have no idea what my esteemed colleague means by 'GPS over WiFi'.

I don't have data, so the first thing I do is go to:
start/settings/connections/connections/advanced/select networks and make sure that both tabs have "my work network" selected.
Either that, or call your provider and tell them.you would like to have data blocked on the phone line (if you're able). Both work.
With regard to the GPS, it's hit or miss at times. Sometimes it's up withing seconds, other times within 5-10 minutes (most likely after a reset).
Go with igo8...worth it.

[Q] update signal strength

Sorry if this is a repost but i did try searching and only found this in reference to froyo..
I have horrible reception on 3g and calling on this thing everywhere. it never goes over 2 bars and i know that bars really dont matter but sometimes i have to pull battery just to connect to web.
Is there anything i can do??

I was wondering the same thing.

*228 and upgrade PRL?

signal strength vs signal db and # of bars
I updated to the leaked 8/1/10 2.2 ota and I seem to be getting less of a signal based on the bar indicator. I normally receive about -101 - -95db roughly while at work. For me this correlates to 1 bar sometimes none. Does anyone have any info on how many bars for x amount of DB and whether the leaked ota has any fixes for reception. Also I seem to be using more battery for cell standby now, maybe the phone is trying harder to pull a signal. Going back to 2.1 and compare and will post results.

merlin66676 said:
I updated to the leaked 8/1/10 2.2 ota and I seem to be getting less of a signal based on the bar indicator. I normally receive about -101 - -95db roughly while at work. For me this correlates to 1 bar sometimes none. Does anyone have any info on how many bars for x amount of DB and whether the leaked ota has any fixes for reception. Also I seem to be using more battery for cell standby now, maybe the phone is trying harder to pull a signal. Going back to 2.1 and compare and will post results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wondering how this turned out for you...I'm assuming you meant back to the 1.x radio and not the 2.1 ROM - I believe this is a Radio issue, not necessarily a 2.2 issue.

I have gone back to 2.1 stock with update 1 OTA with the version 1 radio. I am still seeing -105db to -95db for reception and 1 bar while at work. So my assumption is that there is just a lack of reception in my area. I compared signal strength to my old versa lg 9600 and it seems to get 1-3 db better reception but I don't think that is much of a difference. I will also compare to my fiance's Env 2 and see what that gets. I do seem to see 3g more often with the v1 radio than with v2 but might just be when I look and nothing conclusive.
Follow-up: My fiances Env 2 also gets 2-5 db higher signal strength but again I don't think that is much for a phone, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Just my 2 cents but my reception got better with the new radio for a few days. It actually seems to have gotten worse or rather gone back to what it was when I went in and did my normal tweaks in the ##778 and ##7764726 menus. I will say that I tend to get a more stable signal but that if you check the DB register the improvement is far less dramatic than the bars improvement is. I wonder if something in one of my updates iPhone'd me. You know where their idea of a software fix for signal issues is to change the way the graphics display. I partially wonder if I didn't get one of those.
Really looking forward to the stated improvements in LTE and getting a good LTE Android phone. Supposedly we will see improved building penetration with LTE signals. I for one really hope so.

fezzik77 said:
Just my 2 cents but my reception got better with the new radio for a few days. It actually seems to have gotten worse or rather gone back to what it was when I went in and did my normal tweaks in the ##778 and ##7764726 menus. I will say that I tend to get a more stable signal but that if you check the DB register the improvement is far less dramatic than the bars improvement is. I wonder if something in one of my updates iPhone'd me. You know where their idea of a software fix for signal issues is to change the way the graphics display. I partially wonder if I didn't get one of those.
Really looking forward to the stated improvements in LTE and getting a good LTE Android phone. Supposedly we will see improved building penetration with LTE signals. I for one really hope so.
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Click to collapse
What "##778 and ##7764726" settings are you using?

KenIzz said:
What "##778 and ##7764726" settings are you using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EVRC-B on all
Slot Cycle Index 1
HDR Hybrid Preferred Enable
Rev A Enable
1X Diversity RDDS
Dormant Handoff Optimization Enable
Took the DUN out of the M.IP profile
ACCOLC 6
Voice Privacy Disable
CD ROM disable
Pref_For_RC RC4
I think that is all I have done.

why did you change so much? I am too looking to improve my signal (I average -95 to -105 at work as well)

Mostly curiosity and I am not sure I changed all of these some I am pretty sure I looked up and left alone but I will try to explain.
EVRC-B on all - EVRC is probably fine on this phone but it was all important on the Droid to change this to B or 13K. EVRC-B isn't universally supported yet but it is just a newer vocal compression protocol that can improve voice quality or at least sound better on some modern equipment. Really 13K is fine for me but I questioned it's battery effect and real world benefit. Essentially 13K is Disabled EVRC it is much less compressed. It was developed early in Digital Cellular because a lot of people didn't trust the other standard which I think was actually even before EVRC.
Slot Cycle Index 1 - A slot cycle is approximately 1.28 seconds. By default most phones are set to Solot Cycle Index 2 which is 3.84 seconds, 0 is 1.28. What this does is it is a setting built into both the towers and phones as to how often they broadcast or listen for a page. If someone is calling you the request hits the tower and it waits until the next slot in its cycle index to send a page to your device. Your device listens based on its setting. Most towers are set to 1 most phones are set to 2 so the page could go out twice before your phone notices it is there. It decreases battery very slightly setting it to 0 even makes a very slight difference since it is a matter of milliseconds that it takes to wake up the receiver and check if there is a page out there. Since the towers are set to 1 it seemed superflous to set it to 0.
HDR Hybrid Preferred Enable - Not sure I actually changed this but I looked it up once. I believe it has to do with the way 1x opperates with data but I can't for the life of me remember. I am sure I looked it up and if I changed it I did it because of what I read and if I didn't it was either because I didn't find enough useful information to make a decision or I found that this was already good.
Rev A Enable - for some reason mine wasn't and that was one of the selling points of the device. Rev A has to do with data. I believe it refers to 3G but again don't remember everything off the top of my head.
1X Diversity RDDS - didn't find much about this. It is default set to disable but I found very limited information abut this. One thing mostly referred to radio DDS and how it did all this amazing stuff like improve data (mostly in LTE networks but there was benefit to building on CDMA) and battery life and all kinds of things. So I thought I would try it out and see if I saw any effects at all.
Dormant Handoff Optimization Enable - Dormant handoff has to do with the way you are passed from tower to tower. There are a few ways to do that. I figured optimization should be enabled. It happens so it might as well use whatever protocol they chose to make that work better. Not sure if or what it does. I figured it would help me with the few spots of dropped calls. I read about what several of them do and figured it has to be better than not doing anything.
Took the DUN out of the M.IP profile - this was a tip I have seen in several places about loging in to certain data features. Might be useful might not but and may or may not do what they say. Apparently for some people it allows you to use the built in tethering programs without setting up the feature with Verizon like you normally would. You do this and download the drivers. I basically just did it so that I wouldn't accidentally or that no one that might be using my phone might accidentally sign me up for something I can't afford to pay for. This way in theory if they do it and it works I don't have to pay anything just fuss at them for doing it and if it doesn't no harm. But it seems like it would be way too easy to accidentally sign up for $20 tethering or for someone that doesn't know better would do it and not tell me. Thinking if it is installed I must have it.
ACCOLC 6 --- Not sure if I changed this or not. I found something about it and can't remember what it does. In fact I am pretty sure this is default because I am not sure I found anything that told me what the settings mean or do for you. I know you can set it from like 0 to more than 14 but I don't know how high.
Voice Privacy Disable - - Again a hold over from Motorola. Voice privacy tends to add a tinny sound for some reason and frankly I don't care if anyone is listening in on my convorsations.
CD ROM disable - - I hook to my computer frequently and I have a Froyo Rom and this is just insanely annoying. It pops up and plays this ad for Verizon and trys to walk you through all this stuff. This is where you shut it off.
Pref_For_RC RC4 - - I have no idea why but mine was originally set to 3. This is a security streaming protocol. RC5 is unstable RC4 is the highest level considered stable currently. There is an RC6 but I don't think it is an option. It is a build out from RC5. Might not do anything if I turned of Voice privacy but it might have more to do with the ciphering settings which is like a data scrambling thing that makes the data hard to intercept which is more important to me.

[Q] Difference Between VZW Location Services and Google Location Services

What is the difference between VZW Location Services and Google Location Services?
Thanks,
Jeff

Not to be a smart ass but ones from VZW and ones from Google. Lol, I'm pretty sure thats the only difference.

cmlusco said:
Not to be a smart ass but ones from VZW and ones from Google. Lol, I'm pretty sure thats the only difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was fairly obvious!
Been reading up on it myself and google brought me here. Thought I may learn something new. So Far I have learned:
VZW Location Services provides location data to phone/apps via Cell Towers (Useful if indoors), GPS location data when a clear line of sight to sky is available (Will use more battery power as it is a seperate chip/component) and Google Location services uses a Wifi Network "Guesstimate" (the least accurate of all three). What it comes down to is accuracy and battery life/usage.
Go with vzw services if you want accuracy and little battery usage, however if you keep wifi on allot (or have eg Juice Defender Installed) use Google. Most of time I use Google. I am however on the paranoid side as it is. I read where a Verizon Tech stated that you can be located within 2-10seconds with that enabled. However if I were up to no good I would simply remove battery, just bothers me my phone company knows where I am. They sell that data possibly more, yet do I get a discount for that?
I only use GPS when driving.

I think you've got it a bit mixed up. There's a few ways our phones can get location information.
Think of it this way.
--- satellite GPS = Your phone connects with satellites to determine the location. It can pinpoint your location within feet if it has a good enough lock. You can still get locks indoors, and yes it does use a considerable about of battery if you use it continually. If it only turns on for about a minute just to get a single lock on your location, it really has no impact on battery. If you run it for 20-30mins+ is when you start to notice. You have the option to completely turn this off if you want. Really it's best to keep it on, because your phone will not actually turn it on and use it unless an app tells it to (like navigation).
--- WIFI GPS = Your phone can determine your location by using the WiFi the same way you can go to http://www.geoiptool.com/ on your desktop and it can get a generic idea of where you're at (usually not more specific than the city you're in). Google likes to use this because it needs some sort of location information so it can best provide searches and advertisements. This is the least accurate. This also has an option to be turned off.
--- assisted GPS or aGPS = your phone uses the network you're on (in this case, Verizon) and it can give a rough estimate by triangulating your position through nearby cell towers.
It's called assisted GPS because it actually helps the 'satellite GPS' by letting the satellites know the general area of where you're at, so it can get a lock quicker and with less battery.
Assisted GPS does not require any additional battery or wait time because your phone is already connecting with those towers just by having a signal (the more towers in your area, the smaller area it can guess you're at)
When you first start up a GPS application (or if you disable the 'satellite GPS'), you'll see a circle around a very wide area. This is what the radio tower/VZW/assisted GPS is. Then after a minute or so, it'll lock on, this is the 'satellite GPS'.
Also there is a separate chip in all phones that determines your location if you dial 911. You can not turn it off, and I'd imagine that the government could use it with reason. If this is in use there should be an icon that pops up, you've probably never seen it.
If you're worried about your location, the only thing you can do is turn off your phone or remove your battery if you're really paranoid.
All this info is to the best of my understanding.
Hope this clears it up.

POQbum said:
I think you've got it a bit mixed up. There's a few ways our phones can get location information.
Think of it this way.
--- satellite GPS = Your phone connects with satellites to determine the location. It can pinpoint your location within feet if it has a good enough lock. You can still get locks indoors, and yes it does use a considerable about of battery if you use it continually. If it only turns on for about a minute just to get a single lock on your location, it really has no impact on battery. If you run it for 20-30mins+ is when you start to notice. You have the option to completely turn this off if you want. Really it's best to keep it on, because your phone will not actually turn it on and use it unless an app tells it to (like navigation).
--- WIFI GPS = Your phone can determine your location by using the WiFi the same way you can go to on your desktop and it can get a generic idea of where you're at (usually not more specific than the city you're in). Google likes to use this because it needs some sort of location information so it can best provide searches and advertisements. This is the least accurate. This also has an option to be turned off.
--- assisted GPS or aGPS = your phone uses the network you're on (in this case, Verizon) and it can give a rough estimate by triangulating your position through nearby cell towers.
It's called assisted GPS because it actually helps the 'satellite GPS' by letting the satellites know the general area of where you're at, so it can get a lock quicker and with less battery.
Assisted GPS does not require any additional battery or wait time because your phone is already connecting with those towers just by having a signal (the more towers in your area, the smaller area it can guess you're at)
When you first start up a GPS application (or if you disable the 'satellite GPS'), you'll see a circle around a very wide area. This is what the radio tower/VZW/assisted GPS is. Then after a minute or so, it'll lock on, this is the 'satellite GPS'.
Also there is a separate chip in all phones that determines your location if you dial 911. You can not turn it off, and I'd imagine that the government could use it with reason. If this is in use there should be an icon that pops up, you've probably never seen it.
If you're worried about your location, the only thing you can do is turn off your phone or remove your battery if you're really paranoid.
All this info is to the best of my understanding.
Hope this clears it up.
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I just joined to say thanks for this. I've been searching forums for this, and could only find half the info or smart @$$ responses on other sites. I've been searching for possible bugs and battery drains ever since the ics update and the media app smoked razr maxx battery and burned my phone to the point where the back turned brown.

RE the Wi-Fi dropping...

I have fiber at home, the signal is stable, my router is a Google Wifi and I have no problem with any other device (Windows laptop, Galaxy S8+, Chromecast and 16 other Smart Home devices) but the Galaxy A70. The Wi-Fi signal indication and the throughput are usually good BUT, especially under certain conditions, the Galaxy A70 drops the Wi-fi altogether, goes to data and comes back on Wi-fi, usually all within a few seconds. I have tried anything I could think of and after some searching I realized it's just a problem with this phone (which I love, BTW).
It's usually not a big problem except in a couple of situations when it's VERY annoying: when uploading something large to a service/with an app which don't resume uploadings and when mirroring the device on the Chromecast (particularly in the latter case, it happens so often that mirroring is basically unusable).
I worked around it enabling "Wi-Fi temporary mode" (literal translation from the Italian, I don't know how it's called in English) in Developer Options. The Wi-Fi connection, although not perfect, got stable enough to allow me at least to be able to mirror my device without constant disconnections.
Well, yesterday I got the Android 10 update and while no, this issue was not fixed, re-enabling that Developer Options setting (which got reset and which changed name, it's now called "Accelerazione ricerca Wi-Fi" ("Wi-Fi- search acceleration", LOL, it doesn't make much sense in Italian either), I got much better results than on Android Pie. In over 2 hours of mirroring I got zero disconnections!
So, all in all, good news!
Please note that now that setting in Developer Options must be disabled, meaning that it comes enabled by default and you must disable it while in the past to change that Wi-Fi behaviour you had to enable that old setting, which was called differently.

Question GPS constantly active / in use according to battery historian - ImsService?

Hi guys,
since two days I noticed that my battery is draining a lot quicker.
I pushed two full days to battery historian and noticed that in each day, GPS was constantly on and in use.
When checking the "last app that accessed location" then it was always "ImsService" that used it "0 mins ago" or "1 mins ago".
Day 1:
Total GPS use: 12h 20min
GPS use by app: ANDROID_SYSTEM 12h 20min
Day 2:
Total GPS use: 8h 7min
GPS use by app: ANDROID_SYSTEM 8h 7min
The only thing I changed in these last few days was deleting an e-sim and adding a new e-sim.
Any suggestions on what to do?
I have BBS installed but it can't seem to see what is causing the GPS drain with BBS.
Thanks!

Another weird thing I noticed:
Amaze & Simple Gallery need permission to access my "SD card" or files.
I have to set the switch to "allow" frequently. Like the permission gets lost every few hours/days.
Full wipe and start from the start? :S
Titanium Backup Pro?

As an update:
Did a factory reset and restored all apps / settings but with only 1 SIM.
For now the phone feels smoother and battery is A LOT better.
I monitored this for 2 days now.
Will activate my 2nd SIM today and see what is changing.
I might also remove Adaway + AFWall.
I believe I might have "crippled" my system too much previously.
I am thinking about going with adguard (which basically does what adaway + afwall does but with better monitoring / logging to find and fix issues) or nextDNS.

Gooble likes to ALWAYS track your location, even if you specifically tell them not to;
40 states settle Google location-tracking charges for $392M
Google has agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users' locations.
www.usatoday.com
Among others, this is ONE of many reasons why I use google-free GrapheneOS instead of the crap it ships with.

96carboard said:
Gooble likes to ALWAYS track your location, even if you specifically tell them not to;
40 states settle Google location-tracking charges for $392M
Google has agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users' locations.
www.usatoday.com
Among others, this is ONE of many reasons why I use google-free GrapheneOS instead of the crap it ships with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but there might be more to it.
Today I added my 2nd SIM (e-SIM) and noticed that my battery drain has become huge again.
20-30% lost during the night.
So it seems to be related to the second sim.
Things that show up in BBS as main cause:
s5100_wake_lock
Sensor: Dynamic Sensor Manager(1), wakeup=true, Time: 7 h 25 m 4 s
RILJ_ACK_WL
No idea what that is and how to fix it though.