So I've had on-again, off-again issues with getting GPS to work. It initially worked fine at the beginning, then *completely* stopped working for a day, then finally I got it to work again but I have no confidence that it'll keep working given my experience so far.
Yesterday after I had flashed the new ROM I went outside and crossed the street to the school playground (the nearest "open space without trees" that I'm near) and tried to get Google Maps to work with GPS. I didn't bother setting the GPS options to COM9 and 9600 but left it at the defaults.
It took a couple of minutes but it found 4, 5, and 6 satellites and got a lock. The lock seemed to kind of come and go, and the blue dot kind of alternated between a small blue dot and a blue dot within a shaded area (the latter being apparently what happens when it's relying on cell towers to get a fix instead of on satellites). I figured this was because I live in a pretty densely-populated area, and I was happy with the results.
Today, however, I could not get Google Maps to find a satellite for the entire day until just a few minutes ago. If I left Google Maps at "Managed by Windows", then it would just stay at 0 satellites forever. If I switched it to com9/9600, then it would display a weird several-digit number where it should be displaying the number of satellites.
What was even worse was that its accuracy even with the cell tower approach was much worse than yesterday -- 800 yards. It had me about a 15-minute walk from where I actually was.
As best as I could tell, GPS had simply stopped working.
About an hour ago, I downloaded and installed GPSTest. I had no luck with that at first either. It first scanned through all the com ports until it hit com9, then it just got stuck on "GPS is starting up" forever with a yellow dot.
I then tried turning GPS off in the phone options -- i.e. setting it to 911 only, and then turning it back on again. At first this didn't help but then when I went back to the phone options page, I realized it had put up a warning dialog for me about turning on the "Location on" setting, and I hit OK from that dialog.
Then I went back to GPS Test and finally it started showing satellites in the bottom. I waited about 5 minutes and it finally got about 8 satellites at various levels of accuracy, some green, some yellow, some red (the number and color changed a lot -- they seemed to bounce around quite a bit). Eventually it settled down and I thought I would try Google maps again.
At first it showed the weird multi-digit number but then it started showing a valid number of satellites and after it hit 4 it got a lock and accurately showed my location, although it went back to a shaded area after a while (I think maybe my local school playground is just too small), though at least this time it was within 100 yard accuracy when it lost the satellites and was back on the cell tower triangulation.
Looking at other people's posts it looks like I'm not the only one to have these symptoms -- in fact somebody or another has described every one of them. On the whole, it leaves me thinking either that (a) some of us have a defective GPS in our phones, or (b) the phone's GPS is just very unreliable in general.
I'm curious how many people are having luck with their GPS since the new ROM.
Considering it's not a dedicated GPS device, it works pretty damn well. If it's overcast and cloudy, my tomtom has issues finding satelites too. Given a few minutes, it pinpoints me on a clear day to within a few feet. Works ok for driving in a rural setting, wouldn't trust it for city navigation. Last couple days I've had it right next to a new iPhone, and while the iPhone was faster, my saga was slightly more accurate.
gotta remember it's a phone. er PDA. um camera... WiFi hotspot... few other things too.
....If it's overcast and cloudy, my tomtom has issues finding satelites too. ..
Yeah well yesterday it was cloudless and sunny and the GPS never got past the "Starting up" state all day long. I don't think it's an issue of the GPS getting a lock as much as it's an issue of it not reliably working or communicating with the software.
Yeah well yesterday it was cloudless and sunny and the GPS never got past the "Starting up" state all day long. I don't think it's an issue of the GPS getting a lock as much as it's an issue of it not reliably working or communicating with the software.
starting up on gpstest is indicative of the phone setting stuck on 911 only. Which you seem to have resolved by toggling it off and back on.
the rest is "normal" i think.
FYI- the tower "triangulation" is NOT triangulation at all. ALl it is is the phone tells google what tower it's connected to and what the signal strength is. Google then has a table of the location of all the towers and puts the blue dot where it believes the tower is and then based on the signal strength it draws the shaded circle around it. The worse the signal the larger the circle. (as it assumes it must be farther away from the tower)
just another real world with a tomtom- just drive from NJ to Myrtle Beach and back. Driving on interstates through New Castle Del the few tall buildings around were enough to loose signal. Then at one spot on 95 for like 10- 20 minutes it thought i was a half mile east of where I was which is pretty funny as it assumed I was baha'ing through a bunch f feilds nowhere near any roads.
Gps isn't foolproof.
I didn't update the maps yet this year on my tomtom so when i wanted to find any restaurants or the like i used googlemaps with the tower guestimates. Seems googles chart of tower locations isn't foulproof either- at one point it put me in BELGIUM- laughing.
JJMG, I'm experiencing all the exact same problems you're describing, and have had no luck getting any decent advice on how to solve them.
As a reference point, I've used several other GPS-capable devices, ranging from Garmin to TomTom to iPhone, and they are all vastly superior to the Saga at this time. The Saga usually takes forever to get a lock if it gets one at all. It can only get a lock if it's absolutely still in a wide-open area for several minutes. It loses the lock easily. It can't be relied upon for real-world navigation. All those other devices, while they experience the occasional glitch, can be relied upon.
I voted it’s working perfectly- no complaints- because that’s the closest answer to what I have found.
More accurately I’d say it’s working perfectly but you have to fiddle with it some.
first up- make sure you have location based services turned on in the phone perferences. (double check as hard resets sometimes seem to reset the setting).
Next download lar's GPS Quick Position (patched from the HTC version to work on the Saga). Search here to find it. THat program will download much of the data that the gps needs to get a lock over the internet rather then getting if off the sats which is much slower and pickier.
Then download BAF GPS Toggle. Its a today screen plugin to turn your gps chip on and off from the today screen. Apparently the windows API's are wonky and sometimes starting a gps program doesn't automatically ask windows to fire up the gps chip.
Use the first program to download the ephemeris, then use the today plug in to toggle the gps on. And you should consistantly get GPS's locks within a minute. (the first one always takes longer- subsequent ones usually happen in under 10 seconds)
JJMG, I'm experiencing all the exact same problems you're describing, and have had no luck getting any decent advice on how to solve them.
As a reference point, I've used several other GPS-capable devices, ranging from Garmin to TomTom to iPhone, and they are all vastly superior to the Saga at this time. The Saga usually takes forever to get a lock if it gets one at all. It can only get a lock if it's absolutely still in a wide-open area for several minutes. It loses the lock easily. It can't be relied upon for real-world navigation. All those other devices, while they experience the occasional glitch, can be relied upon.
follow my advice above and (HOPEFULLY) you will be fine. The saga works better than my TomTom (including INSIDE my house) after using those 2 utilities.
Yup I am getting *much* better behavior now that I have the Quick GPS utility installed. I have frequently been able to get 6 or more satellites routinely from the dashboard of my car. The phone was actually even useful to me when I got lost last weekend on the way back home from a funeral south of Boston.
Has anyone been able to get the GPS to work while overseas? From what I have seen the GPS is deactivated unless the phone is in either CDMA mode or Global while in the USA. I am over in Poland and even if I force the unit to CDMA mode and use BAF GPS toggle and the Patched HTC quick GPS helper I still get nothing. Any thoughts? Or am I SOL?
there is another thread about getting gps to work in GSM mode and I think that you are in fact hosed.
maybe if you force to cdma, and then shut down the phone, then you can get the gps to work. I'm deep inside an office building at the moment so cant tell if a lock is possible. But I can shut off the phone and then use gps toggle- and it APPEARS (no idea if it is working) to turn the gps on.
Login
Panel
