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Tested and Proven gps fix for Samsung Captivate

Flavio60

Lurker
Jul 20, 2010
7
6
If you're one of the lucky folks who has a Samsung Galaxy (also known as the Vibrant or Captivate, depending on your carrier), you may have noticed a problem with GPS either taking a long time to resolve your position (or not at all), or your location being "way off." Lucky for your, the uber-geeks over at XDA-Developers cooked up a way to quickly and easily fix the problem!

This fix won't require any flashing of files, unlocking of bootloaders, or anything that could void your warranty, and reportedly Samsung is aware of the issue and is working on an "official" fix that shouldn't have any problems with this work-around.

To apply the work-around, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Location & Security and uncheck the box next to "Use Wireless Networks".

2. Go to the phone's dialer and enter the number *#*#1472365#*#* then press send to access the phones LBSTestMode menu.

3. In the LBSTestMode menu, press
 
And flavio you forgot, before you play with these setting make sure you go to Setting>Location>and TURN OFF Wireless Network for GPS. For those who say it doesnt work, try that

Whenever I try to turn off the wireless network for GPS, it shows that it is unchecked. But when I exit the settings then go back, the wireless network for GPS box is checked. What am I doing wrong?
 
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Whenever I try to turn off the wireless network for GPS, it shows that it is unchecked. But when I exit the settings then go back, the wireless network for GPS box is checked. What am I doing wrong?

Hm I didn't notice that but what I did was-

Turn off Wifi
change the settings (as I stated above)
Then follow the guide
Reboot the Phone
Then turn it back on and turn on WiFi and enable Network. That should work
 
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I've followed this and had very little improvement. When initially setting the location (for example, in navigation) it almost always has the wrong location. It will be in the vicinity but a few streets over.

So I don't think the qualifies as "proven." In fact, I'd wager that this is a firmware issue (probably a rounding error, poor garbage collection, or a data overflow) that won't be fixed until Samsung figures out where it is and fixes the drivers.
 
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I don't think this should be considered tested and proven. It does seem to improve the lock on speed for some. It did for me. The accuracy however is still and issue. Here are some gps tracks I recorded with the iPhone 3G and the Captivate with this "fix" applied. You can see that the accuracy of the Captivate is really quite bad. The problem seems to be that the captivate won't lock on to more than about 5 satellites at a time, and for that we need a firmware update from samsung.
 
Upvote 0
If you're one of the lucky folks who has a Samsung Galaxy (also known as the Vibrant or Captivate, depending on your carrier), you may have noticed a problem with GPS either taking a long time to resolve your position (or not at all), or your location being "way off." Lucky for your, the uber-geeks over at XDA-Developers cooked up a way to quickly and easily fix the problem!

This fix won't require any flashing of files, unlocking of bootloaders, or anything that could void your warranty, and reportedly Samsung is aware of the issue and is working on an "official" fix that shouldn't have any problems with this work-around.

To apply the work-around, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Location & Security and uncheck the box next to "Use Wireless Networks".

2. Go to the phone's dialer and enter the number *#*#1472365#*#* then press send to access the phones LBSTestMode menu.

3. In the LBSTestMode menu, press
 
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I can use GPS Status and the phone will show 5-11 sats in view, but will not lock to any unless you give it about 5-10 mins. I like to use the phone for RunKeeper so I have to set it outside so it can get a GPS signal before I go out just so it can track me and it still manages to lose the track along the route. For whatever reason sometimes I'll pull it out and go to Maps and bamm it just has the correct location right away.
 
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I couldnt even get a lock with factory settings in my house. All I did was set skyhook to on then rebooted and locks in about 15 seconds or less on google maps and under 10 seconds on maps.

In general, GPS usually does not work in a house or other enclosed place. You have to have line of sight to get accurate GPS results.

The thing I noticed is that the Captivate is not a highly sensitive GPS. I have been using mine to find geocaches and such and as we are locating caches, the accuracy will show you that you are accurate within 5 meters or less which isn't too bad. Then, you go under some tree cover and it will drop to 98 meters (not too good) then it may drop to 1+ km off. I think this is the big issue with the gps. It's probably not software, but hardware.

D
 
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