I have decided to make this it's own post, if it takes off and becomes useful, maybe it will end up getting stickied or something. Having it in it's own post will make that easier. The background info (and work up to this point) can be found in this post: http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-indulge/359440-gps-taking-forever-find-your-location.html.
That was so disappointing, not having the GPS functionality working on this phone, and it was a little frustrating trying to get it to work. Well, it took me some fumbling about and following various steps, but I finally got it to work right. So I kind of just wanted to put everything together into a simple, easy to follow step by step guide in hopes of helping out some others out there who may also be having these issues. So, here goes...
TRS-80's Guide to Getting GPS to work on teh Samsung Galuxy Indulge!
Background: I had first tried several GPS utilities (GPS Test, GPS Aids, GPS Status, GPS Essentials) to do various clearing of caches, clearing and re-downloading of GPS data, as well as clearing the cache of Google Maps itself, as well as other places on the phone, all to basically no avail. Something may have worked like one time, but I couldn't reproduce it (so I'll just throw it out as a fluke). Now I may very well have borked something just by messing with one or more of those apps and/or settings. So if you are in the same (or similar) boat, read on... Also, if we can narrow it down to which one of those apps may have killed the GPS in our phone, I suppose that would be good info to make note of here as well (please leave your thoughts on that below).
The problem I was having, was after turning GPS on, and opening one of those utilities that shows how many satellites you are connected to, etc. was that it would always just sit there and say "0 satellites" and just do nothing. So I will tell you what I did that worked for me, and hopefully it will help others.
All credit goes to tiede, ciper (and others?) who originally found all these individual bits out, I will only take credit for putting it all together into one place.
So now, without further ado, the actual Guide...
UPDATE 10/11/11 - Realize that you must be outside of buildings, in clear view of the sky, or your GPS will not work. Try this first (go outside) before performing any of the steps in this guide!
UPDATE 9/14/2011 - First attempt just using the GPS Test app (see below) before using GPSCLRX. It's quick, easy and sometimes fixes the problem!
1.Gather your materials. You will need the following things:
A.One (or more) of the following apps:
GPS Test
GPS Aids
GPS Status & Toolbox
GPS Essentials
These apps will allow you to see how many satellites are currently in view, as well as a bunch of other interesting info (altitude, speed, bearing, your actual coordinates, etc.). Besides using one of them for the procedure in this guide, I think they are just cool and very useful to have on the phone anyway (geocaching anyone?!
). So far, after limited use, I like GPS Test and GPS Essentials. But try them all out for yourself.
B.MEID Converter tool/app. You can find it here: MEID Converter.
C.Your actual MEID number. You can get this from your phone a few different ways:
1.By getting it off the box your phone came in.
2.By removing the battery, and looking behind it on the little white sticker (Isn't it time for a battery pull anyway? That fixes all sorts of things!
).
3.By going into "Settings->About phone->Status." Scroll down a little and it will say "IMEI." As noted earlier, ciper discovered this is not really your IMEI, but rather your MEID.
4.Whichever of the three methods you follow, the number you are looking for is a 14 digit number, mine began with "990000" and I imagine that most (all?) Indulges should also (not sure on that point however...).
2.Now, convert your MEID to your SPC. Using the MEID Converter tool, enter your MEID and it will spit out your SPC (Service Programming Code). This a number that will be based on your MEID and therefore unique to your phone. It can be used for this guide, as well as accessing other hidden menus and all sorts of neat things. Make a note of the SPC code. The MEID Converter app actually saves your MEID and SPC code for future reference, which is very handy.
Note: If you are using physical (slide out) keyboard, screen will be in horizontal/landscape view and only show the first 4 lines of results (long hex and decimal conversions of the MEID), and not the 6th line containing the all important SPC code (and you cannot scroll down). Enter your MEID in vertical/portrait mode using the soft (touch screen) keyboard to avoid this issue. Also, be careful not to tilt the screen to vertical, doing so will clear the info and you will have to enter it again (or just look up result under "View Past Calculations").
The number you are looking for will actually say "MetroPCS SPC: XXXXXX" (mine was a 6 digit number).
3.Using your phone dialer, enter ##GPSCLRX# <-Those are phone dialer "letters" on the soft phone touch keypad; in other words, press the phone number keys "##4772579#". A window will pop up and ask you for your SPC code. Enter it. The screen turns black and it says something about "GPS will be reset" (iirc). Now I don't know if it resets the GPS instantly, or if it takes a little while, so I waited a little bit just to be on the safe side before hitting back to exit out.
Now at this point, I was all excited, I thought I had really done something! lol But trying to turn on Maps or Nav, and do anything, I got the same old nothing.
So I figured, well maybe I need to reboot, so...
4.Reboot your phone. Now I don't remember if things started working correctly for me at this point or not, but at some point I did one more step...
5.Open one of the GPS utilities listed above, and have a look at your constellation of satellites. Now I don't know why this works, but for me it seems to. Please let me know your results as well (and I will update this guide accordingly).
Before, when I would turn GPS on, and then go into one of these utilities, nothing would happen. Nothing at all, just sit there, 0 satellites, etc... But now, after doing this GPSCLRX (and rebooting), as soon as I open up one of those bad boys it starts a goin... 2, 3, then 9, 12 satellites! And I mean like lickety-split! Awesome! Then when I open something that needs GPS, bang, immediate lock on! Suhweet! That's all you have to do! Your done!
The above steps should only need to be done ONCE. The steps below are to be done each time you need to use GPS.
Now, one thing I have noticed, is that if you just go straight into Maps or Nav, it takes a lot longer to get a lock (maybe forever? I dunno, I never wait that long). Now this may be because I keep GPS off all the time, and just turn it on when I need it. Maybe if you keep it on all the time you won't need to do this. But if you are like me, and believe in keeping GPS off, follow the following procedure whenever you need GPS (in my case, mostly for Nav):
1.Turn on GPS. The method doesn't seem to matter, I use the notification shade toggle.
2.Open one of the GPS utilities (I use GPS Test) and look at your constellation of GPS satellites, they will all start popping up like crazy right away. Wait until you see about 9-12 satellites (this took only a few seconds for me, please let me know your results).
3.Exit out of your GPS utility.
4.Now open your Nav, or Maps, or whatever you need and you should have nearly immediate lock.
A side note: I think that when using Places, or Maps, usually getting your location off the cell tower is close enough to find a nearby "chinese restaurant" for example. I pretty much only fire up the GPS when I need to use it like an actual GPS, i.e. for Navigation.
Well, that's it! I hope this guide is helpful to someone. Please let me know if it worked for you or not! Also please feel free to point out errors and omissions below and I will fix them. And if this works for a lot of people, then start pointing/linking others with GPS issues to this post. I will try and keep it updated over time.
That was so disappointing, not having the GPS functionality working on this phone, and it was a little frustrating trying to get it to work. Well, it took me some fumbling about and following various steps, but I finally got it to work right. So I kind of just wanted to put everything together into a simple, easy to follow step by step guide in hopes of helping out some others out there who may also be having these issues. So, here goes...
TRS-80's Guide to Getting GPS to work on teh Samsung Galuxy Indulge!
Background: I had first tried several GPS utilities (GPS Test, GPS Aids, GPS Status, GPS Essentials) to do various clearing of caches, clearing and re-downloading of GPS data, as well as clearing the cache of Google Maps itself, as well as other places on the phone, all to basically no avail. Something may have worked like one time, but I couldn't reproduce it (so I'll just throw it out as a fluke). Now I may very well have borked something just by messing with one or more of those apps and/or settings. So if you are in the same (or similar) boat, read on... Also, if we can narrow it down to which one of those apps may have killed the GPS in our phone, I suppose that would be good info to make note of here as well (please leave your thoughts on that below).
The problem I was having, was after turning GPS on, and opening one of those utilities that shows how many satellites you are connected to, etc. was that it would always just sit there and say "0 satellites" and just do nothing. So I will tell you what I did that worked for me, and hopefully it will help others.
All credit goes to tiede, ciper (and others?) who originally found all these individual bits out, I will only take credit for putting it all together into one place.
So now, without further ado, the actual Guide...
UPDATE 10/11/11 - Realize that you must be outside of buildings, in clear view of the sky, or your GPS will not work. Try this first (go outside) before performing any of the steps in this guide!
UPDATE 9/14/2011 - First attempt just using the GPS Test app (see below) before using GPSCLRX. It's quick, easy and sometimes fixes the problem!
1.Gather your materials. You will need the following things:
A.One (or more) of the following apps:
GPS Test
GPS Aids
GPS Status & Toolbox
GPS Essentials
These apps will allow you to see how many satellites are currently in view, as well as a bunch of other interesting info (altitude, speed, bearing, your actual coordinates, etc.). Besides using one of them for the procedure in this guide, I think they are just cool and very useful to have on the phone anyway (geocaching anyone?!
). So far, after limited use, I like GPS Test and GPS Essentials. But try them all out for yourself.B.MEID Converter tool/app. You can find it here: MEID Converter.
C.Your actual MEID number. You can get this from your phone a few different ways:
1.By getting it off the box your phone came in.
2.By removing the battery, and looking behind it on the little white sticker (Isn't it time for a battery pull anyway? That fixes all sorts of things!
).3.By going into "Settings->About phone->Status." Scroll down a little and it will say "IMEI." As noted earlier, ciper discovered this is not really your IMEI, but rather your MEID.
4.Whichever of the three methods you follow, the number you are looking for is a 14 digit number, mine began with "990000" and I imagine that most (all?) Indulges should also (not sure on that point however...).
2.Now, convert your MEID to your SPC. Using the MEID Converter tool, enter your MEID and it will spit out your SPC (Service Programming Code). This a number that will be based on your MEID and therefore unique to your phone. It can be used for this guide, as well as accessing other hidden menus and all sorts of neat things. Make a note of the SPC code. The MEID Converter app actually saves your MEID and SPC code for future reference, which is very handy.
Note: If you are using physical (slide out) keyboard, screen will be in horizontal/landscape view and only show the first 4 lines of results (long hex and decimal conversions of the MEID), and not the 6th line containing the all important SPC code (and you cannot scroll down). Enter your MEID in vertical/portrait mode using the soft (touch screen) keyboard to avoid this issue. Also, be careful not to tilt the screen to vertical, doing so will clear the info and you will have to enter it again (or just look up result under "View Past Calculations").
The number you are looking for will actually say "MetroPCS SPC: XXXXXX" (mine was a 6 digit number).
3.Using your phone dialer, enter ##GPSCLRX# <-Those are phone dialer "letters" on the soft phone touch keypad; in other words, press the phone number keys "##4772579#". A window will pop up and ask you for your SPC code. Enter it. The screen turns black and it says something about "GPS will be reset" (iirc). Now I don't know if it resets the GPS instantly, or if it takes a little while, so I waited a little bit just to be on the safe side before hitting back to exit out.
Now at this point, I was all excited, I thought I had really done something! lol But trying to turn on Maps or Nav, and do anything, I got the same old nothing.
So I figured, well maybe I need to reboot, so...4.Reboot your phone. Now I don't remember if things started working correctly for me at this point or not, but at some point I did one more step...
5.Open one of the GPS utilities listed above, and have a look at your constellation of satellites. Now I don't know why this works, but for me it seems to. Please let me know your results as well (and I will update this guide accordingly).
Before, when I would turn GPS on, and then go into one of these utilities, nothing would happen. Nothing at all, just sit there, 0 satellites, etc... But now, after doing this GPSCLRX (and rebooting), as soon as I open up one of those bad boys it starts a goin... 2, 3, then 9, 12 satellites! And I mean like lickety-split! Awesome! Then when I open something that needs GPS, bang, immediate lock on! Suhweet! That's all you have to do! Your done!
The above steps should only need to be done ONCE. The steps below are to be done each time you need to use GPS.
Now, one thing I have noticed, is that if you just go straight into Maps or Nav, it takes a lot longer to get a lock (maybe forever? I dunno, I never wait that long). Now this may be because I keep GPS off all the time, and just turn it on when I need it. Maybe if you keep it on all the time you won't need to do this. But if you are like me, and believe in keeping GPS off, follow the following procedure whenever you need GPS (in my case, mostly for Nav):
1.Turn on GPS. The method doesn't seem to matter, I use the notification shade toggle.
2.Open one of the GPS utilities (I use GPS Test) and look at your constellation of GPS satellites, they will all start popping up like crazy right away. Wait until you see about 9-12 satellites (this took only a few seconds for me, please let me know your results).
3.Exit out of your GPS utility.
4.Now open your Nav, or Maps, or whatever you need and you should have nearly immediate lock.
A side note: I think that when using Places, or Maps, usually getting your location off the cell tower is close enough to find a nearby "chinese restaurant" for example. I pretty much only fire up the GPS when I need to use it like an actual GPS, i.e. for Navigation.
Well, that's it! I hope this guide is helpful to someone. Please let me know if it worked for you or not! Also please feel free to point out errors and omissions below and I will fix them. And if this works for a lot of people, then start pointing/linking others with GPS issues to this post. I will try and keep it updated over time.
