Help GPS issues?

[jimatr]

Well there was a Kies upgrade waiting, but still no firmware

 

[sjdean]

If I had a pound for every time Samsung Support have told me their answer which was always such a load of cow-pack I would now be sunning myself in the Caribbean supping a large cold drink.

I sent them an email to say my GPS was weak, intermittent and fluctuated all over the place. They sent me instructions on how to use Google Maps!

I replied saying no, I know how to access Google Maps, the problem is the weak GPS signal.

Again, an email advising me on how to use Google Maps.

Worse still was when I phoned them. I asked about new firmware. They said my service provider is responsible for the firmware on the phone. Of course, I reminded them that it's Samsungs phone, Samsungs software, when will they release it. I have to speak to my operator. I said Im not with an operator, Im off contract. They then said Google release the firmware.

I asked, what, even the firmware containing Samsungs touchwiz interface?

 

[larryccf]

well looks like samsung responded to Engadget, so maybe the media attention will persuade them to address this as timely as possible

Where's the GPS fix for the Samsung Vibrant and Captivate? -- Engadget Mobile

 

[simvaughan1]

Hi all, I'm new here and joined to keep you updated with my experience of the GPS issue.

Basicly it's the same news as everyone else. A few details, I'm on Orange in the UK and have the JF3 firmware on the current phone.

I rang orange tonight stating the issue with the GPS. The result was a lengthy Q&A question consisting of fun and interesting questions such as "is the internet working fine on the phone?" and my personal favourite, "is there a problem with nokia maps?", to which I replied "No... it's a samsung, there is no Nokia maps".

Enough waffle anyway, the lady finally said there was no way to fix the problem and decided it was a problem with the handset. So a new handset is set to be arriving between 9 and 1 tomorow morning.

I'm sceptical of the result, but I'll keep you all updated on what happens.

While I'm here however, can anyone think of anything i'll need to backup? I've already done photos and contacts. Any way of backing up apps? or just have to re-download?

Simon.

 

[Beards]

I sent them an email to say my GPS was weak, intermittent and fluctuated all over the place. They sent me instructions on how to use Google Maps!

I replied saying no, I know how to access Google Maps, the problem is the weak GPS signal.

Again, an email advising me on how to use Google Maps.

Worse still was when I phoned them. I asked about new firmware. They said my service provider is responsible for the firmware on the phone. Of course, I reminded them that it's Samsungs phone, Samsungs software, when will they release it. I have to speak to my operator. I said Im not with an operator, Im off contract. They then said Google release the firmware.

I asked, what, even the firmware containing Samsungs touchwiz interface?

I know, it's bloody annoying isn't it Simon.
Luckily my profession does not operate in this same manner, otherwise we would be having ingrown toenail removal for heart surgery.

 

[Beards]

While I'm here however, can anyone think of anything i'll need to backup? I've already done photos and contacts. Any way of backing up apps? or just have to re-download?

Simon.

Simon (another Simon) ,
Have a look at either Sprite Mobile Backup for Android or My Backup.
My Backup also has a paid version named My Backup Pro.

 

[blonkster]

Hi all, I'm new here and joined to keep you updated with my experience of the GPS issue.

Basicly it's the same news as everyone else. A few details, I'm on Orange in the UK and have the JF3 firmware on the current phone.

I rang orange tonight stating the issue with the GPS. The result was a lengthy Q&A question consisting of fun and interesting questions such as "is the internet working fine on the phone?" and my personal favourite, "is there a problem with nokia maps?", to which I replied "No... it's a samsung, there is no Nokia maps".

Enough waffle anyway, the lady finally said there was no way to fix the problem and decided it was a problem with the handset. So a new handset is set to be arriving between 9 and 1 tomorow morning.

I'm sceptical of the result, but I'll keep you all updated on what happens.

While I'm here however, can anyone think of anything i'll need to backup? I've already done photos and contacts. Any way of backing up apps? or just have to re-download?

Simon.

How is the new handset? Any change to GPS?

Did Orange quote a diagnostic code? was it FW403?

 

[simvaughan1]

New handset still hasn't arrived! Was supposed to come this morning but it didn't.

But no they didn't quote any codes when I called them.

Simon.

 

[TCoat]

Have been very pleased with my Galaxy S in the few days I've had it so far (apart from being unable to mount it on my Mac without turning on USB debugging mode, but I digress).

My real problem, the only real problem I have, is that the GPS appears to be, well, rubbish. I do a lot of hiking in the country side around London. On my old G1 I had been using the excellent MyTracks application to keep track of my journeys. It always did a terrific job, but battery life was a problem - part of the reason I chose the Galaxy S as it's replacement. So the very first app I installed on Thursday was MyTracks.

Yesterday I walked along the North Downs Way from Guildford to Dorking/Box Hill. A 13mile/20km walk. But according to MyTracks I'd just walked 30km!!!

You can see why it get the distance wrong if you zoom in the google map it generated. The GPS readings are jumping all over the place.

I had exactly the same problem with my Samsung Galaxy S and Sportypal. I've found the fix if you are still interested:

- Go to the phone and dial *#*#1472365#*#*
- Go to "Application Settings"
- Change "Accuracy" value to 4 or 5 (default was 50 in my phone)
- Press back button three times and try.

You can't change these settings if your GPS is active, so quit Sportypal (or whatever) first.

I've tested different values and compared them to Nokia Sports Tracker, which I know is accurate. I found that bigger value means more sensitivity, and more inaccuracy at slow speeds. I haven't tested these settings at higher speeds yet.

 

[stew007]

Anyone else tried this? ^^

 

[simvaughan1]

Ok so turns out that the lady from orange told me the wrong delivery date so I sat in all day yesterday, when it was supposed to be coming today... silly silly silly...

But anways, I have a new shiny front end of a galaxy S, still running JF3 and...

...

Still the gps doesn't work accurately!

Figures! Well at least I tried! lol

 

[blonkster]

Ok so turns out that the lady from orange told me the wrong delivery date so I sat in all day yesterday, when it was supposed to be coming today... silly silly silly...

But anways, I have a new shiny front end of a galaxy S, still running JF3 and...

...

Still the gps doesn't work accurately!

Figures! Well at least I tried! lol

Bugger! Hopefully my replacement will arrive tomorrow, and hopefully will have no other faults compared to my original even if the GPS is the same.

Time to wait for Froyo...

 

[waspbr]

I have applied the suggested fix and I am going for a run tomorrow morning, I will let you know how it goes.

 

[daveleather]

- Go to the phone and dial *#*#1472365#*#*
- Go to "Application Settings"
- Change "Accuracy" value to 4 or 5 (default was 50 in my phone)
- Press back button three times and try.

I've just tried the above settings and I could see 10 satellites but got zero locked on.

I then tried 130 in the Accuracy field and I'm currently locked into 7 out of 8 satellites.

 

[-Ollie-]

Please try with gps test and tell me what kind of reception you are getting
My phone can detect only 4-5 satellites and none of them show a signal of more than quater bar.

I just tried it (had to reboot the phone to make it work correctly).
I am getting outdoors 8 satellites, 7 in use, and the signal is about 28-30 in average.

I am not familiar with this application, so I am not sure what I should expect, but navigon seems to work pretty well for me.

 

[waspbr]

same as daveleather above, I went for a walk in the morning and used "my tracks", when I came back there were not tracks, I thought it was odd, but I had my 3g turned off. I then used the gps test and it found about 10 sats but wouldń't really lock to any. Finally I went for a run and this time I had the 3g enabled and to be on the safe side I used both "My tracks" and sportypal. As far as I can tell, nothing has been recorded.

The waiting game continues

 

[chursel]

I bought a HTC Desire for my wife about a month ago and was quite impressed with it. Now I am in the market for an Android phone for myself and this GPS issue with Samsung Galaxy S is really bothering me. If Samsung does not come up with a satisfactory solution, they will lose one potential customer to HTC, period.

 

[Beowulf_pt]

Greetings all,

I've been a local lurker but finally decided to register to bitch about it too as ffs, I feel totally lost (no pun intended).

As always I keep seeing a lot of FUD and snake oil fixes on the GPS circus but the vapourware solution will probably arrive only when it is ready.

Meanwhile, tweak this, tweak that, this leaked firmware, that leaked firmware,hold it this way, let it cool first, charge it to 90% first, change the server, force cold start, ensure it is assisted, etc,etc,etc... it goes on and on and we're close to the point when people will start suggesting the right kind of chicken or teenage virgin for sacrifice before firing up a successful GPS Test.

But still no decent official information from Samsung, still no idea of what's going on with their abysmal GPS performance (or at best, their totally inconsistent results depending on users/units/planet alignment at the time of test).

I am no less of a fool however, as even knowing that the Galaxy are rotten I could not help myself and bought the SGS 16GB version yesterday. Around 590€. Bought it only because I was assured at the store that I could return it in 30 days, if it was in perfect shape (no scratches, blood stains and so on).

I was sure they'd find a good excuse at the time of return to force me to buy something else instead of spitting the cash back but decided to risk it anyway. Because I'm lucky and I'd be one of those mythical users that get SGS with 5m accuracy and pornstar rock-solid locks all the way to the destination.

And so I handed them my Visa and grabbed the pretty little black box and went home. Today I had the joy of finally locking around, doing some tracks and trying out several navigation packages.

And this my friends, is the latest, fresh track:

Track 2 - Google Maps

No more than 8 locks, no locks with SnR<20. Signal dropping all the time, jumping around from 5 in use to 2 or 0 for no apparent reason and so on.
If the NMEA data was crap I do not know, but navigation sure will work better... but it didn't. A drunk friend in an almost comatose state would give better instructions. No snapping would help. It kept losing locks, miserable accuracy, pauses, lags.

I have been looking at this issue for many weeks now and since there is no official feedback I'm starting to assume that Samsung and Broadcom just can't do their magic or just don't want to for some reason.

Poor firmware, poor drivers, maybe poor antenna/shielding? I don't know. Maybe it's just another case of marketing and poor product package design as someone added "GPS/Geo-Tagging/Layer" to the feature list on the box - that's what you get for hiring cheap interns to do the Illustrator work on the thing.

But I digress, what we do know is that a 2 year old greasy and battered HTC Magic or older Nokias, even including units that are now labeled "a brick piece of junk" produce location data consistenly much more accurate than this cutting edge design from Broadcom and our Korean friends.

I'm waiting and testing 2 weeks. Then I'm going to the store to get the &#8364;&#8364;&#8364;&#8364; back. And it will probably be spent on the HTC Desire HD at the beginning of winter.

The rest of the Galaxy S seems fairly well built and the SAMOLED quality is stunning, well worth the poor battery life, missing notification LED/flash and other flaws. So I wonder... how many of these are being returned to stores now because of the GPS issues? Perhaps Samsung hasn't noticed that they're advertising the age of fad geo-based apps too and should at least fake to have a working solution?

And I end this post with this track that a user on XDA recorded, walking with firmware JM5 (not that it matters, they all suck).
JM5 - Mapy Google

I know... it seems like something your kid drew over a map with a crayon, and I mean a 2-year old brat drunk on brandy and holding a 500+ Euro crayon.

Sorry for being bitchy. Perhaps it is the fact that my work is on quality assurance and testing (software) and I tend to make money by pointing at other people's engineering mistakes. As a professional and an adult I never laugh at them, except on their back - but this time I'll forget compassion and I'll laugh, just not sure at who.

Heck, I'm glad BCM and Samsung are not producing for the military (I hope). You could get a Tomahawk to hit the wrong continent by mistake using one of these units.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to look for something for my heartburn while I look at this pretty, pretty Super AMOLED. Ooohh all the pretty colors... I love it. /me hugs his SGS.

PS: The unit is as was out of the box (except of all the GPS tools installed). And I did not root it as I sure as hell do not want to risk seeing anything coded by the responsibles. Someone looked at the source code at other forum and found out interesting things about the NMEA data output and some Broadcom configuration. That man is now blind and navigates around with a cane.


/No comments on the english. Its not my native language.

 

[Beowulf_pt]

So, no more news from those Clove guys or any insider?

I'm about to return my unit for the cash back as there is no information from Samsung on the subject. Is it a firmware fix? Is it a recall due to hardware problems? Will it simply be ignored?

At this time we'd just like to know what will be done or at least have an official reply that nothing will be done and the lousy GPS will be as good as it will ever get. At least that will kill all the rumours.

PS: Did this new track today. Over 220m away from correct location at times. Voice nav after that was a total disaster, completely useless. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...8.761546,-9.176588&spn=0.020513,0.046434&z=15

 

[xenu]

Do all SGS units have faulty GPS? This was my #1 choice given its blazing fast processor and revolutionary screen.

I am hoping that only some batches were affected. I really really wanted this phone

The HTC Desire has an inferior screen and processor but its GPS works. I absolutely need navigation for driving and hiking.

If I buy the SGS what are the chances the GPS will work?

 

[winchuff]

...Yes, they all have GPS problems.

Reportedly they get worse with usage as well.

It seems that those that have said they have no such problems, always seem either to have just received their phone (and have not had chance to test for any significant time), or, because Google Navigator snaps to the road, are incorrectly inferring the GPS is good.

All the so-called fixes you will find on the forums so far are based on changes to the assisted GPS features (based on wifi or cell location) or are an improvement to the GPS satellite locations database. Neither of which can improve the fundamental accuracy problems that the phone has.

 

[funksplutter]

Actually I would say that my GPS now works perfectly well.It's my second unit but I've used the sat nav on many occasions, most recently yesterday when I managed to get lost in West wales, and haven't had any problems.

There are obviously problems with some handsets but I don't think it is necessarily true that all handsets are affected.

 

[blonkster]

Do all SGS units have faulty GPS? This was my #1 choice given its blazing fast processor and revolutionary screen.

I am hoping that only some batches were affected. I really really wanted this phone

The HTC Desire has an inferior screen and processor but its GPS works. I absolutely need navigation for driving and hiking.

If I buy the SGS what are the chances the GPS will work?

Well, I've got my replacement and I /think/ it is better, though its hard to properly compare due to differnt cloud cover etc. I've not uses 'my tracks' yet, but it does seem to pick up more satellites more quickly and give accuracy of 5-10m in gps test - strength is 25-35, but does jump about . Can you get better than 5m resolution?

This is using the orignal jf3 firmware.

I suggest that if you have problems you make note of how many locks and what accuracy you get in different conditions then see about a replacement.

Orange UK had a fault code for GPS issues, which I quoted to get a replacement.

Also, the new phone doesn't creak at the top of the silver surround

Blonkster

 

[larryccf]

in response to the ? are all the SGS suffering from GPS issues - if not all, a fairly high percentage are

my first one was fine for 4-5 days, then went south real suddenly, my replacement from Tmobile USA came in with the gps totally crapping out

what are the odds of getting a replacement with the same issue as the first, and it only being a small percentile of them being faulty

 

[dinqado]

apologized for that I am not good at English. I had originally an SGS with firmware jf3 and the GPS performed poorly. I changed the phone and got another with JF5. This works great.