Simple fix for GPS/Gingrbread issues!

[gme109]

I can't believe this worked! Downloaded the GPS Status & Toolbox app, which instantly fixed the loss of GPS signal, and inaccuracy problems which have plagued my phone since the Gingerbread update. It now locks on more satellites, and I'm getting an accuracy of 2 meters, vs 20 M.
It's a free app, but I plan on making a donation to the developer.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2&hl=en

 

[la sal]

Manage A-GPS state, Reset, and Download are the steps to follow?

 

[gme109]

Manage A-GPS state, Reset, and Download are the steps to follow?

I didn't have to follow any steps. Just downloaded the app and opened it, and it automatically downloaded whatever else it needed to fix the problem.
I immediately locked on to more satellites, which improved accuracy, and stopped the loss of signal problem that was occurring.

 

[wkufan]

So far, it seems to have fixed my problem too.

 

[gme109]

So far, it seems to have fixed my problem too.

After using this app for a while now, I've discovered that's it's no more than a band aid. You need to refresh the A-GPS XTRA Data every so often, to keep it working, and some times it doesn't help at all, like on a cloudy day.
Samsung has really dropped the ball here, and Sprint isn't offering any help either with this matter. Once I get enough time, I'll be attempting this fix, I found over at the Sprint forums.

" Here is my attempt at consolidating all the info required to apply the fix. This is the *non-root* version of the procedure. Hopefully this will help some of you. I cannot take credit for the procedure itself- there are many who have contributed to this and most of the step-by-step info is ripped directly from post 190, written by coasterphotos. I have attempted to update the links; of course credit goes to all the authors and techies who found/created the various files and did the work to make this happen- thank them for making this fix possible.




Again, this is what I did and it worked- I don't guarantee it will work for you or guarantee the links won't change. While I don't claim to be a hack of any sort, I am competent with my computer and tweaking stuff.



Good luck, hope this helps, and again, I claim credit for nothing except an updated link or two and a few minor, clarifying revisions to the steps. Anyone else, feel free to chime in with any edits.



1.) Download Odin3, ver. 1.85 Download Odin3 zip

2.) Download and install the Samsung USB drivers Samsung (Click the "Software" tab, next to "Manuals")

3.) Download the GPS_FIX.zip (Thanks, Barlkon!) GPS FIX for Gingerbread leak - xda-developers

4.) Place the GPS_FIX.zip on your phone's SD card.

5.) Download ACS Recovery (should be a tar file) chris41g.devphone.org Use the file "ACSRecovery5-1.0.0.0-epic4g.tar.md5"

6.) Shut down your phone

7.) With USB cable disconnected, put your phone in download mode. (Hold down the 1 key on the keyboard and turn on the phone.) You should get a image of a little android construction guy with a message to not turn off target.

8.) Plug the phone into your PC with the USB cable and wait for all the drivers to install.

9.) Open Odin - You should see a com port listed under the first box on the left if drivers were installed successfully.

10.) Uncheck all options.

11.) In the PDA section select the ACS tar you downloaded.

12.) Click on "Start"

13.) You should get messages indicating the operation was successful.

14.) Disconnect USB and remove the battery.

15.) Reinsert the battery and enter recovery mode (hold down vol down + camera + power until you see the recovery screen). (If your phone boots into the OS, you will have to reapply CWM as it will be overwritten during boot of the phone)

16.) Use the arrow keys on the physical keypad to select the option to apply zip file from sd card (not update.zip)

17.) Select the GPS_FIX.zip file you saved on your sd card and apply it.

18.) Should say it was successful and then you can select the reboot option."

 

[asianmike]

The gingerbread update caused the following issues for me:
1) GPS quits working after 10 mins (that happen mostly when i would run pandora & GPS at the same time), GPS could never lock for more than 15 mins.
2) Wifi lock is much weaker then before, i can be sitting right next to my router & still only show couple strength bars.
3) keyboard will randomly go into application short-cut every once in a while (which i have not assigned any applications to)
4) Screens still locks up couple times a week
5) Audio output will randomly stop, no ringtones, no media output, etc.

I too thought that this app was helping fix my GPS problems but then it seem to make it worst, when i would go to update AGPS data, it would freeze, causing a reboot.

Eventually I applied the nonroot GPS fix posted above by gme109 (originally from coasterphotos) as credited.

Its a miracle, havent had any of the above issues i listed, GPS locks on in under a minute. This has given me my phone back, will be making a donation to XDA Developers as soon as my taxes come in. Sprint needs to put them on payroll! Thank you to all that have put time & energy in the GPS fix!!

 

[gme109]

The gingerbread update caused the following issues for me:
1) GPS quits working after 10 mins (that happen mostly when i would run pandora & GPS at the same time), GPS could never lock for more than 15 mins.
2) Wifi lock is much weaker then before, i can be sitting right next to my router & still only show couple strength bars.
3) keyboard will randomly go into application short-cut every once in a while (which i have not assigned any applications to)
4) Screens still locks up couple times a week
5) Audio output will randomly stop, no ringtones, no media output, etc.

I too thought that this app was helping fix my GPS problems but then it seem to make it worst, when i would go to update AGPS data, it would freeze, causing a reboot.

Eventually I applied the nonroot GPS fix posted above by gme109 (originally from coasterphotos) as credited.

Its a miracle, havent had any of the above issues i listed, GPS locks on in under a minute. This has given me my phone back, will be making a donation to XDA Developers as soon as my taxes come in. Sprint needs to put them on payroll! Thank you to all that have put time & energy in the GPS fix!!

Did you apply this fix before or after the latest update (EL30)?
I haven't applied the fix yet, has I have a Mac, and the files are all for PC's. One thing I've noticed though, my GPS has gotten even worse after the EL 30 update. Way to go Sprint and Samsung!

 

[asianmike]

Did you apply this fix before or after the latest update (EL30)?
I haven't applied the fix yet, has I have a Mac, and the files are all for PC's. One thing I've noticed though, my GPS has gotten even worse after the EL 30 update. Way to go Sprint and Samsung!

oddly enough, i tried to update before the fix & my screen went blank when i hit the button to update, so i had to restart & the update disappeared & now my phone says my phone is currently up to date, EL22. so i havent bothered trying to update cause everything that was driving me nuts was fixed by the GPS fix!

 

[Epicurean]

After using this app for a while now, I've discovered that's it's no more than a band aid. You need to refresh the A-GPS XTRA Data every so often, to keep it working, and some times it doesn't help at all, like on a cloudy day.
Samsung has really dropped the ball here, and Sprint isn't offering any help either with this matter. Once I get enough time, I'll be attempting this fix, I found over at the Sprint forums.

" Here is my attempt at consolidating all the info required to apply the fix. This is the *non-root* version of the procedure. Hopefully this will help some of you. I cannot take credit for the procedure itself- there are many who have contributed to this and most of the step-by-step info is ripped directly from post 190, written by coasterphotos. I have attempted to update the links; of course credit goes to all the authors and techies who found/created the various files and did the work to make this happen- thank them for making this fix possible.




Again, this is what I did and it worked- I don't guarantee it will work for you or guarantee the links won't change. While I don't claim to be a hack of any sort, I am competent with my computer and tweaking stuff.



Good luck, hope this helps, and again, I claim credit for nothing except an updated link or two and a few minor, clarifying revisions to the steps. Anyone else, feel free to chime in with any edits.



1.) Download Odin3, ver. 1.85 Download Odin3 zip

2.) Download and install the Samsung USB drivers Samsung (Click the "Software" tab, next to "Manuals")

3.) Download the GPS_FIX.zip (Thanks, Barlkon!) GPS FIX for Gingerbread leak - xda-developers

4.) Place the GPS_FIX.zip on your phone's SD card.

5.) Download ACS Recovery (should be a tar file) chris41g.devphone.org Use the file "ACSRecovery5-1.0.0.0-epic4g.tar.md5"

6.) Shut down your phone

7.) With USB cable disconnected, put your phone in download mode. (Hold down the 1 key on the keyboard and turn on the phone.) You should get a image of a little android construction guy with a message to not turn off target.

8.) Plug the phone into your PC with the USB cable and wait for all the drivers to install.

9.) Open Odin - You should see a com port listed under the first box on the left if drivers were installed successfully.

10.) Uncheck all options.

11.) In the PDA section select the ACS tar you downloaded.

12.) Click on "Start"

13.) You should get messages indicating the operation was successful.

14.) Disconnect USB and remove the battery.

15.) Reinsert the battery and enter recovery mode (hold down vol down + camera + power until you see the recovery screen). (If your phone boots into the OS, you will have to reapply CWM as it will be overwritten during boot of the phone)

16.) Use the arrow keys on the physical keypad to select the option to apply zip file from sd card (not update.zip)

17.) Select the GPS_FIX.zip file you saved on your sd card and apply it.

18.) Should say it was successful and then you can select the reboot option."

After much trepidation, I decided to go thru with this technique, even though I already bricked 1 phone by messing around with it like this. But since the GPS was already a POS I thought what the hell, it's only another $100 if I brick another one.

The good news is, it actually worked, at least on the first tryout. I will take it on the road later today, and in the air next week and report back.

The bad news is, this kind of stuff isn't for the non-technically savvy, nor the weak of heart. While trying to "Odin in the patch", it just kept hanging. And I couldn't get the phone back in to regular phone mode. After several hours of fooling around with (essentially a bricked phone), I decided to follow the recommendation in the readme file that came with Odin: Pull the battery for an hour and try again. And this actually worked. Hurray for me!

Here are some other modifications / helpful hints I observed during the process:

1b. Unzip to a new folder and
1a. Read the instructions.txt that comes with it
6a. Pull battery & SD card
6b. Reinsert battery (but not the SD card)
11a. In the PIT section, select the .pit file where you installed Odin
11b. You may have to remove the .md5 extenstion from the ACS file so it looks like "ACSRecovery5-1.0.0.0-epic4g.tar"
13a. If not successful, pull battery, wait an hour and re-do
15a. Reinsert battery & SD card
16. Use volume keys to scroll up/down, camera key to select, power key to go back to prev menu
18. Use the Reboot System option

 

[Epicurean]

I will take it on the road later today, and in the air next week and report back.

While on the road I had a lock within 1 or 2 meters the whole way. Best GPS tracking I've seen on an Epic. Wow!

The bad news is that GPS no longer works in airplane mode. There is a thread over in XDA on[HOW TO] Enable stand-alone/autonomous GPS on Epic 4G for the adventurous.

 

[mrjrclark]

I haven't applied the fix yet, has I have a Mac, and the files are all for PC's.

I know Macs are garbage, but to call your only Personal Computer a non-PC seems counter productive to the Mac name. I see this a daily basis, Mac users calling their computer a non-computer. Makes me laugh a little every time I see it, I mean, I know it is just a handy LARGE paperweight, but come on. I thought I might educate you a little and let you know that a Mac, though much MUCH more expensive for less power then a non-Mac Unix or Linux box, is still a PC, which stands for Personal Computer.

 

[mrjrclark]

The gingerbread update caused the following issues for me:
1) GPS quits working after 10 mins (that happen mostly when i would run pandora & GPS at the same time), GPS could never lock for more than 15 mins.
2) Wifi lock is much weaker then before, i can be sitting right next to my router & still only show couple strength bars.
3) keyboard will randomly go into application short-cut every once in a while (which i have not assigned any applications to)
4) Screens still locks up couple times a week
5) Audio output will randomly stop, no ringtones, no media output, etc.

I too thought that this app was helping fix my GPS problems but then it seem to make it worst, when i would go to update AGPS data, it would freeze, causing a reboot.

Eventually I applied the nonroot GPS fix posted above by gme109 (originally from coasterphotos) as credited.

Its a miracle, havent had any of the above issues i listed, GPS locks on in under a minute. This has given me my phone back, will be making a donation to XDA Developers as soon as my taxes come in. Sprint needs to put them on payroll! Thank you to all that have put time & energy in the GPS fix!!

Wow, thank you for this fix! It really worked and was a cake walk! I cant wait to get out and geocache again with my phone only!