All things GPS

Mr. GPS said:

This is a good question. From behaviours, it looks quite different. I know
BCM20751 is used for those Galaxy S phones with FM radio feature. But GPS signals are independent of CDMA, GSM, or 3G networks.

However, I see two good signs for this GPS issue recently.
1. Samsung does not come up to point a finger at the GPS
chip vender and says it is the hardware chip bug. I think it is very
easy to validate who's fault by using Broadcom GPS SDK.
What functions are provded properly from GSP chip.

2 There are performance improvements from update version of GPS
Status, which uses HTC GPS driver. This means a GPS
driver CAN improve the Samsung GPS issue.

Samsung needs to fix the identified issues discussed
in this thread from the GPS driver, particukarly,
under the conditions: Wireless off and WIFI off
if Samsung labels this as a GPS product.

Click to expand...

I agree that Samsung needs to step up here, but if it were a chip (hardware) issue and I were at Samsung, I would not point the finger at Broadcom. If I had chosen the hardware and that was what was wrong, I had still chosen to use it and apparently not test it.
I agree with your reasoning that this is a driver issue (not to mention hope greatly that it is), but I was speculating that maybe Samsung tried to hedge their bets by maybe using a previous chip that they had better drivers and firmware support for. They already had to work a different radio into the architecture, why not change the GPS chip as well and avoid more embarrassment? I really hope it is the same chip though, so that perhaps a fix is on the way...

Sticky Bump

Well I have everything nearly working. But after I reboot the update.zip and apply the lag fix ext4 I get some freezing and have to pull the battery. I then reboot and same thing....

Any Ideas?

Has anyone thought of bringing a class action lawsuit against Samsung for knowingly selling a defective product? Or how about filing a claim with the FCC against Samsung for selling a product that does not function under the licence they have?

WonderM said:

Well I have everything nearly working. But after I reboot the update.zip and apply the lag fix ext4 I get some freezing and have to pull the battery. I then reboot and same thing....

Any Ideas?

Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, I have had to do a battery pull about once every other day or so. It's infrequent enough so that it hasn't really bothered me, but it appears that RO3 was correct when he said that this fix is not completely bug free. That being said, I believe I can narrow the problem down to one of two things. There are basically 4 overall steps to this process. Resetting back to stock, flashing the new samsung firmware that was supposed to fix the GPS, then installing the 1.2ghz SRE file and lastly running the lag fix app.
Flashing back to stock isn't going to cause any issues and I've been running the 1.2Ghz overclock for quite some time and never had any freezes until installing this new firmware and at the same time switching over to the ext4 lag fix. Soooo... with most of the posts I have read from people saying the ext4 lag fix is solid, my money would say it is the unofficial GPS fix firmware that is the culprit.
That leaves us with a couple of options. Depending on how happy we are with the GPS results we are getting, we could do this process over and just skip putting in the GPS firmware. I.e., flash back to stock and then skip right to the 1.2ghz overclock and lag fix. Or, since there is a slight chance it could be the ext4 lag fix, everything could be done over and try it with the ext2 lag fix instead. I have to say, when I was running the ext2 lag fix, without the new GPS firmware, I never had a single freeze. That being said though, my first bet is still on the GPS firmware. It is a bug, but one that hasn't really bothered me because of how infrequent it is and how smooth my phone runs overall. That is the beauty of having the first odin program though. If something happens that you don't like, you can go back to the beginning as many times as you need to figure out what will work.

P.S. If you have installed apps since doing all of this that you don't want to have to keep downloading from the market, open Titanium backup, hit the menu button at the bottom of your phone, select "batch", and then select "Run - Backup all user apps + system data". Now when you go through this process again, you will be able to reopen titanium backup, select "backup/restore" from the top middle, then scroll down through the apps you used to have and reinstall them all from one place instead of getting them all from the market again.

Excellent write up man! It really explains things in a way the lay-person can easily understand. Not all of us are long time Android/linux geeks with degrees is software programming. I am happy there are people out there that are and can provide us with fixes and features that the manufacturer has left out. That being said, it is unfortunate that 3rd party programmers have to be relied upon to offer fixes to manfucaturer mistakes rather than just fun hack and customizations.

ethered2 said:

Has anyone thought of bringing a class action lawsuit against Samsung for knowingly selling a defective product? Or how about filing a claim with the FCC against Samsung for selling a product that does not function under the licence they have?

Click to expand...

Someone here did file an FCC complaint and posted it here:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-ca...ive-response-team-over-fcc-gps-complaint.html

However, since Samsung did claim they are working on a fix to be released in Sept. (Im assuming 2010) there are 12 days left of the month as of today. It is unfortunate that we have this issue in the first place, and Samsung knew about it soon after the release of the i9000 (Galaxy S Euro) way back in.. june was it? Anyway, I would give them into the first week of Oct. to give us the fix, or let us know what is going on. If nothing by that time, I am sure there will be many folks returning, sueing, filing complaints, etc. And, I would have to say rightly so.

Its not so much that, boohoo GPS is such a big deal, for some it is. It is the fact that the manufacturer is marketing a device has having a certain feature, and that feature doesn't work. Period. What if a car manufacturer was selling cars that the gas pedal didnt work, or the break pedal. They'd get sued. What about a phone with a design flaw that was so bad, the phone wouldn't even make calls? They'd get sued right?

Some might argue that this is marketed as a PHONE and if you want GPS then get a Garmin... Stupid. If you want a cell phone, get one of those cheap dollar store clamshell phones. If you want a SMART PHONE that has a zillion features to do all kinds of cool stuff that ALL OTHER smart phones of it's ilk do, it is not unreasonable to expect the features to work. What if you bought a nice new Mercedes, totally pimped out and it has a badass stereo in it. Now say every single one of those Mercades models had a flaw and the stereo wouldn't work! You'd be upset and expect Mercedes to do something about it, right? You wouldn't tell people, "Hey dummy, you purchased a CAR. It functions as a CAR, so what if the stereo doesn't work. I listen to music on my captivate while I am driving. If you want a stereo, go buy a boombox and set it on you passenger seat..." Doesn't make scence right?

Anyway, sorry about getting off topic there, but again, GREAT write up! Hopefully Samsung wil make good on their promis and fix the issues and then be kind enough to follow the lead of all the other manufacturers and give us OS updates instead of just abandoning us to move on to the next model as they have done a few times in the past.

so when I plug in my phone when its on and I start Odin I get the yellow box, but when I go into download mode, nothing happens.

Any clues?

alme1304 said:

so when I plug in my phone when its on and I start Odin I get the yellow box, but when I go into download mode, nothing happens.

Any clues?

Click to expand...

The steps in sequence are:

1. Turn off your phone, remove sim and micro SD.
2. Replace battery in your phone, but DO NOT TURN IT ON.
3. Open Odin on your computer.
4. Plug the usb cable into your computer.
5. While your phone is off, hold down both volume buttons for a couple of seconds and while still holding them down, plug the phone end of usb cable into your phone. This should put the phone into download mode and you should see the yellow box in Odin. Hit the start button on Odin and the program should run and then restart your phone by itself.

ok so I tried what you told me, and apperently there was something wrong with my drivers 'cause the comp. made a noise, sort of a "invalid" noise. So I unplugged the cable, took out the battery (while the yellow triangle was still there), turned it back on, BAM the phone wont start, it stay frozen at the Galazy S screen.

Right now im on the process of reinstalling the drivers, idk what to do after that tho

alme1304 said:

ok so I tried what you told me, and apperently there was something wrong with my drivers 'cause the comp. made a noise, sort of a "invalid" noise. So I unplugged the cable, took out the battery (while the yellow triangle was still there), turned it back on, BAM the phone wont start, it stay frozen at the Galazy S screen.

Right now im on the process of reinstalling the drivers, idk what to do after that tho

Click to expand...

Even if you can't start your phone, you should be able to still get it into download mode and use the first Odin program to set your phone back to factory.

sorry i forgot to update but somehow i got that whole thing to work, but not my phone is frozen yet again. Now its froze after doing the lag fix, on the automatic restart after you click ext4.

Any ideas?

edit: seems like it freezes after the sre update

Does anyone know how long the first process takes(Odin one click)? I've been sitting at "File Analysis" for about 5 minutes.

Nevermind, I was in Recovery Mode, not Download mode.

New problem. Links to the SRE 1.3 are down. Anyone have an updated link?

what about us cool kids who have a mac? What corresponding apps should I download to do all this fun stuff to my new Captivate?

I say bump

I'm having an issue with Titaniumbackup not being able to install my apps. Is this something to do with enabling sideloading?

I get this system config warning...

"Your system settings will prevent you from restoring application. To correct this go to your phone's Setting, then in "Applications" and tick the "Unknown Sources" checkbox."

There is no such option, what am I missing?

ethered2 said:

Has anyone thought of bringing a class action lawsuit against Samsung for knowingly selling a defective product? Or how about filing a claim with the FCC against Samsung for selling a product that does not function under the licence they have?

Click to expand...

Samsung Mobile Phone GPS Defect Complaints - LieffCabraser.com

WonderM said:

I'm having an issue with Titaniumbackup not being able to install my apps. Is this something to do with enabling sideloading?

I get this system config warning...

"Your system settings will prevent you from restoring application. To correct this go to your phone's Setting, then in "Applications" and tick the "Unknown Sources" checkbox."

There is no such option, what am I missing?

Click to expand...

You have to enable sideloading. Pretty easy, just follow the stickies that are on thd xda forums.

While I appreciate the amount of work that went into the first post, and the massive amount of info contained in it, I don't think this should be a sticky and I think I understand why it hasn't been made one.

By sticky-ing a post, the mods are basically "endorsing" its content. These instructions casually recommend overclocking, a lagfix (one that is superceded by better ones out there even if you're dead-set on applying a lag fix) and SRE to everyone which I don't think is wise advice. Even rooting isn't wise or for everyone (it isn't without serious risks). If you're a hacker and understand what you're doing and the ramifications of doing the things in this post, that's one thing... but sticky-ing it as a moderator-approved series of steps for everyone would be a bad idea and unwise for Androidforums.com.

Well it seems that they will not deliver the fix for the GPS problem in September, the new target is end of October according to many Samsung-driven twitter channels. Shot me if I buy another product with Samsung logo on it pretty please.

Rockinfigs said:

Samsung Mobile Phone GPS Defect Complaints - LieffCabraser.com

Click to expand...

I'll be filling out that form on October 1st!

Just saw this.

Samsung Captivate gets GPS fix, other Galaxy S versions wait patiently -- Engadget

No it does not.
"An update to improve the Samsung Captivate's GPS performance is now available. Captivate customers will receive a notification on their device that an update is available and will simply need to download the file to update their phone. The updates will be pushed to customers' devices over the next few weeks.

So what samsung is saying is "Yea we got the update, but you can't have it yet."

GPS + other improvements for Samsung ATT Captivate are HERE! Today - next few weeks OTA notification will be sent to customers!

https://twitter.com/samsungmobileus/status/25222029020