All things GPS

Zinge764 said:

Ran the app and this is what happened

"Settings restored Done"
".....Getting Location......"
"GPS Started Done"
"Position fix fail"


"Please move to open sky and try again"

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exactly the same problem.......... i tried 6 or 7 times.
I tried it on my balcony, i tried it on my room, i tried it outside many times, i tried it while driving.... always the same!

Lagunar said:

exactly the same problem.......... i tried 6 or 7 times.
I tried it on my balcony, i tried it on my room, i tried it outside many times, i tried it while driving.... always the same!

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Did you plug in your car charger when you were driving?

I didn't get the last parameter (the numbers) until I plugged it into my car charger.

JayC said:

Download GPS Samsung restore from the market and see if that'll work

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Did you even read the question? This advice has NOTHING to do with the issue at hand.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure sremick nailed it. I haven't owned another Android device so I can't personally say whether or not this phone is behaving as it should. I do, however, have the phone and experience the same behavior if I have GPS off and I'm driving around.

I've also never owned a Blackberry so I don't know how GPS settings differ between Android and Blackberry, but I've owned an iPhone in the past and iOS doesn't have granular settings for the GPS. With Android, you can chose whether or not you want to use wireless networks and with Froyo, there's an additional setting that allows you to use additional sensors to improve GPS while walking or indoors. It can make it a bit confusing with all of these options.

Did your Blackberry have options to turn off GPS but use wireless networks?

Another thing I wanted to mention. It was something Sremick mentioned about removing body glove off his phone. I tried that and I'm definitely getting a better GPS reception as well as better cellular reception.
So I completely ditched it, I guess I'll just have to be more careful with the phone now.

Setup
Factory resetted phone. Non-rooted. Latest OS update (JH7). Phone plugged into USB car charger. Phone enclosed in otterbox commuter case. Phone docked in an old radio shack-branded phone holder mounted in center vent above radio (relatively clear view of the sky). Have not used LBSTestMode AT ALL to do GPS setting modifications (so yes, the site spirent-lcs.com is still the default SUPL server). Also, I did not install and did not run that new Samgung GPSRestore app.

It took about maybe 10-15 seconds to get a lock while I was driving. Afterwards, I used Google MyTracks to record my GPS session. (Yes, I did pull over to the side of the road before recording with the MyTracks app. I don't fiddle with my phone while I drive ).

2010-12-01 16:04 - Google Maps

This is a Los Angeles commute I usually do in the afternoons to avoid traffic. (There are statistics at the end of that route to prove that I'm actually driving). So, you'll see me getting on and off freeways. You'll see me drive through residential and commercial areas. This'll hopefully give people an idea of the GPS capability of my captivate phone. As you can see, the line seems to match well with the satellite view instead of the standard map view.

Like most people have mentioned, it will occasionally lose you. But, it seems to happen when I'm driving in between tall buildings and under bridges. It's even able to accurately track me taking my favorite "shortcuts" on the freeways. (i.e. Yes, I am really driving through the transitions ramps to bypass the main traffic).

Also, I'm putting down the default settings that LBSTestMode gives me after a factory reset just as an FYI...

Summary Screen
Session Type : Tracking
Test Mode(S/W or H/W) : OFF
Operation Mode : Standalone
Start Mode : Hot start
Use SkyHook : OFF
GPS Plus : ON

Application Settings
Session Type : Tracking
Test Mode(S/W or H/W) : S/W Test (contradicts summary screen?)
Operation Mode : Standalone
Start Mode : Hot Start
GPS Plus : ON
Dynamic accuracy : ON
Accuracy : 50
Use SkyHook : OFF
Use PC Tool : OFF

SUPL/CP Settings
Server FQDN Type : Custom Config
Server : www.spirent-lcs.com
Server Port : 7275
SUPL Secure Socket : ON
AGPS Mode : SUPL

In conclusion, despite what I read on other forums about changing these settings, I am NOT going to change anything inside LBSTestMode (especially that Test Mode(S/W or H/W) setting since there's no OFF option available). It's not worth experimenting with since things are "good enough" for me right now.

I'll probably do some more tests over the next few weeks (with the exact same setup) and add more public maps of routes in SoCal just to see how long this standard of reliability lasts.

Oogle,

You could be one of the lucky ones. It's well known there are a handful of Captivates that have a perfectly functional GPS. No one knows the reason as to why that is. But it is a fact, there is a relatively small number of these phones that are fine.
I am personally on my 2nd Captivate and neither of them had a working GPS.

Could you post a MyTracks log and current LBSTestMode settings (or any other relevant physical setup details)? Maybe that'll help to find discrepancies. The log doesn't have to be for your entire trip ( e.g. I started and stopped my log midway through my commute so people don't know where I live or work )

Also, I bought 2 captivate phones from Amazon.com (one for me and one for my wife). Both phone GPS works fine. Actually I used my wife's phone as a "control" and my phone as the "LBSTestMode guinea pig" for my experiment because she didn't want me messing with her phone. It was through a few months of comparative GPS usage that I realized that LBSTestMode changes didn't help for my phone, convincing me to go through a factory reset and starting from scratch).

The actual point in time when I felt convinced that LBSTestMode did nothing to help was when I asked my wife to punch in a destination using her phone's google navigation. I was fully getting prepared to explain to her during the drive how the navigation would miss turns, lose us, and basically not work because that's how my guinea pig of a phone behaved before the factory reset. But after navigating around residential neighborhoods and shopping centers (it was Thanksgiving weekend), her phone never lost sight of where we were. I was simply astonished and kept my mouth shut about the gps problems (she wasn't aware of any GPS problem with her phone).

I was in LA recently and found my GPS performance to be MUCH better than where I live in NW FL..not sure why or how..just the way it was

I had an iphone 4 in july and sold it a month later, buying the captivate on eBay. My GPS NEVER worked on the captivate. I went in to ATT today because my SIM was acting wierd, and my iphone was still listed on my account since I never officially got the phone at ATT. Anyway, on my drive home I decided to test out the GPS. It was somewhat quirky, but it worked about 80% of the drive home.

So anyone who bought online, make sure that you have the correct phone listed on your account. Still not happy with the GPS here though because it lost GPS 3 times in 30 minutes.

Interesting. I recall at some point discovering that I had the wrong data plan (my old BlackBerry plan I think) on my account, but I don't recall where on the timeline that discovery occurred relative to when I swapped my previous handset for the new, working handset.

George0211 said:

OK, got it to work.
I read on xda to make sure in your SUPL settings you have "Secure Socket" set to off. Once I did that, I got a lock within a couple seconds and got accuracy of 10 meters and it actually put me in the correct spot. I did not try the navigation. I'll try it on the way home tonight.

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Where do I access "SUPL" settings?

jpovis said:

Where do I access "SUPL" settings?

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Download "LbsTestModeLaunch" from the market. That app will open LbsTestMode menu. Once in it go to "SUPL/CP Settings"

George0211 said:

Download "LbsTestModeLaunch" from the market. That app will open LbsTestMode menu. Once in it go to "SUPL/CP Settings"

Click to expand...

Wow, says it's no longer available in the market.

Just dial *#3214789650#...much easier

fldude99 said:

Just dial *#3214789650#...much easier

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this or dl launcherpro and add the lbs icon to one of your home screens...

after working from that samsung app, gps doesn't work again. once any one of the other programs gets a lock, then i can use maps to know where i am, but before that, it'll never know where i'm sitting at.

somewhere someone mentioned about having a hot start, and i think that might be one of the crucial keys to the whole thing. but who knows... don't really care anymore at this point.

I just recorded a my tracks session and am impressed with the accuracy. I'd like to post it here in order to show how well this GPS on the Captivate performs, but have no clue how to post here..any ideas?

fldude99 said:

I just recorded a my tracks session and am impressed with the accuracy. I'd like to post it here in order to show how well this GPS on the Captivate performs, but have no clue how to post here..any ideas?

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Send to your Google My Maps, and share the link with us? Instructions here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmjJrgUGdE

And if there are some screen shots you'd like to share, there's a free app called ShootMe (free, Market) that is designed to work only on rooted phones - but that a lot of various Galaxy S type users are saying works fine with their stock phones (so - be skeptical, but that's worth a shot). Copy the screenshots to your PC, used the "Advanced" button in your post, look for the paperclip icon in the forum entry tool, and upload the screen pix for us. (Could require you to first resize the screenshot to smaller - and please do that anyway, otherwise, they'll be huge and give us all browser scrolling problems for the most part. )

2010-12-02 17:59 - Google Maps

That should show how accurate the gps on this captivate can be..when it's like that I don't really have any complaint

fldude99 said:

Just dial *#3214789650#...much easier

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Excellent....thanks

George0211 said:

OK, got it to work.
I read on xda to make sure in your SUPL settings you have "Secure Socket" set to off. Once I did that, I got a lock within a couple seconds and got accuracy of 10 meters and it actually put me in the correct spot. I did not try the navigation. I'll try it on the way home tonight.

Click to expand...

I just did this and got a lock within 6 meters, nearly instantly! Will try it durung driving this evening!

I tried the samsung app and Im impresseed. I can now get a lock in my gaarage with no view of the sky and in my room. I tried gpstest, there were 10 sats being used with an accuracy off 33 feet. Its still not very accurate, but its good for now.

jpovis said:

I just did this and got a lock within 6 meters, nearly instantly! Will try it durung driving this evening!

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Did you also change the supl server to google.com and port 7276? That's what was the final nail that allowed mine to work without any complaints so far (knock on wood)

fldude99 said:

Did you also change the supl server to google.com and port 7276? That's what was the final nail that allowed mine to work without any complaints so far (knock on wood)

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I am in the room of my home where even cell signal is weak. I have made every change recommended to see what worked better. I'm seeing 5-7 satellites regardless of whether I use Google or the default server, regardless of whether the secure server is on, what the port is, etc. I even tried plugging up to power and nothing made any difference. It won't lock. I didn't expect miracles in here, but wanted to see if something worked better.

If you're obstructed, nothing is going to work better.

Update: after a minute or two I locked on 2 satellites and accuracy is 10 meters. All this is with the default server and port, SSL on and Skyhook off.

let me tell you my story!!
after i was told (thank you booklover) to apply the fix while the phone connected to my car, i was able to do it.

i wasn't complaining about my gps... i don't have a data plan, so when i used it connected to any wifi, it was somewhat fast to lock... but between 3 and 10 minutes when no connected to wifi (i don't know why, i'm not making assumptions here ^_^)

now after i applied that fix, it locks in between 15 secs and 2 minutes without any connection!!! i'm very happy about the gps performance, also now it's MORE accurate than before. I'm NOT having that problem some guys are having like a "gps lag" when driving.

Lagunar said:

let me tell you my story!!
after i was told (thank you booklover) to apply the fix while the phone connected to my car, i was able to do it.

i wasn't complaining about my gps... i don't have a data plan, so when i used it connected to any wifi, it was somewhat fast to lock... but between 3 and 10 minutes when no connected to wifi (i don't know why, i'm not making assumptions here ^_^)

now after i applied that fix, it locks in between 15 secs and 2 minutes without any connection!!! i'm very happy about the gps performance, also now it's MORE accurate than before. I'm NOT having that problem some guys are having like a "gps lag" when driving.

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You're welcome, Lagunar. Anytime!