GPS Problems on Nexus 7 (2013)

[TraderGary]

Well, it finally happened. After more than 3 weeks of using many apps that use GPS and continually monitoring "GPS Test", my GPS stopped cold and for a half hour I tried everything I could think of to get it working again. My only recourse was a restart.

This is very definitely not a hardware problem. And for the way I use my Nexus 7, this is certainly not a show stopper. My device has been flawless in all else, and I'll be watching for a software update.

Nexus 7 (2013)

 

[kenyee]

This is very definitely not a hardware problem.

Don't know about that.
My ancient Motorola Cliq (aka the "you shouldn't put motoblur crap on a phone w/o enough memory and then stuff Android 2.1 on it to make it swap like crazy" phone) had this issue too. Really frustrating...reboots wouldn't fix it...heat (in the sun) seemed to make it worse. I'm sure that was a hardware issue...

Anyone notice if the N7's GPS issue is heat related?

 

[Diknak]

No, it isn't heat related.

I can walk around town playing ingress within a 3 block radius for an hour an a half and not have a single drop. This is walking around in the heat with the screen always on. When in my car, I would drive on my way home from work (50 minutes 30 miles) and it would fail twice. In my car, I have air conditioning on and it mounted right in front of one of the vents.

edit: I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the non-GPS geofencing that is part of the Google Play Services APIs or some other new location based functionality. That would also explain why if you let it sit in your house for hours on end you don't have a problem, but you get drops if you drive around. There is some trigger indicating a change in location that is conflicting with the GPS.

 

[markdek]

Any new device can certainly have a major hardware problem, that otherwise went unnoticed. Heat could be an issue. Software could also be an issue.

But, this thread is here to report and diagnose a specific gps problem w/ the N7 2013. It's ok that that others are willing to live with this problem, or that problem, but that's not the title of this thread. One could start a new thread called, "The N7 2013, It Works Good Enough for Me". Or, I love Google so much, and there are no other tablets out there that do what the N7 2013 does, so I'll just have to live with it, thread. Or, nothing works 100% these days anyways, so I'm ok if some parts of it are broke, .......and you should be ok with that too....because I'm ok with it.

 

[kenyee]

edit: I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the non-GPS geofencing that is part of the Google Play Services APIs

But that would affect a lot of devices...that functionality is everywhere now, down to Android 2.2 devices.
Thanks for mentioning your heat testing...at least that rules it out.

I don't suppose anyone has ported the drivers to Android 4.2? That'd be a backwards thing to do, but that would at least tell us if it's something flaky in 4.3...

 

[FitzAusTex]

No, it isn't heat related.

I can walk around town playing ingress within a 3 block radius for an hour an a half and not have a single drop. This is walking around in the heat with the screen always on. When in my car, I would drive on my way home from work (50 minutes 30 miles) and it would fail twice. In my car, I have air conditioning on and it mounted right in front of one of the vents.

edit: I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the non-GPS geofencing that is part of the Google Play Services APIs or some other new location based functionality. That would also explain why if you let it sit in your house for hours on end you don't have a problem, but you get drops if you drive around. There is some trigger indicating a change in location that is conflicting with the GPS.

I just want to point out that, although I've tested and experienced the drops while driving, most of my test failures happen on my front porch with an excellent view of cloudless skies.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Sandor Lengyel]

Is your machine rooted?

 

[Sandor Lengyel]

I tried it and used it with Osmand and downloaded maps.

 

[Sandor Lengyel]

If it is due to race conditions, than it is effected by computer speed and other hard to diagnose program bugs.

 

[oldtimer42]

Lots has been tried and some think they don't have the issue.

If you get a good one that's fabulous but I believe its software. The Google support forum has a long post on this at this address

https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!category-topic/mobile/android-devices/6dvyG56DFYA

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[Polo Chen]

I encounter the same issue and tried many ways but can't fix it .
finally ,i found actually this is not GPS issue ,it's should be google map bug ,because when i use other map application (such as Baidu map used in China),it's works properly !
suggest those whose GPS can't locate can use another map apps .

hope above can help you!

 

[Diknak]

There was an update to Google Play Services on the 16th and I tested it yesterday for the first time since the update. I am now running 3.2.25 (761454-36) and my results are different before the update.

Previously, on my way home from work, I would get two drops on my 50 minute drive. After the test yesterday driving the same route, I had 0 drops. 50 minutes isn't enough time to make a definitive statement about it being fixed, but early results are promising.

Check your Google Play Services in the apps list and make sure it has that latest version. The number in the parenthesis is important because they have been on 3.2.25 for a while.

 

[rxnelson]

There was an update to Google Play Services on the 16th and I tested it yesterday for the first time since the update. I am now running 3.2.25 (761454-36) and my results are different before the update.

Previously, on my way home from work, I would get two drops on my 50 minute drive. After the test yesterday driving the same route, I had 0 drops. 50 minutes isn't enough time to make a definitive statement about it being fixed, but early results are promising.

Check your Google Play Services in the apps list and make sure it has that latest version. The number in the parenthesis is important because they have been on 3.2.25 for a while.

Cautiously optimistic as well. I read that play services thing yesterday and updated mine. I made it to work (40 minutes) without a drop in maps/navigation.

Edit: It failed within 10 minutes yesterday before updating.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

[Sandor Lengyel]

Yes, it make a difference for me too. But I had gapps running with that revision of google play services and had failure. More than likely it is the whole google applications combination. (My present combination runs.) But I feel that we and others are lucky, until, google finds the actual fault and the fix for it. Until then the problem is fixed by accident.

 

[rxnelson]

At least it wasn't dragged out....failed on the way home about 30 minutes in.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

 

[ka4wwv]

Had an interesting result when I used the App "GPS Status" It shows ten items of gps data including if the receiver is ON,. plus you can do a reset if nothing is showing. Ok, the interesting thing was it worked very well until I did anything else. One of their menu items was to share the data. Just bringing up that menu item stopped the gps data stream, however the receiver stayed ON. Tap the reset option and the data starts again with acquisition of satellites and finally the other data fields filled in. So to me it appears to be a software intervention that is causing loss of track. Hope Google reads this and responds.

 

[viccoh]

Update on Nexus 7 GPS issues from my experiences. I have returned my N7-2013 because as an OTR driver GPS failure and Google's lack of response are a deal breaker. I have had the original N7 since it's launch the GPS and WAZE app which are used daily for hundreds of miles and hours at a time have performed flawlessly. I am connecting to wifi via a Verizon mifi hotspot. However, after downloading JB4.3, my original N7 started exhibiting the same GPS issues as the 2013. Since, the 2013 downloaded JB4.3 immediately upon activation, I never got the chance to use it pre JB4.3. After numerous tries and different configurations I have found that disabling "Wi-Fi & mobile network location" under location access settings the GPS and WAZE will again operate perfectly and have been for over 2 weeks. Today, as an experiment I re-enabled wi-fi & mobile network location and the GPS issues started again. With network access disabled some and what are for me minor Google functions don't work such as Google Now. But, most importantly the GPS does. My conclusion is that the problem is more about the JB.4.3 release than anything else

 

[Brian Radcliffe]

Sadly I gave up... returned my nexus 7 and await an official response saying that problem has been corrected before I buy another one.

 

[ew800]

I am rather surprised that we have not heard anything about an update that may address some of the issues that we are having. When the issues were first identified, I new it would take a good couple of weeks to acknowledge and address, however I am getting to the point where I am scratching my head. I hope we hear something/anything soon.

 

[markdek]

There's talk of a build "JSS15Q"...perhaps touchscreen and gps fix's?