[carraser891]

Kinda getting sick of having google maps on and then getting lost because it looses signal all of the sudden.

[cerobles1]

Ha ha, recalculating. That has happebed to me a couple of time

[jmuru]

No clue if they'll fix it officially, but why don't you apply the GPS fix manually? It'll take about 15 minutes of your time.

[cerobles1]

No clue if they'll fix it officially, but why don't you apply the GPS fix manually? It'll take about 15 minutes of your time.

i'm curious as to what manual fix ur referring to. Please explain

[jmuru]

i'm curious as to what manual fix ur referring to. Please explain

This works for most people: or you can flash a custom ROM that already has it baked in.

[enik]

The GPS was one of the reasons I switched phones... after it cut out in downtown Atlanta I about threw it out the window

Sent from my iPride 4G

[TechnoGeezer]

As mentioned in another GPS thread here, go to the Sprint Epic Community forum and check out post #190 for a manual method to fix GPS issue without having to root. I just did it and the hardest part is getting the right files. I had a prob with USB recognizing my phone but solved it (apparently) by removing & reinstalling my SD card (phone off). The GPS fix really works; now have 8 to 9 sats used out of 10 to12 seen in my bedroom. Can't wait to use it in the car again.

[lafountain]

The problem is that while we know and understand rooting there are plenty of people out there who don't utilize online forums for their phones and probably don't even know what rooting is, if they use their gps on their phones for things like Google Maps or other stuff it isn't fixed. Samsung/Sprint really needs to push a fix for this for the majority.

[TechnoGeezer]

I absolutely agree. What seems absurd is that the fix is known to the dev community & posted but for unknown reasons (prob $) Samaung/Sprint/Google can't put something official together for public release. After all, this was working in Froyo! It's not like adding a new feature; it was "broken" by the GB update.

[igotdatish]

As mentioned in another GPS thread here, go to the Sprint Epic Community forum and check out post #190 for a manual method to fix GPS issue without having to root. I just did it and the hardest part is getting the right files. I had a prob with USB recognizing my phone but solved it (apparently) by removing & reinstalling my SD card (phone off). The GPS fix really works; now have 8 to 9 sats used out of 10 to12 seen in my bedroom. Can't wait to use it in the car again.

would you be able to post a link to that section you mention?

[TechnoGeezer]

This link should work:


If it doesn't take directly to it, find Post #190. You might also read #204 & 209 (I think). In any case, read through this section. Can't take credit for any of this as it has all been posted elsewhere. I hope it helps; it certainly helped me.

[uscpsycho]

What exactly is the GPS Fix supposed to fix?

When I got Gingerbread my GPS had two problems. One was the "searching for GPS" problem and another was my phone would randomly lock up while navigating, requiring a battery pull to recover.

After I ran the fix my phone seemed to be cured of both problems. But a few weeks later and the "searching" problem is still gone but I can't seem to navigate for very long before my phone locks up and a battery pull is required.

Is the GPS fix supposed to fix both of these problems? Anyone know what I can do to stop my phone from locking up while navigating? This is a major problem for me because my phoe takes an eternity to restart.

I hate GB. It's caused nothing but problems for me.

[TechnoGeezer]

I've never read anything specific about what GPS_Fix.zip fixes but the implication is that it fixes satellite identification for GPS lock & use for location (i.e., sats "in view" vs. sats "in use". Phone lock up sometimes is related to failure to get GPS lock in an app that needs it (Google maps, Nav, etc). That being said, I tried my phone today in a "real world" situation for the first time after applying the GPS fix. In the am on my commute to work got 10 of 10 or 11 of 11 sats in use & great GPS accuracy until about 20 min in the phone locked & required battery pull to reset. That never happened before. In the pm on the way home everything was fine; great GPS & NO LOCK UP. Only one day of data & a split decision. I'll report back when I have more data.

[rando991]

I've never read anything specific about what GPS_Fix.zip fixes but the implication is that it fixes satellite identification for GPS lock & use for location (i.e., sats "in view" vs. sats "in use". Phone lock up sometimes is related to failure to get GPS lock in an app that needs it (Google maps, Nav, etc). That being said, I tried my phone today in a "real world" situation for the first time after applying the GPS fix. In the am on my commute to work got 10 of 10 or 11 of 11 sats in use & great GPS accuracy until about 20 min in the phone locked & required battery pull to reset. That never happened before. In the pm on the way home everything was fine; great GPS & NO LOCK UP. Only one day of data & a split decision. I'll report back when I have more data.

It supposedly replaces the Epic GPS Daemon with the Fascinate one. For some reason the Epic's GPS was reprogrammed to only lock 4 satellites to save battery or something dumb like that.

[ABMD]

I found on line another solution: Download from Marketplace: GPS Status and once installed:Menu>Tools>Mange A-GPS state>Reset. It apparently clears cached GPS data.
I have tried it only 2xs and both times the GPS did not disengage after 20mins.
But I certainly agree with others that its deplorable for Samsung and or Sprint to not have a patch for this very disruptive problem.

[TechnoGeezer]

It supposedly replaces the Epic GPS Daemon with the Fascinate one. For some reason the Epic's GPS was reprogrammed to only lock 4 satellites to save battery or something dumb like that.

The odd thing about the "unfixed" GB GPS is that even with 9 or 10 sats in view it would only use 2 or 3 and not even the ones with the strongest signal. In the "fixed" version, sat use is fine but phone lockups appear to be a problem. This am my phone shut down after ~10 min on Gooogle Maps. It appeared to loose GPS lock and then get it back but then shut down completely. It rebooted on its own because it was in the car dock. No prob after that or on the way home in pm but it takes quite a while to boot & get back to Nav. I was only on my normal drive so no big deal but if I had been using GPS Nav for real it would have been unpleasant at least.

[k1492]

I found on line another solution: Download from Marketplace: GPS Status and once installed:Menu>Tools>Mange A-GPS state>Reset. It apparently clears cached GPS data.
I have tried it only 2xs and both times the GPS did not disengage after 20mins.
But I certainly agree with others that its deplorable for Samsung and or Sprint to not have a patch for this very disruptive problem.

I was excited to see your post so I downloaded GPS Status and did the reset. I've only been able to test in the driveway, but I too can go longer than 20 minutes without locking up. I tested for about 10 minutes and then shut off the GPS. After about another half hour, I turned GPS back on for 25+ minutes with no signal drop followed by the infinite search. One item I did notice was that I still only tracked a maximum of 3 (or maybe 4) satellites. Comparing to my son's Epic with a custom Gingerbread ROM, his tracked 9 or 10, depending upon how many satellites were visible.

[rando991]

I was excited to see your post so I downloaded GPS Status and did the reset. I've only been able to test in the driveway, but I too can go longer than 20 minutes without locking up. I tested for about 10 minutes and then shut off the GPS. After about another half hour, I turned GPS back on for 25+ minutes with no signal drop followed by the infinite search. One item I did notice was that I still only tracked a maximum of 3 (or maybe 4) satellites. Comparing to my son's Epic with a custom Gingerbread ROM, his tracked 9 or 10, depending upon how many satellites were visible.

GPS Status and Toolbox is a wonderful GPS app and you should have it, but it does not fix the 4 satellite lock on. The only thing that will for now is to apply the GPS_Fix.zip procedure described earlier. Also, make sure you have the Compass app and see if the compass works. If it is really really jerky and off more than about 5 or 10 degrees as you rotate thru the cardinal directions, you may have to do the upside down horizontal calibration. Most of us had that problem too. I don't know if it was ever fixed, but you only have to do this one time. If your compass acts like it is broken, you must go to menu/settings/Display/Horizontal Calibration. Lay the phone flat on a table upside down. Look up under at the screen, and move the phone enough where you can touch the calibrate button while the phone is upside down and hit the button. Now the compass should be correct. Note, anytime you use a compass app or Google skymaps you will still have to wave the compass in a figure 8 and then hold the phone straight out at arm's level and pivot 360 degrees so that the phone goes thru all the points of the compass.

[TechnoGeezer]

For those interested, the saga of the "GPS_fixed" phone continues. This am the phone had 8 or 9 sats in use & was fine on Google Nav (map option) but locked up at the same place as yesterday about 10 min in. It didn't shut off so I had to pull the battery to reset. It was fine after that & fine on commute home just as it was yesterday. Return commute is by same route, just reversed. So I'm 2 for 2 on phone lockups after the "fix" but the lockups seem to have a time or location dependency. It may also have something to do with the specific app running (Google Nav, maps option) as I've not seen the prob on TeleNav (but no controlled testing either). I'll run the same test tomorrow.

[TechnoGeezer]

This am couldn't get GPS lock (stock GB W/ unrooted GPS_fix.zip); 0 sats; had to use GPS Status tools to clear cache, then all OK. In pm, no GPS lock again; had to use GPS Status tools to clear cache AND had to download new GPS data before I saw any sats. However, no lockups on either end of commute. Frustrating because the prob isn't reproducible.

[uscpsycho]

I don't know if it was pure luck or if this might be a fix for the GPS problem. Today I tried navigating with both Wifi and 4G turned off. Much to my amazement the phone didn't lock up even after doing several things that seem to cause lock ups, like searching for alternate routes.

I'm going to keep trying this to see if it truly solves the problem of the phone locking up when navigating. Give it a try guys and let us know if it works for you. I'm hoping this is a real fix and I didn't just get lucky. We'll see...

[rando991]

Let us know, but I doubt that 4G and Wifi are related to your GPS problem unless it is a phone memory low issue. It is not a good practice to leave those on when you are outside of 4G or Wifi coverage as they will eat battery searching for those signals. It could be that the searching, along with other things running in the background, that you are experiencing low overhead RAM and your phone is just locking up because of memory, not the GPS. Try a task killer like Gemini App manager or something like ATK. Maybe you just need to free up some memory. Oh and btw, I assume you have moved all your apps to the SD card, right? Too many apps in phone memory leaves you with just about nothing.

[jmuru]

Oh and btw, I assume you have moved all your apps to the SD card, right? Too many apps in phone memory leaves you with just about nothing.

Less of a problem with MTD. Have nothing on SD card and still 400MB of free space on my phone. LOVING my Epic these days

[uscpsycho]

Let us know, but I doubt that 4G and Wifi are related to your GPS problem unless it is a phone memory low issue. It is not a good practice to leave those on when you are outside of 4G or Wifi coverage as they will eat battery searching for those signals. It could be that the searching, along with other things running in the background, that you are experiencing low overhead RAM and your phone is just locking up because of memory, not the GPS. Try a task killer like Gemini App manager or something like ATK. Maybe you just need to free up some memory. Oh and btw, I assume you have moved all your apps to the SD card, right? Too many apps in phone memory leaves you with just about nothing.

Wifi might affect GPS. I know that the phone can use wifi to identify your location. No idea if it does this in conjunction with GPS navigation. If it does, I can see how some OS issues causes the phone to lock up if it's using both. Maybe preventing it from using wifi while navigation helps? I'll keep trying and see. If I make it a whole day without a GPS induced phone lock I'll be confident this is a reliable fix.

[Jaggrey]

I don't usually leave 4G or WiFi on and I've been having the GPS lockup issue. But if it works for you that'd be awesome; the less people with this issue the better! Samsung needs to get their butts in gear!