GPS sadness on custom roms

[russf22]

Hello All,

I have been lurking for a while, and have done lots of reading, but now feel I've got to ask a few questions....

Basic History:

Bought my Dinc off Ebay a month or so ago. Previous did a factory reset in recovery I believe. I turned on the phone for the first time and it stepped me through the process of setting it up for the first time. No problems here.

Learned that my software was at 2.1 - update 1, not cool. So I rooted it with unrevoked and went to town....or so I thought...

Learned how to make Nandroid backups, and have always made them early and often before wiping data and caches from recovery and writing custom roms.

Tried writing a few of the popular roms through recovery. Namely warm z 2.2, cm 6.1, and some of the "re-engineered" ones as well. Each one failed to install except warm z, and when I booted into that one it was very unstable and not very usable..... so I went back to my original load. I was using clockwork 3.0.0.8 at the time.

Got to reading and realized I might have better luck with custom roms if I downgraded my clockwork, so I did, down to 2.5.1.2.....

Now to the more current action....

Downloaded Skyraider 4.0 and also cm 7.0 final.

Loaded cm7 first, and then added gapps. Everything was working well except for GPS which would not work at all. I checked my location services and they were enabled. No little gps satellite icon, and no location icon either....

Restored my original software load, GPS and everything else works fine....

Loaded skyraider, and received the same GPS problems. Restored the original software load, GPS was working fine again.

Updated my clockwork back to 3.0.0.8 and proceeded to load skyraider again. Currently I have it running and GPS still is not working. Location services are enabled.... Earlier today I tried to shoot video at 720p and it rebooted the phone....

Prior to loading a custom rom, I always do a full wipe (sometime multiple times), and also wipe cache, and then wipe dalvik cache.

Any suggesions? I downloaded the superwipe zip file and am thinking about running that.

Also thinking about going back to original software load, and then un-rooting it and waiting for the GB update when/if it comes.... Does anyone think that when it comes it will update me from 2.1? Do I need to un-root to get any possible OTA updates? I know that froyo has been out of the stream for quite a while now....

The main things that I am looking for here is to lose all of the vzw bloatware, have the ability to have wifi hotspot (I do have this installed...) and to have my camera be as capable as it can be!!!

Thank you in advance for your help, this is a great site!!!!

BR,
Russ

 

[PvilleComp]

Russ,

Wow that's a turbulent history.

I'll start at the end and hope it ends up OK. Warm Z is usually the problem child for installs not the one that works!

If you're interested in CM7, forget the "stables" go with one of the nightlies in the 95+ range. There are many bug fixes in the nightlies that are not in the stables. A "stable" is just a nightly with a flag in the ground.

GPS should be OK in the nightlies. I use mine daily with no problem. There is a GPS status app in the market that will show your GPS readings and I've read that it will also help lock on bugs. I've never used it. The only problems I've had are occasionally the GPS will show me 100 yards to the south or the west. This was happening mostly around the time of the Tsunami so I kind of discount that since coastlines were being moved a foot or more at the time.

Try one of the CM7 nightlies put out recently and try again.

Super wipe probably won't hurt but I've only ever done Clockwork wipes and I've switched ROM's plenty with only that.

Let us know what happens.

 

[russf22]

Hello Pville,

Thanks for the quick response. Today I put cm7 nightlies 102 on, and unfortunately the GPS problem remains.

I got to thinking when I was downloading cm7, and was reading what version of kernel it stated I needed. I haven't delved into updating my kernel or radio as of yet. Do you suppose that I need to update the kernel so that it can handle GB or Froyo instructions? Or does flashing a custom ROM update your kernel as well? I did not check what my kernel was after flashing the ROMS....

I went back to my original load (2.1 update 1) and the GPS works fine...

I will do a little research on loading kernels.

-Russ

 

[PvilleComp]

Try GPS Status & Toolbox from the market and see if you can get it calibrated.

 

[russf22]

Hello again,

I restored 7.1 nightly, and lost GPS capability again. Earlier with the original software load (2.1 update 1) I fired up google maps while walking my dogs, and quickly got 2 meters accuracy.

After restoring cm 7.1, I downloaded gps status and got to playing with it. Ran though the a-gps tools, pitch/roll etc, basically everything I could play with.... no help....

It just seems as though with the custom roms, it is pretending that I just do not have a gps in my phone at all.

Maps might start with 60 meters accuracy, then 50,40, 20, then shoot back to 3000.

The next step will probably be to restore the original software where I know the gps is working correctly, and use gps status again, just to see what the screens look like with a known good gps functionality....

Is there some other way to try and "wake up" the gps in these custom roms?

Thank you,

Russ

 

[Lee_Bo]

Look at your Baseband version. Are you using 07.28? That's the stock radio flash that came with the Incredible. 11.19 seems to be the most popular and also seems to lock on GPS almost instantly. I'm personally using 05.06 (just released) and it seems to be about the same as 11.19, but I do seem to have a little more signal in areas that I used to get really poor signal in. You may want to look at flashing your radio to at least 11.19 and see how GPS works then.

 

[legendarydog]

how does one find and flash a different radio?

 

[PvilleComp]

There is a list of Radios in the ROM's and Mod's HQ Sticky, also in the Inc Bits app in the market.

Please, please, please do a MD5 check of the download before flashing. You do not want to flash a bad download.

Hope this helps.

 

[legendarydog]

Thanks! I got my gps to work on cm7!

 

[russf22]

Hello All,

Sorry for the extensive delay in getting back to you. I did manage to update my radio to 11.19 and am now a very happy camper!!! Running nightly 102, and trying to get ADW set up to my liking.... this is of course after I had GO launcher all customized on my stock rom. Hopefully losing GPS when flashing roms will just be a bad memory from here on out!!

Thank you all for the great help.

Russ