GPS fix for the Triumph

[theboundless]

Hey guys,

Just sharing a gps solution I found, I didn't create it. I know a lot of people complained about the slow gps lock, but I've never noticed anything extremely different from the OV. Nevertheless, here is a supposed fix for those people who've experience slow gps lock. I've tried it, works fine.

xda-developers - View Single Post - [REQUEST] Motorola Triumph Forum

Flashable zip (back up your original file first!!!):
http://coderah.com/moto-triumph/flashable/mt_gps_conf.zip

 

[idbl_fanatic]

I wish there was a zip that we could flash. I am not 100% comfortable in doing this.

 

[sdmark]

I tried it on my phone. just make a backup of the original gps.conf file. I couldn't tell any difference, but some people are reporting it works.
It definitely doesn't break anything.

 

[theboundless]

I wish there was a zip that we could flash. I am not 100% comfortable in doing this.

Yeah, I was uncomfortable at first too, but its easy to make a backup of the original file and restore it easily. No problems for me so far using it.

 

[teknik]

How do you navigate to the system/etc folder.......do I need to root first?

 

[bombaw8]

How do you navigate to the system/etc folder.......do I need to root first?

Yes, you have to root first then use something like es or root explorer.

Just keep in mind this "fix" is like painting flames on your car doors. It will make the car go faster only if you think it is.

If your gps was slow to lock and inaccurate before it will still be after this change. If it was working okay in the first place this won't make it any worst.... or any better.

In any case, this change is very minor, it won't break anything so don't be afraid to give it a try.

 

[theboundless]

Just keep in mind this "fix" is like painting flames on your car doors. It will make the car go faster only if you think it is.

If your gps was slow to lock and inaccurate before it will still be after this change. If it was working okay in the first place this won't make it any worst.... or any better.

And how do you know that this "fix" doesn't work at all? I'm not being sarcastic, I just really want to know what info you have that this doesn't do anything.

 

[bombaw8]

And how do you know that this "fix" doesn't work at all? I'm not being sarcastic, I just really want to know what info you have that this doesn't do anything.

Excellent question!

Without going too much into gps/a-gps/almanac/ephemeris/ntp/supl/wiper (more than enough info can be found via google or search on xda) and how they fit together. Suffice to say that by looking at the stock gps.conf file you can tell that the Triumph had already included all the known A-gps ?tweaks?. I trust you have looked at the stock gps.conf file on your T and have compared it to the supposed ?fix,? and have noticed the only change was a modification to use the ntp.org server instead of gpsonextra.net server as time source?

In the simplest term, NTP provides a highly accurate time to your phone. along with other A-GPS info, NTP helps GPS to ?cheat? by skipping through the slow process of downloading data from individual Satellites. This tweak had dramatic effect on some of the older phones with mis-configed A-GPS but only because those phones did not have any time source defined.

The stock Triumph gps.conf uses xtra1.gpsonextra.net as its ntp server. Gpsonextra is a server pool hosted by Qualcomm specifically to provide A-GPS services to phones. ntp.org is a general time source that is used by everything from aircrafts to desktop computers. their serves are divided into different pools based on geographic region in order to reduce latency. us.pool.ntp.org is one of those pools consisted of servers located in US. Both gpsonextra and ntp time sources are perfectly valid. In fact, from where I am (east cost USA) the ping time to gpsonextra.net was almost half of us.pool.ntp.org. so in theory, I would have gotten a more accurate time from gpsonextra instead of ntp.org.

to answer your question, I know this ?fix? is no magic not only because I know what it really does but also because I have already tried many known gps.conf tweaks on my own Triumph, including changes to use ntp.org. they did absolutely nothing to make the gps work any better.

Then again, like I said, this is such a small change it would not hurt your phone in anyway. there?s no reason not to try it. And for those who seem to think this ?fix? had magically given them a working GPS, I suggest as a sanity test, put the original ntp server back and see if you can notice any real difference.

 

[theboundless]

Excellent question!

Without going too much into gps/a-gps/almanac/ephemeris/ntp/supl/wiper (more than enough info can be found via google or search on xda) and how they fit together. Suffice to say that by looking at the stock gps.conf file you can tell that the Triumph had already included all the known A-gps ?tweaks?. I trust you have looked at the stock gps.conf file on your T and have compared it to the supposed ?fix,? and have noticed the only change was a modification to use the ntp.org server instead of gpsonextra.net server as time source?

In the simplest term, NTP provides a highly accurate time to your phone. along with other A-GPS info, NTP helps GPS to ?cheat? by skipping through the slow process of downloading data from individual Satellites. This tweak had dramatic effect on some of the older phones with mis-configed A-GPS but only because those phones did not have any time source defined.

The stock Triumph gps.conf uses xtra1.gpsonextra.net as its ntp server. Gpsonextra is a server pool hosted by Qualcomm specifically to provide A-GPS services to phones. ntp.org is a general time source that is used by everything from aircrafts to desktop computers. their serves are divided into different pools based on geographic region in order to reduce latency. us.pool.ntp.org is one of those pools consisted of servers located in US. Both gpsonextra and ntp time sources are perfectly valid. In fact, from where I am (east cost USA) the ping time to gpsonextra.net was almost half of us.pool.ntp.org. so in theory, I would have gotten a more accurate time from gpsonextra instead of ntp.org.

to answer your question, I know this ?fix? is no magic not only because I know what it really does but also because I have already tried many known gps.conf tweaks on my own Triumph, including changes to use ntp.org. they did absolutely nothing to make the gps work any better.

Then again, like I said, this is such a small change it would not hurt your phone in anyway. there?s no reason not to try it. And for those who seem to think this ?fix? had magically given them a working GPS, I suggest as a sanity test, put the original ntp server back and see if you can notice any real difference.

I guess the difficulty in knowing if a gps is locking "slow" or "fast" is that its seems to vary so much. I've had a garmin gps unit, and sometimes it would take a few minutes to lock. Same with the OV. And same with the MT. But other times, all of them had locked almost instantly. I haven't experienced anything excessive with the MT, no more than a few minutes.

Thanks for the info though.

 

[bombaw8]

I guess the difficulty in knowing if a gps is locking "slow" or "fast" is that its seems to vary so much. I've had a garmin gps unit, and sometimes it would take a few minutes to lock. Same with the OV. And same with the MT. But other times, all of them had locked almost instantly. I haven't experienced anything excessive with the MT, no more than a few minutes.

Thanks for the info though.

if you never have to wait for more than a few minutes to lock on your T, especially after the GPS was turned off for more than a week, or after you fly to another city (forcing the GPS to reacquire its location and sat info, rather than using the cached location info). then I’d say your gps is working at an acceptable level and there’s nothing to worry about and no reason to bother with any of these tweaks.


(just make sure you are really testing the GPS lock, just seeing your location on google map is NOT a gps lock. verify if you really have a GPS lock by starting google navigator to another address, or using tools like GPS Test).


traditional GPS such as your garmin has to rely only on the information received from Sats so if it could lock-in within a few minutes then it’s performing very well indeed. if you put the same gps in a phone, then help it by giving it some location info downloaded via wireless then you'd result in a good A-GPS (like the one on the OV) that can almost always lock in within a few seconds.

any modern phone with A-GPS should be capable of that level of performance but not all of them do. Chalk it down to bad design or factories trying to cut corners and reducing costs. i have no idea what's causing the strange GPS problems in the T however. normally if a phone has bad GPS then all the phones will be bad. with the T for some reason it’s a crap shot…

 

[shinydiscopants]

I found another fix that works at least on my phone. I'm curious if it'll work on others.

I downloaded GPS Test from the market. Every time I run that app before Google Nav or Maps, I get a gps fix within 10 to 20 seconds. Without running that app, it could take 3 to 5 minutes. It's almost like GPS Test "warms up" the gps.

So I just put GPS Test as one of my car home icons along with my navigation app, and it's just an additional 2 taps to quickly navigating in my car.

I'm still debating whether I should return this pbone in an attempt to get a phone where I don't have to do this workaround. There may be a risk of getting a phone with slow gps AND this workaround not working though.