Extremely disappointed in GPS reception...

[Night Train]

All the while I had my Evo 4G, I could speak my destination and I'd get a near instant response from the Google Nav app pointing me in the right direction, GPS and all.

Now....with my otherwise great Epic Touch, all I get is the Searching for GPS signal notification. The difference is night-and-day between how well the Evo picked up and held the GPS signal and how my new Epic cannot seem to do the same. Same general area and inside the same vehicle. It's just a good thing that I didn't absolutely need it yesterday otherwise I'd have had a problem.

Anybody know if there's a fix in the works?

 

[xtn]

Mine works flawlessly. So I would suspect a hardware issue with your unit.

 

[DirkBelig]

Mine gets a position lock much faster than my EVO did, BUT I had it drop in My Tracks claiming it couldn't see the sky (I was outdoors!) and when I look at the GPS Status app, it shows a wobbly accuracy readout ranging from 8-50 feet. Geotags in photos come up 50-200 yards off from where I stood. If I was targeting a cruise missile, the splash damage would be sufficient, but come on.

 

[foxythang74]

I get the same searching for GPS signal response!!! Needed it to get somewhere last week and had to fight with just reading the streets on the map view to get there. Def. a dangerous thing while driving too!!!!!!!!!!! WTH? Hopefully someone has an answer for this.

 

[jfenton]

If you watch the GPS closely, it turns off the minute it's not being utilized by a program...my guess it's a sort of sleep for power savings.

The only way I get mine to look really quickly is from a cold start...not if it has been left on a while and then seemingly goes into suspend mode.

Personally I think Google maps blows....Telenav locks on instantaneously and never ever has a problem knowing where I am or getting me where I am going. I suppose it could depend on what you are using them for however.

 

[Night Train]

Personally I think Google maps blows....Telenav locks on instantaneously and never ever has a problem knowing where I am or getting me where I am going. I suppose it could depend on what you are using them for however.

I used TeleNav this afternoon after reading your suggestion....the results were identical to what happened with the GPS signal in Google Navigation. It would eventually find a signal, but after driving a few yards, would stop tracking my movement. Then the polite lady came on and told me what I already knew....GPS signal was lost.

I'd hate to think that after bragging about this phone to everybody who would listen, one of the key features I rely on fairly often is unreliable at best.

 

[Flyboy1100]

##gpsclrx# enter your msl, reboot.

Should fix it unless you have a hardware fault

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

[handsomeprince#AC]

##gpsclrx# enter your msl, reboot.

Should fix it unless you have a hardware fault

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Are you sure that's a way to fix it if it truly isn't a hardware issue?

 

[Holsum]

are you guys doing anything else while using navigation (pandora, spotify, google music, etc) i had this same issue with my EVO 4G when it first came out the second i turned off the streaming it worked flawlessly.

 

[Flyboy1100]

Are you sure that's a way to fix it if it truly isn't a hardware issue?

It works for me if I am not getting a lock quickly. After clearing the cache, and a reboot, it will lock in under a second. I find it works better than the gps status app.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

[yankees177]

This definately happens for me too. My EVO wasnt all that fast locking in but this phone is even worse. Eventually it does lock in and I have never had a problem with it dropping signal but I shouldnt have to reboot, enter and MSL code or anything to get this to work correctly. I have to use it later today and I will see if I clear the cache if that helps. I will make sure I will have no other applications running either.

 

[aquaholik]

I am lucky. Tested 4 phones, all locked within 15 secs. Drove around town with all four of them, none lost positions. Not having such good luck with stock chargers. All gave me problem when battery level is low.

BTW, adding shortcuts for direction to the home page is really sweet. One touch button to drive to your favorite place is great without having to bring up telnav or navigation and then entering or searching for your favorite places.

 

[handsomeprince#AC]

This definately happens for me too. My EVO wasnt all that fast locking in but this phone is even worse. Eventually it does lock in and I have never had a problem with it dropping signal but I shouldnt have to reboot, enter and MSL code or anything to get this to work correctly. I have to use it later today and I will see if I clear the cache if that helps. I will make sure I will have no other applications running either.

I 100% AGREE; shouldn't have to do all that for it to work efficiently and properly.

Ive experienced the same thing with my SG2; takes forever to lock. My brother has an EVO 3D; riding with him one time we set coordinates for the same destination to test it out and his locked instantly while my 'status ring' kept circling and circling waiting to establish a lock...literally for a whole minute.

Please do let us know how it worked out for you after taking thoe steps; I'm curious.

 

[pb_2000]

I found a method to speed it up. Install a GPS tool, every time this tool runs, it download a gps fix file. And this speed up the lock. I found out that my lock sometimes take awhile after turning it on after a long time (weeks) and my new location is completely different than my last known time (weeks ago).

Maybe your normal app doesnt download this file automatically.

Another solution may, that your mobile clock is not synched with the carrier clock. If your phone time differs more than several seconds can lengthen the calculation to get a fix.

 

[jfenton]

I had this issue crop up over the weekend and it has gotten worse. GPS takes 30 seconds to 4 minutes to lock.

Called Sprint, the reset the phone to factory, re-provisioned it and it still didn't work right.

Took it to a Sprint Corporate store / repair center and after an hour and a half them came pout and told me they fixed my 3g issue? I showed them the GPS issue and they are ordering me a new phone as they are all out of them.

BTW....installing and turning on GPS test first doesn't help. Clearing the agps data doesn't help either. At times once the GPS does start working it just simply gives up the ghost and goes dead for varying amounts of time as well.

When this happens, I also get an ERROR 128 message on the screen saying signal was lost. Unable to sign on to the network. Unfortunately it doesn't tell me if it corresponds to GPS, 3G, etc?

 

[Daedalus]

I hate to point this out but this is the exact same issues that the Original Epic and Vibrant (Both Galaxy S) had and the main reason why I did not get another Samsung phone. I am wondering if the Quality Control is just about non-exsistant in this line.

 

[Jonneh]

Yeah I hate to tell you guys but this was one of the biggest (if not the biggest) problems with the first Galaxy lines brought to the US. "Samsung = Sh*tty GPS" was said often, almost as much as "Samsung = No Updates Ever" was said.

It's a shame this is still a frequent problem with their handsets, because I was thinking of trying them out. Motorola's GPS locks in just a few seconds on my Atrix. Of course, it has a ton of other hardware problems, like mobile signal and wifi signal....
It seems no ONE manufacturer can design a device that is sufficient in all parts of Quality Control...

 

[Tonio21]

Actually folks one little box can screw your GPS up. When you open location and security, make sure sensor aiding is turned off. It has a prompt that comes up when first using maps or something pertaining to gps.
If it's on, it makes GPS take ages to locate and lock on to your position. Found this out when my GPS was working great until I turned that on.

 

[handsomeprince#AC]

Actually folks one little box can screw your GPS up. When you open location and security, make sure sensor aiding is turned off. It has a prompt that comes up when first using maps or something pertaining to gps.
If it's on, it makes GPS take ages to locate and lock on to your position. Found this out when my GPS was working great until I turned that on.

Really? I thought it doesn't matter if sensor aiding is turned on.

 

[h4ldol]

My GPS locking has gone back to being lightning quick. Today it literally took under 2 seconds to get a precise lock. It was minimally cloudy today, so maybe that was the difference. When the weather was worse (cloudy/rainy as it often is out here in the Pacific NW) it has taken up to several minutes to lock on (maybe up to 4-5 min).