GPS on the Droid

[BrandonGoodman]

Had this very same issue in the desert. Was in Arizona the last few weeks and it worked very well for about a week and 1/2 and then started having problems getting a lock. Did the *228 and didn't help. Also had no lock and lost signals in LA around Hollywood/Santa Monica area and up the pacific coast hwy. The thing that really frustrated me was when we were leaving for the airport this morning at 4:30am, we had to return a rental car close to the airport and I put the address in to go to the air port and it got a lock after a couple minutes but then it tried to route me in a huge loop that would have took twice as long to get there. I used it a few days ago to pick up my wife from there so why it would route me so differently this time I have no clue. Good thing I was in Az long enough to learn which direction to go to pick up 51, it finally rerouted the right path when I got close enough to 51. I've used it a lot and loved it until these issues, makes me not trust it. LCH

I am in the Phoenix area too. Have you tried disabling and re-enabling the GPS when this happens. Seems to work well for me. I use the built in homescreen widget for that.

 

[LCH]

I am in the Phoenix area too. Have you tried disabling and re-enabling the GPS when this happens. Seems to work well for me. I use the built in homescreen widget for that.

Yes. I would use a toggle widget to toggle it on and off, would work sometimes but sometimes not and I would lay it down and it would eventually lock and start telling directions. It would say searching for signal or GPS signal was lost. When we first got there I used it to find my way around and it seemed to work great like usual but before we left is when I had the issues. Had more trouble with it around Sedona than Phoenix. This morning was the biggest issue I had in Phoenix. Beautiful Area by the way....LCH

 

[ericatomars06]

Lately my GPS has been acting really dumb, its making me mad. I have the my tracks (free app in the market) and it could NEVER get my location right, so I deleted it. But even still I had to uninstall the latest update of google maps because it wouldn't work and ever since then it's just been really bad. I'm really pulling for the 2.1 update to fix whatever that problem is because Google Maps is a weekly app for me and I need it to work right all the time not just some of the time.

 

[baycruisers]

Had this very same issue in the desert. Was in Arizona the last few weeks and it worked very well for about a week and 1/2 and then started having problems getting a lock. Did the *228 and didn't help. Also had no lock and lost signals in LA around Hollywood/Santa Monica area and up the pacific coast hwy. The thing that really frustrated me was when we were leaving for the airport this morning at 4:30am, we had to return a rental car close to the airport and I put the address in to go to the air port and it got a lock after a couple minutes but then it tried to route me in a huge loop that would have took twice as long to get there. I used it a few days ago to pick up my wife from there so why it would route me so differently this time I have no clue. Good thing I was in Az long enough to learn which direction to go to pick up 51, it finally rerouted the right path when I got close enough to 51. I've used it a lot and loved it until these issues, makes me not trust it. LCH

There may be several things going on here--the difficulty getting a signal lock and imperfect routing algorithms. My Garmin usually performs flawlessly, but several times it has come up with truly silly routings that seem to have no logic. The most serious occurrence was when I was traveling to Northern Virginia. The Garmin kept telling me to get off the interstate, take side streets, and then get back on the interstate. While traffic was heavy, there was no logical reason to do this. Fortunately, I know the area and no harm was done. It's also happened closer to home (Richmond) but again, knowing the area I could safely ignore the directions.

 

[Zorro1]

I've noticed lately that when I fire up GPS/maps, it takes me to where I was the last time, making me think both times that the gps hadn't locked...and I kept turning it on and off and waiting....then something made me realize that it was locked, I hit the Locate Me and voila, we were good. This after the Maps update, so perhaps defaulting to last location instead of now?

 

[LCH]

I noticed part of the time when mine was giving me problems my location would have the big halo around it where it was using the cell towers to get my location which isnt close enough to accurate for most gps situations. LCH

 

[Genetic_Bloom]

Mine seems to have problems when wifi is turned off. It doesn't matter if it's connected to it or not, when it's turned on and connected to 3G it locks fine, but when wifi is off and it's connected to 3G it seems to have problems connecting. Maybe this is others problem as well? I don't know why this would be but it's what I've noticed lately.