How do I stop my GPS Icon from flashing (ATT HTC One M8)?

[AC Question]

GPS Icon Flashing - Increased Battery Drain on ATT HTC One M8

I've noticed that my GPS icon continues to flash every minute or so. I've tried completely disabling location services as well as uninstalling apps that appear to be using GPS services (like weather).

In the battery manager, I notice that the bulk of my battery life with the screen off is being eaten by Android System 51%, and that the GPS has been active for 1h 11m in the last ~5 hours.

I can provide screenshots from battery manager if that will help, but this is far and away the outlier.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Bialosky]

**UPDATE: Thanks Hosephus for drawing attention to the IQAgentService in the Android process!**

I'm not rooted, stock AT&T 4.4.4. I can't disable the Android system process either bit I *can* disable its associated services when I click on it. The service I had running and which I disabled was the IQAgentService.

And since disabling it my phone has returned to normal! Persistent GPS on time and Awake time are no longer happening until that IQAgentService starts up on its own again, which it has done only twice in the past 24 hours I've even resumed using Google Now and high-accuracy location services with no ill effect.

What I was seeing (battery drain and loads of GPS on and Awake time in Battery –> History graph while my screen was off) has been replaced by the usual very intermittent blips of GPS-on and Awake time that I used to see. For the time being I guess I'll keep an eye on the IQAgentService.

 

[madelman99]

I can only stop IQ agent service, there is no option to force stop or disable. Even if stopped it will still start up again later and kernel and Android system still uses most of the battery.

 

[Bialosky]

I can't disable it either but when I stop it it remains stopped until a disconnection/reconnection to AT&T's network. I can see it start up again if I toggle Airplane mode.

 

[MatthewGavin]

**UPDATE: Thanks Hosephus for drawing attention to the IQAgentService in the Android process!**

I'm not rooted, stock AT&T 4.4.4. I can't disable the Android system process either bit I *can* disable its associated services when I click on it. The service I had running and which I disabled was the IQAgentService.

And since disabling it my phone has returned to normal! Persistent GPS on time and Awake time are no longer happening until that IQAgentService starts up on its own again, which it has done only twice in the past 24 hours I've even resumed using Google Now and high-accuracy location services with no ill effect.

What I was seeing (battery drain and loads of GPS on and Awake time in Battery –> History graph while my screen was off) has been replaced by the usual very intermittent blips of GPS-on and Awake time that I used to see. For the time being I guess I'll keep an eye on the IQAgentService.

How did you disable it? I can not disable anything. Actually, I can not click on anything in the Android System under Battery History.

 

[Bialosky]

"Disable" is the wrong word, I'm just hitting "Stop" on the IQ Agent Service in the Android System process and then "Stop" on the Android System process. It restarts automatically from time to time. I think I may root my phone just so I can permanently disable it.

 

[Trevor Khan]

I'm having the same problem. I almost never use location services and always have it off. The fact that it turns itself on pisses me off a lot. Strangely my GPS turns on every time I receive a phone call. I put my phone in airplane mode and the gps randomly turned on. Is this an HTC issue or At&t?

 

[Bialosky]

AT&T. This is a carrier-installed piece of tracking software.

 

[MatthewGavin]

Has anybody been in contact with ATT about this issue? I would like to know what they have said about it.

 

[madelman99]

Has anybody been in contact with ATT about this issue? I would like to know what they have said about it.

Someone mentioned that they are aware of this.

 

[madelman99]

I think I solved it… I believe the app DriveMode was causing an issue. Here is what I think happened. When I got my phone a year ago, I immediately disabled few apps, DriveMode was one of them. I believe the recent update was designed to more closely interact with DriveMode and even though the app was disabled, it appeared that as soon as the phone acquired data connection, it tried to determine whether or not the user was moving. When I re-enabled the app, I disabled it internally (within the app) and I guess that told the OS not to bother determining if the user was moving anymore. Here are the steps: I re-enabled DriveMode, I then went to google play and updated it to the latest version, I opened the app and immediately noticed GPS icon turned on, the screen appeared telling me to enable GPS, I checked ignore check box and left the location service running in battery save mode. I closed the Drive mode app and left it along without disabling it. I did this yesterday and haven’t noticed GPS turning on even once since then.
I hope this helps everyone solve this annoying problem; please let me know if this works for anyone…

 

[piaablind]

Dang. I thought you were on to something there. I disabled my drive mode too very early on. But this didn't work for me. The way to test it is i still see my gps flash when i get and send texts and when i make and receive calls. However my drive mode does not show up in my google play list as one i can update. It shows up in my app list after i re-enabled it, but cant update it. So that may be the difference for me.

 

[madelman99]

Dang. I thought you were on to something there. I disabled my drive mode too very early on. But this didn't work for me. The way to test it is i still see my gps flash when i get and send texts and when i make and receive calls. However my drive mode does not show up in my google play list as one i can update. It shows up in my app list after i re-enabled it, but cant update it. So that may be the difference for me.

Try uninstalling updates and see if it will show up. Which version of drive mode do you have? It will not show up unless you re enable it. Just sent few text messages and no GPS icon. Did you open Drive mode and made sure that it is disabled within the app?

 

[piaablind]

Says it is Drive Mode version 1.0.2.8
I have automatic mode disabled
Auto reply turned off.
Selected no when it asked if i would enable my GPS

 

[madelman99]

My version is 1.0.2.9

 

[piaablind]

Ahh, so i thought i was on to something. After re-enabling drive mode it didnt show up in my list of apps to update in google play store. So i manyally searched for that app to download. It showed i had it and gave an option to update. I updated it and it is now the same version yours is. I opened it and went through the steps you listed up there. Ignored the turn on gps, put location services in battery save mode (its worth noting that i have had location services turned OFF since i got the phone, so this is the first time it has ever been turned on at all)

After all this i rebooted the phone so it would be fresh and nothing extra running. Double checked that my GPS widget was turned OFF. Dialed the local time and temperature phone number and watched the notification bar ... and it still flashed the gps.

I have a feeling it truly is something AT&T released silently that caused us all to suddenly have this issue a week ago. I just hope they fix it at least when we get lolipop. I don't like feeling like "the man" is tracking my phone every time i see that stupid icon.

 

[madelman99]

Hmm, I wonder why it worked for me, I'll try to retrace my steps to see if I missed something. I think that you may be having a different issue, I never noticed GPS flashing when making phone calls, only when the phone required a signal.

 

[pyrodave]

Re: GPS Icon Flashing - Increased Battery Drain on ATT HTC One M8

Hi. I'm new to the forums and have had the same issue with my M8 since the at&t 4.4.4 update. Seems it's an issue with one of the stock at&t apps on the device. I spent some time on the phone with a guy at HTC who walked me through some steps that knock on wood, worked for now. Been close to a week and no GPS flashing and location is on. I had to do a factory reset in safe mode, after turning off fast boot use the volume down key when powering on the phone. After doing the reset immediately go to app store settings and select auto update off. It didn't work the first time seeing after the apps updated the GPS began to flash again. Doesn't eat a lot of battery but still annoying nevertheless. So after selecting auto update off, I haven't had an issue. You can safely update your non stock apps like Facebook etc by manually doing so in the play store.

 

[serlex]

So I may have discovered the kill-switch to end this issue; without the need to root. Using the app “AppOps” by Silvain Galvant, I denied all apps their ability to use the ‘Location’ permission; however, that didn’t solve the problem. I then went into the Android System’s permissions and denied it the ‘Keep Awake’ permission. Since this change it hasn’t appeared once. I’ve did at least 7 test calls and no icon; the IQ Agent Service is no longer running in the Android System nor has it re-booted. Correlation may not mean causation here but, it’s the only change I’ve made and the issue seems fixed.

 

[Rebel3085]

I have tried everything to fix this issue with no luck. I have called AT&T 3 times. First and third time they didn't even acknowledge that it was an issue. The second time however the rep knew what I was talking about. Only thing is I have not received a call back with an update as promised. I did find something I am curious about... My Baseband version: is 4.0.U606061(at)41216A_40.34.C35006.02_F however all the info I can find online, including AT&T shows it should be Baseband version: 4.0.U606061 (at)4 21 6A_40.34.C35006.02_F
As for the (at) part, the site won't let me use the at symbol. The part after the (at) is one digit off. Does anyone know if this is significant or is the info online a typo? What is everyone's version?

 

[madelman99]

I have the same version as you (41216A)