Apparent GPS Failure

[spalding12]

So wierd. My Nav was working great til 3 hours ago. Then I got a wide grey bar across the top of the screen with the message:

"Follow the route"

and a thinner grey bay on on the bottom that says:

"Searching for GPS..."
I rebooted, took the battery out and let it sit, 3 times.... nothing.
Then I decided to exchange it tomorrow. I think in made my little Droid sad and ir suddenly started to work again. I wonder if it will last...........................................????
Then

i honestly don't think it's a DROID issue
so.... exchanging it won't help (at least, permanently)
it's just some verizon issue that hasn't been worked out yet.... IMHO, of course

 

[spalding12]

would love to keep this thread alive
maybe we can PIN it.... until the issues are fixed... please

 

[jaymeangreen]

would love to keep this thread alive
maybe we can PIN it.... until the issues are fixed... please

i agree , keeping it alive and people talking about it is our only hope of action by verizon. there are some people who think " it makes the droid look bad ". I for one could care less about a popularity contest with the iphone. And for all the people who write " if you only bought it for the navigation your a fool " or " if you wanted better pictures you should have bought a Nikon" . I JUST WANT A PRODUCT I PURCHASED TO WORK AS ADVERTISED

 

[darreno1]

would love to keep this thread alive
maybe we can PIN it.... until the issues are fixed... please

i agree , keeping it alive and people talking about it is our only hope of action by verizon. there are some people who think " it makes the droid look bad ". I for one could care less about a popularity contest with the iphone. And for all the people who write " if you only bought it for the navigation your a fool " or " if you wanted better pictures you should have bought a Nikon" . I JUST WANT A PRODUCT I PURCHASED TO WORK AS ADVERTISED

Actually if you check out the iphone forums they have similar problems with the GPS as well. IMO all these mobile GPS systems are quirky and still somewhat experimental. I had issues with my Pre where 1 out of 5 times required a reboot for the chip to function. Although I must say this altel issue is pretty strange.

 

[spalding12]

quirky.... is right
twice today my phone screen stayed blank, not allowing me to end a call... no matter what i did

only removing and replacing the battery "fixed" the problem

the droid...... a "work in progress" like every other new smartphone

 

[spalding12]

one more thing.....
why do we have to wait until 12/11 for the big firmware update?
if they have MOST of it "done" now... why not give it to us?

come on, verizon (and motorola... and google)
what's the deal?
help us out now, please

 

[Erich_F]

I have had the black screen after a call myself once or twice, but never had to pull the battery. The last time it happened, I just put it back to the side of my face, making sure the sensor was mashed against my face. After a second or so, I pulled it back away and the screen came back as normal. It's a wierd thing.

 

[Backnblack]

one more thing.....
why do we have to wait until 12/11 for the big firmware update?
if they have MOST of it "done" now... why not give it to us?

They released 2.0 early....why do you want a patch to fix what they released early....released early?

 

[spalding12]

I have had the black screen after a call myself once or twice, but never had to pull the battery. The last time it happened, I just put it back to the side of my face, making sure the sensor was mashed against my face. After a second or so, I pulled it back away and the screen came back as normal. It's a wierd thing.

great post
i'll try that next time
thank you

 

[spalding12]

one more thing.....
why do we have to wait until 12/11 for the big firmware update?
if they have MOST of it "done" now... why not give it to us?

They released 2.0 early....why do you want a patch to fix what they released early....released early?

good point
thank you

 

[jaymeangreen]

I got a lock this afternoon woo- hoo! Should be good to go for at least a couple hours LOL

 

[spalding12]

I got a lock this afternoon woo- hoo! Should be good to go for at least a couple hours LOL

LOL....
so, is it STILL working?
nothing for me today
and i've tried (as i always do) several times

 

[Droidovod]

Hey,

I just experienced the GPS failure - It was showing me in totaly different states.

SOLUTION

Uninstall Weatherbug and reboot.
Everything fine now.

There are different settings in weatherbug - i think you can set location using cell or satellite - i think i switched my to satellite recently - and that's probably where it started to conflict with Android GPS,

 

[MLSPHS]

I read up to page 14 of this thread and then read the last three pages. I live in Ohio and I travel to Indiana. The first few weeks I didn't have any problems with Navigation. But after 3 weeks I have started having the same problem that other people here are complaining about. While traveling I stopped in a Verizon store in Evansville Indiana on Black Friday and asked for help. They were clueless to how the droid worked but suggested removing the battery. This fixed my problem. From that point on I have had to remove my battery every so many days. Sometimes powering down has fixed the problem. But last night no matter what I did in Terre Haute Indiana I could not get Navigation to work .It has worked in Terre Haute before. I tried just using the phone GPS and the Verizon GPS separately and took the battery out twice. Another person in the same area as me had the same problem. They didn't buy the phone for the GPS and don't use the GPS and we were in a building whenever I tried to test their phone. I over heard some people with stand-alone GPSs say that were able to navigate fine to our location. I think the problem is more related to the roaming or connectivity to the G3 network.. Even though the phone says its searching for a GPS maybe its really searching for a good connection to Google Navigation?? It would be interesting to see how the GPS works with a stand-alone program that doesn't have any network maps. From what I read previously there is an app that does this and it has worked for some people which would lead me to believe it my be a "Google problem". If it is not Google than maybe it is a switching tower problem. This would explain why previous ALTEL customers are having more issues than Verizon customers. I have always been Verizon. Is there a way to test this by telling the phone to only pick-up certain towers? Overall, based on what I have read, removing the battery seems to be the most common solution. Perhaps removing other apps allows the phone to not be over tasked with which program has priority to accessing the GPS. Does Verizon use both GPS and towers to determine our position in an emrgency? Maybe the problem is in how their network tracks our phone? Bottom line its a problem that we as customers cannot fix. If we keep reporting our different problems maybe Verizon will find a quicker sollution. I sure hope so, I have been a loyal customer for over 15 years. I was ready to switch to the Iphone before the droid came out.

 

[benwiggin2]

I read up to page 14 of this thread and then read the last three pages... I over heard some people with stand-alone GPSs say that were able to navigate fine to our location. I think the problem is more related to the roaming or connectivity to the G3 network.. Even though the phone says its searching for a GPS maybe its really searching for a good connection to Google Navigation??

Don't mean to threadjack here MLSPHS, but I think you cleared up a question I had...Even though there may be Sat's available, we still need the 3G connection to have any functionality with SAT based app's, correct?
Thanks all,
Brock