Verizon GPS issues?

[Riluske]

Ok, this is a bit of a long story, so bare with me.

I recently moved from NC to CA. My phone somehow broke on the plane (wouldn't boot) so I went to the Verizon Store and had them send me a replacement (got it about a week ago). Since I got the replacement, my GPS has not worked. It is unable to find me, often giving me a blue circle of two or three city blocks. Navigation doesn't work, and even after letting it sit for a while, the circle still refuses to go away.

Well, I'm someone who likes my stuff to work, so I brought the phone back to the Verizon Store to try to get another replacement. Well, they tested my phone, and sure enough the gps was off. Then they tested it against all the employee's phones (all different models ranging from the X2 to the Incredible 2). Turns out all of the Android phones were off, but showing the exact same location. We then tested the phones against the display models. All of those read correctly.

Two people I live with also have Android phones, and both of theirs read correctly, it appears to just be mine and the verizon employee's phones. I have since erased my google maps cache and cleared and redownloaded the AGPS data. None of these things work.

Since it's not only my phone, it would appear that this is not an isolated issue. I'm not sure if it's just phones that Verizon has recently sent out, or if it's something else. Anyone else having this issue? Does anybody have any solutions?

 

[hookbill]

Ok, this is a bit of a long story, so bare with me.

I recently moved from NC to CA. My phone somehow broke on the plane (wouldn't boot) so I went to the Verizon Store and had them send me a replacement (got it about a week ago). Since I got the replacement, my GPS has not worked. It is unable to find me, often giving me a blue circle of two or three city blocks. Navigation doesn't work, and even after letting it sit for a while, the circle still refuses to go away.

Well, I'm someone who likes my stuff to work, so I brought the phone back to the Verizon Store to try to get another replacement. Well, they tested my phone, and sure enough the gps was off. Then they tested it against all the employee's phones (all different models ranging from the X2 to the Incredible 2). Turns out all of the Android phones were off, but showing the exact same location. We then tested the phones against the display models. All of those read correctly.

Two people I live with also have Android phones, and both of theirs read correctly, it appears to just be mine and the verizon employee's phones. I have since erased my google maps cache and cleared and redownloaded the AGPS data. None of these things work.

Since it's not only my phone, it would appear that this is not an isolated issue. I'm not sure if it's just phones that Verizon has recently sent out, or if it's something else. Anyone else having this issue? Does anybody have any solutions?

Last night I was attempting to follow my wife's trip from Virginia to Ohio. It found her but I knew what highway she was on and I didn't see it anywhere around..

About an hour later I tried again. It had me located in a different County approximately 7 miles from where I live. My wife showed up near Columbus.

We live between Akron and Cleveland, so there is no way that my wife is in Columbus.

I think using the GPS for navigation seems to work great, but something about maps appears to be off. Sometimes seriously off. I don't believe it's your phone, I've seen many other people talk about it. Last night was the first night I actually experienced it.

 

[johnnyocc]

I have just posted about this issue as of 3 days ago my GPS will not stay active when I go to Maps and activate it while in maps it works fine the Satelite Icon will activate as soon as I go back to the main screen the icon disappears and Gps turns off, when this happens I believe the phone will default to the nearest cell tower for location which can be miles off of actual location.. I have called support via 611 and also went to the verizon tech center store all of which were no help or seemingly not understanding the concept of active gps...it has and did work before..what has changed?? no one could help me or give me an answer wow so here i am looking here for the answer..LOL

 

[Riluske]

Ok, so yesterday I called Verizon and talked to one of their tech support people (not the customer service rep). I mentioned the troubleshooting that we did, and it ended up that she is just going to send me a new phone.

However, I think that the problem is with the Google GPS. What she told me was that Verizon Droid phones use three separate sources for location. It uses the standard government GPS satellites (This is activated by turning on stand-alone GPS), triangulation through Verizon cell towers (activate VZW location services), and Google's own GPS satellite (activate Google location services). She also said that the Google GPS is often times off, but all three should balance out. When I got off the phone with her, I decided to test this and turned off the Google GPS. It took a while , but my phone was able to find a much more accurate position for me. Then I put it back on, and sure enough my location was off again.

To sum it up, basically the Google GPS service is having the issues. I think that something must have happened in programming that made it the primary service as the other services don't seem to balance it out.

 

[johnnyocc]

Riluske on the money

Well here you go shame on you verizon Tech, and Kudos to Riluske I tried what you suggested and guess what all is as should be must be a corrupted software with that one google GPS now off and my satelite icon stays on and gives me actual location every hour...so glad I checked this site...again thanks

 

[SDuke]

Thanks, Riluske! I was having the same issues after the Gingerbread update, and tried all the same things you had without success. But I see now that unchecking/switching off the Google location service while keeping the others checked instantly fixed the problem, giving me an accurate reading. I guess the update made Google location services ignore the others, as per your hypothesis. Thanks for sharing your solution!