No GPS access from inside Waydroid

Sentinel

@Eric H said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:

I'm surprised by some of the bugs you report because I don't have the same ones on my poco x3 nfc.
For example, I was able to download Android images without a problem with Waydroid Helper, waydroid has access to GPS

Is it possible my GPS (and possibly other Waydroid) problems are due to "waydroid init" not working for me, such that I had to manually find & download the (hopefully?) correct vendor & Lineage system images, and then run "waydroid init -f" myself?

These are the images I used:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/waydroid/files/images/system/lineage/waydroid_arm64/lineage-20.0-20250809-VANILLA-waydroid_arm64-system.zip/download
OR
https://sourceforge.net/projects/waydroid/files/images/system/lineage/waydroid_arm64/lineage-20.0-20250809-GAPPS-waydroid_arm64-system.zip/download

AND

https://sourceforge.net/projects/waydroid/files/images/vendor/waydroid_arm64/lineage-17.1-20250809-HALIUM_10-waydroid_arm64-vendor.zip/download

Are they wrong, or do I need to so something more than just "waydroid init -f" to properly install Waydroid & get GPS working?

Vlad Nirky

@Sentinel
Have you tried disabling location services in UT before using GPS in Waydroid?
Have you tried the GPS test app via Atpoide?

gpatel-fr

@Sentinel said in No GPS access from inside Waydroid:

properly install Waydroid & get GPS working?

I never 'installed' Waydroid, I used the version coming with the OS and it helped me to understand GPS because the SatStat application allowed me to see immediately the satellits 'hits'. So in a way GPS is working better under Waydroid than under UT.

gpatel-fr

@Vlad-Nirky said in No GPS access from inside Waydroid:

disabling location services in UT before using GPS in Waydroid?

Hello

as a datapoint, for myself with a Fairphone 5 under 24.04.1, I can get position under Waydroid without disabling location services in UT.

Eric H

@sentinel hello,
Let's try to figure out why you have these unusual problems in order to fix them.
First can I ask you which version of MIUI did you flash before installing Ubuntu Touch?

The version of waydroid on my device is 20-20250809-VANILLA-waydroid_arm64

Sentinel

@Vlad-Nirky said in No GPS access from inside Waydroid:

@Sentinel
Have you tried disabling location services in UT before using GPS in Waydroid?
Have you tried the GPS test app via Atpoide?

THANK YOU for this suggestion! It never occurred to me that U.T. using the GPS might block Waydroid, since GPS data is essentially read-only (so I assumed they could both use it at the same time).

This has instantly made U.T. much more usable to me. (Now if only Waydroid didn't randomly glitch or stop working every few days - hopefully that will eventually get resolved.)

@gpatel-fr

as a datapoint, for myself with a Fairphone 5 under 24.04.1, I can get position under Waydroid without disabling location services in UT.

That is weird! I'm only using 24.04.0, but I can't see why that or me using a Poco X3 NFC would make a difference. (Surely either Waydroid can access GPS through U.T. or else it always requires exclusive access to the GPS device?)

EDIT: I just updated to U.T. 24.04.1, and it now seems that Waydroid is able to use GPS with U.T. Location service enabled - as long as it's not being used by a native app right now. But if I then start a native app that uses GPS, then Waydroid permanently looses access to GPS (even after the native app is quit), until I restart Waydroid itself. At least from some quick tests I did.

EDIT: Rather that the update to U.T. being the solution, it may be that until now I was always running the Clock app (which happens to use GPS), and so I didn't realise this was blocking Waydroid from using GPS.

Sentinel

@Eric-H said in No GPS access from inside Waydroid:

First can I ask you which version of MIUI did you flash before installing Ubuntu Touch?

While I seem to have solved the GPS problem, maybe the MIUI version I flashed might have impacted Waydroid's reliability or other things? I'd be happy to start a new thread for that, if you want? Just in case, this is the version I flashed:
surya_global_images_V12.0.9.0.QJGMIXM_20210508.0000.00_10.0_global_1b411d7477
(IIRC it was the oldest supported image I could find, which I assumed would be the best since it would have had the longest time for bugs to be found & fixed.)