GPS tracking in Background - Edge Hack (Not Devel, Stable, RC)

[ernest]

Try to let the phone outside for 5-10 min.
If test_GPS doesn't work for you, then my app will not work.

[herr-b]

GPS reception is not the problem, the app Activity Tracker is working and recording. I switched now the Activity Tracker to run in the background and it seems to keep running in the background. So I can navigate with Pure Maps in the foreground and record the track in the background. But as soon as the screen gets locked all the apps are stopped? Not sure, I will keep testing ... but if I play music in the Web Browser and the screen locks, also the music stops.
It looks that in the case the UT phone should be my only phone I will have to reactivate good old Garmin Foretrex 401 for track recording.

[ernest]

Yes app not in foreground doesn't get GPS signal, see my request there : https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/1067

[herr-b]

I can't confirm this. I allowed Activity Tracker to run in the background in UT Tweak Tool and started track recording in Activity Tracker. Then I started Pure Maps to navigate and switched apps from time to time. Most of the time I had Pure Maps in the foreground. At the end I had a complete track in Activity Tracker.

So this means, that Activity Tracker has GPS reception and works in the background (if allowed in UT Tweak Tool) in my case.

[herr-b]

Another test showed again the problem with the locked screen. In my test Activity Tracker did not continue recording, once the GPS reception was lost shortly in a building, also GPS reception should have been good again after the interruption. Only after unlocking the screen it continued track recording.

[hsce1]

Hi @ernest,

I just had a look at the Utrack.py and made the following change (line 183), which made the code run on my phone:

if re.search("^longtide", line): #longtide bug in test_gps
    try:
        long = line.split()
-       if re.match(".\d+.\d+", long[1]):
+       if re.match("(?:\d+(?:\.\d*)?|\.\d+)", long[1]):
            longitude = long[1]
        else:
            subprocess.Popen(["truncate", "-s", "0", temp_file], shell=False)

You are trying to match a floating point number here, right? Following this post it is apparently better to use "(?:\d+(?:\.\d*)?|\.\d+)". I've made a pull request.

I hope this does not break other things. On the my phone it works..

Here is the click if someone wants to test:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AADkOrVwV-YvTo00XtHnC997e3gRNIi0/view?usp=sharing

Best,
Hendrik

[ernest]

Thanks for the pull request,
I'll not be able to test it prior end of august (My goods and spare phone are in transit).

Let see the feedback of others.

[hsce1]

For me the fix seems to work. I am travelling by bike since more than a week and a combination of OSM Scout Server, Pure Maps and Utrack does a very good job guiding and tracking me. The error did not occur again.

However, I realized that two fuctionalities would improve Utrack a lot:

• Automatic saving of the track every few minutes in order not to loose the hard work of a day once the battery dies
• A possibility for pausing/resuming the tracking

Do you think this would be possible without deteriorating the battery performance?

[ernest]

Thanks for testing, I got back my Nexus 5. I should be able to look at it soon.

The aim of this wrapper was to enable simple GPS background tracking, but not pretending to have a full feature app. I'm not going to add functionality on a "hack" even working. It would be better to enable on Utouch the GPS background then we could start thinking on improving apps (like Activity Tracker).
We need visibility there : https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/1067

[Marcos]

Guys, I tested the last version from the OpenStore. Once I launch the script it indicates is searching for satellites but does not get the position so generates an empty gpx. If I run test_gps, it gives a "segmentation fault" message. However, GPS works (very) fine in other applications (GPS tracker or uNav). I' m on Volla RC. Any idea why the script is not working? I assume something related to halium or so but not really sure.