uNav GPS not working

A Former User

Thanks for your support. It has been a while and I still enjoy my UBports phone.
BUT the main problem still remains with the slow GPS. If im on the go and need some directions I cant wait for 10 minutes and/or reboot the phone until it works. This is a great practice to keep calme though.
Searching streets in Germany works better now. I switched the maps once but I cant tell whats selected right now. It only says "Mapbox (Voreinstellung)" in maps settings menu. But I cant tell if it is selected.
@AppLee how can I see the selected search engine?
I just bought an OnePlus 3T, will the GPS be as slow as with my OP One using UBports?
Greetings.

AppLee

@JimmyPesto
GPS is not slow, it's normal.
Lack of A-GPS is what you consider being slow.

Do not reboot your phone it doesn't help.
The first fix takes a long time, but then it's faster (if you don't reboot).

In pure maps:

Tap the magnifying glass icon
Then tap the mini hamburger menu in the top right corner
It shows the selected search engine

If you tap on it you'll see more info: default is set to photon for me and there are alternatives (Digitransit and OpenCage)

Mapbox is the default tiles used for the map ; not the search engine

Lakotaubp

@JimmyPesto Last time I tried on OP3 with uNav it took about 20 secs. Today uNav is blank for me so can't check just now

A Former User

@AppLee Yea you right, first localization is slow. After this GPS is okay.
What exactly do you mean by "first fix". So after each reboot or power on the phone has to relocate itself for the first time? What about turning GPS off/on in the settings?
Thanks for clarification, I'm using Photon as well, and its suggestions are reasonable.

@Lakotaubp with GPS always enabled and the phone was powered on for some time I guess? 20s sounds great.

AppLee

@JimmyPesto
What we call GPS fix is the time for a GPS chip to catch enough GPS satellite signals to determine its location.
The first fix is the first time your phone is able to localize itself.

In fact I don't know if turning off the GPS using the settings will have the same effect as turning off the phone ; maybe.
I rarely turn it off because it doesn't use so much power...

A Former User

I'm used to this from using Android. It gives you the feeling of having control of your data. haha
Maybe I should just keep it enabled all the time.
Thanks for your quick feedback.

AppLee

@JimmyPesto
On android I don't trust the OS with my location.

But UT doesn't use this information when you don't need it and GPS being passive it's not a threat for me.

A Former User

@AppLee this is why I said it "gives you the feeling of".
Yea I'm going to keep it enabled. Thanks for your support.

A Former User

After some time I am still in love with this wonderful OS. It has even got better and better since the last updates and newest apps.
I have GPS enabled ever since @AppLee told me to.
But only a couple of times GPS worked and I was able to navigate using the phone. Since the last months I was not even able to get my position a single time. This is really frustrating as it is the only thing left from enabling me to use this system only without any Android backup phone..
I can lay the phone outside on a table for 20 mins or take a walk for 20 min but I get no GPS position in neither on of the apps available. It would be awesome to find a way so that I could rely on navigation. When I travel and need to find certain place I can not wait for 30 minutes until GPS is working...
Running test_gps is printing a lot of information continuously but I do not understand it. Should I post the output here?

Thanks for your support.

Greetings,

Jimmy Pesto

flohack

@jimmypesto said in uNav GPS not working:

orked and I was able to navigate using the phone. Since the last months I was not even able to get my position a single time. This is really frustrating as it is the only thing left from enabling me to use this system only without any Android backup phone..

No please dont post the output. You can check there if it prints a valid longitude/latitude after some time.

Is your device second-hand? Some devices loose goot contact with the GPS antenna over time, this might need to be readjusted. Ubuntu Touch cannot do much about it, we take the GPS coordinates from the Android service. So its probably a problem with your hardware, sorry too say.

A Former User

@flohack Thanks for you kind answer, but how should I know what valid/invalid data looks like?

Whats the difference between *** location callback and ***nmea info?
The *** location callback provides a latitude, magnitude and an accuracy of 10.000.
Its prints some coordinates. Sometimes the nmea (nr): rows have some empty fields ,, but not always.

A Former User

@jimmypesto
with my 2 N5 it is exactly the same... if I install LineageOS ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/hammerhead-lineageos/files/17.1/ ) both work fine ( only with GPS ) ...

( with Ubuntu ) if it has found the location it goes faster afterwards. But when you restart the device, the whole procedure starts again...

Best regards

A Former User

@manjushri thanks for your feedback.

May I ask how long it takes to initially get your location on these devices and where/how you place them to find it?

A Former User

Are there devices that are known to have a quicker GPS localization?

I love this OS so much and it would be awesome to find a solution I could rely on. Thanks for your help.

Edit:

I was able to run test_gps and see changes in my position while walking outside in less then 5 min.

I start to feel like I have a different problem with my OP1. I do not know if they are related but to sum up:

rotation does not spin the display (even though lock is disabled) which worked before
SensorStatus App is not able to access any of the sensors available on my device, some worked before

flohack

@jimmypesto Yes Oneplus 1 has a bug that the Android sensor API crashes from time to time, so you wont have any rotation, light, proximity etc sensors working. Very annoying but hard to fix.

You may want to wait for a few weeks as we are finishing the port for the Android 7.1 base, that might be more stable.

Regarding GPS, it could be a similar issue, but not sure. GPS is independent from sensors API

A Former User

@flohack You guys are doing awesome. Thanks for the info. Just donated to this project again.

Do you know the difference of how test_gps gets sensor data to the way apps do? Because I was able to somehow proof that test_gps seems to work.

A Former User

@jimmypesto
you're welcome, I do not have an optimal location, hills and mountains , but it works. Put the device outside on a wooden post. The first time takes 10-25min with my devices....
then 2-3 min ... the better the reception the faster... but if I uNav a few days not use it needs again 10-25min or it finds nothing more, then only helps to reinstall the app ... so I have already installed 4 times LineageOS to see if it works, it always worked fine even over time ( only GPS ) .
possibly this is also a possibility, had a friend of mine ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvIiNXf-NKo

A Former User

@manjushri at least it sounds like a nice location besides hills and mountains

Nice thanks for that info's! I will give it a new try after reinstalling uNav.

flohack

@jimmypesto its fed into Qt location API via a custom Qt module and the platform API which in turn tries to get Androids location API. But that part did not change for a long time, I dont see a reason why test_gps would work, but location wouldnt, tbh. So I am out of ideas ^^

A Former User

@flohack I see.
I will need to setup a fresh system I guess.