yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
Yes, I flash the RUU with BAMF 1.5. There were no improvements.

I will be receiving my RMA replacement tomorrow.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] EEdaesung:
I'm just wondering what settings does everyone use for their gps options?

^_^_^'s tbolt
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
Received my replacement phone and it won't lock onto position either. Of all the reported problems, I seem to be the only one with completely non working gps.

Is there anyone else in Texas with these problems?
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
Just found out that there is a widespread GPS issue in my area due to the recent VZW tower conversions.

Why is it so difficult to get this info from VZW?
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rholman:
What I find interesting is that the gps chip itself seems to be working ok. I'll have the unable to lock issue, run the gps info app, and see that it is watching 5-8 satellites with good signal strength and that it still won't determine a fix.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DarwynZ:
I have found if you wait long enought (about 5 minutes or so) it will eventually connect.. and once it does... your good to go.. also helps if you are standing still not moving in a car
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ERIFNOMI:
I certainly wasn't blaming it on your ROM. I'm pretty happy with it actually.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
GPS Status had 0 sats 90% of the time. Every once in a while 1 would come into view, but that's it.

I have received confirmation from two different VZW employees that GPS is broke in East Texas. Something to do with merging Alltel and Verizon towers.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sboats:
I finally made contact with a top level engineer named Travis. He posted to the Verizon Community Forum Site the notice/ticket that we've all heard about:

VZ Navigator and GPS Not working in East Texas - Verizon Wireless Community

He is going to visit our thread on a regular basis to get input or feedback on our GPS issues. He also stated that the ticket I have open is priority 1 because my phone is a Thunderbolt. Not sure why that's the case, but he said I should get a call from the engineer assigned to the ticket soon.

I encourage everyone with the East Texas GPS Outage issue to post to the Verizon forum. Travis has the screenname of VZWTravis.

The notice/ticket reads as follows:

From ticket created April 26th

VZW performed network integration work in this area on 4/6/11. the issue the customer is experiencing is due to the delay of Google updating their database with our new SID/BID/NID for the area. Google states that this issue normally clears up within 2-4 weeks once VZW network changes occur. please advise customer of the timeframe for resolution.

This is where the retail stores are getting their information. I made it clear to him that we are long past the 4 week mark and that I expected him to take ownership of our problem by finding a solution. :-) We'll see what happens.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Anyone have luck with the mods adrynalyne posted. I haven't tried them yet because I'm on a Droid X with Liberty rom...
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sboats:
I received a response from the Verizon Solutions Consultant I spoke with on Monday morning. This is the same gentleman that added our issue to the Verizon regional meeting that happened yesterday.

Here's his response:

﻿

"There is some lively discussion going on. One recommendation is making sure your device has the latest firmware update.

I will send a more comprehensive response later today, but again, wheels are in motion. We have the right team in

place isolate the problem and provide the solution."

I will post his comprehensive response later today.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
I love how they keep calling Google Maps a "third party" application. Point in fact is that Google Maps is a first party application. It's all the Verizon bloatware and VZ Naviagator that are the third party apps.

The person who said update your firmware won't be able to help. They obviously don't know what is going on. This problem is ALL on Verizon's side with the towers. Or maybe Google's, but verizon is going to have to push on Google...

I posted it before, but here it is again. We all need to go file FCC complaints. Disabling GPS on devices is illegal. verizon is only going to fix this if they get fined: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm .
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonakin:
Nope, it didn't help thewayne01 so I never tried it myself. While I appreciate that adrynalyne tried to work on this, I don't think it's something that software is going to fix. That's why it's so frustrating--seems like we're at the mercy of Verizon, and depending on who you talk to, I'm not sure they even think there's a problem.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
It appeared to help initially, but was no different than resetting aGPS data and force stopping GPS Status.

I was working in Lufkin yesterday and GPS worked beautifully. It is very frustrating to see that and then have no GPS back in Tyler.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mike.s:
LOL. How do you know that E911 location services don't work? GPS is _not_ a legal requirement. Sending location info along with 911 calls is.

For handset-based location (which is usually GPS, but could include tower triangulation or even WiFi triangulation), the requirement is within 50 meters on 67% of the calls and within 150 meters for 95%. They can also do network based location (which they very well may do as a fallback), where the requirement is only within 100 meters for 67% of the calls and within 300 meters for 95% of the calls.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
1. I have had to call 911 when tower triangulation was all they had to locate me, and they most definitely could not find me in the area I was in. From my personal experience, I do not consider ANY interference with the 911 system a "LOL" matter. So please don't make the claim that GPS is not a necessary function of e911.

If verizon is messing up peoples' GPS, and they force even one person to go through what I did when it could have been prevented, then it should be punishable by law even if it isn't right now.

You said it yourself, the location information included with a 911 call "is usually GPS". That means at the very least, Verizon is interfering with the main location assistance for e911, and they are forcing operators to fall back on much less precise information. Do you really think that knowing the precise location of an incident during an emergency situation isn't helpful? GPS assisted 911 calls save lives, period!

2. If you are trying to dissuade people from taking action about this, then you either don't care enough to see this fixed or you work for Verizon. Which is it?

3. The FCC considers disruption to the GPS system an investigable offense. It is listed as an example under the section on interference with public safety devices. There is no reason to take my word on it, go look for yourself if you doubt.

So again, this is exactly the type of thing the FCC was created to fix, but they have to be made aware of the problem. You can do that here: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Thanks jonakin and thewayne01. I must have tried dozen different flashes on my hone over the over the last month. What used to be fun is now a chore, so I'm glad to you let me know.

BTW, in regards to my last post, I'm usually not a ranty person, but the way Verizon is dealing with this (or not as is the case) has me about to come totally unglued.

At least I have driven north enough a couple times to see my GPS start working again. I think I would still be doubting that it wasn't partially my handset's fault if not for that.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mike.s:
Goodluckwiththat. By the time anyone at the FCC even reads your complaint, the issue will be fixed, Chicken Little. Get someone from the local E911 center to contact them (and that assumes that Verizon is violating E911 location regulations, which you have no evidence of, yet alone proven), and you might get action in a couple of months.

Quit posturing, and be honest - you're *****ing because your GPS doesn't work, and you want to have the government make Verizon fix that. Rationalizing that it's because of E911 concerns doesn't fool anyone.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Oh good lord, of course I am irritated that my GPS doesn't work. Aren't you? I'm tied to a contract with Verizon and I sure don't have the resources to make a giant multinational fix anything. I have no intention of needing to dial a GPS assisted 911 call anytime soon, but I'm not going to call the FCC and complain that my google maps doesn't work. You see a problem with the FCC cleaning up the e911 issue and all of us getting our GPS navigation back as an added bonus? I don't...

I pay taxes, I obey the law, so why shouldn't the government force Verizon to hold up their end of the contract? As for the month wait for the FCC to look into it, what are we on waiting for Verizon to look into it on their own? A month and a half?

I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but the FCC has a process in place to file a complaint about interference with my ability to access my GPS, so I used it. So should as many people as possible to speed up the process. And what do you mean I should contact the 911 center? You think I'm gonna dial 911 to ***** that my cell phone doesn't work? Get real.

What's your suggestion? Keep calling uniformed tech support agents in some call center that have no idea what we are talking about? Talk to the Verizon local store that doesn't give a damn because they already locked us into a contract? Wait another month and a half crossing your fingers that Verizon will fix it without a little prodding? What exactly do you think is going to change in the next month that didn't over the last one?

Seriously, you seem mighty keen on discrediting talking to the FCC about this. They'll investigate a HAM radio operator in a neighborhood. You don't thing they'd be interested in a 10000 square mile GPS deadzone created by Verizon?

If you have a better suggestion, go ahead though. I'm listening.....
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mike.s:
No, they don't. In fact, the FCC seems to care very little about GPS.

You're seriously ignorant about exactly what the FCC concerns itself with. Amateurs are self policing, and the FCC gets involved rarely. Hams in general cause very few problems - most complaints are because of poorly designed/built consumer electronics. In fact, they're much more likely to go after someone who is interfering with hams, and even then, real action often takes more than a year.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Most likely it won't help, but the form takes all of three minutes to fill out. I don't know or care what specific regulations verizon may be violating, but the FCC most certainly does have some sort of a relationship with verizon.

Yes, filing the form most likely won't help. However, NOT filing a complaint absolutely won't help.

The best results I have had so far have been emailing the CEO and getting this issue picked up by the Executive support team. They are tracking it and "sent some engineers" to check it out. Emailing the FCC and the executives both took less time than arguing about this with you has.

The page you pointed out had hundreds of instances of the FCC investigating single neighborhoods to check on interference. Have you looked at the google map of this? It's literally is a section of East Texas at least 100 miles on each side. If a neighborhood being interfered with warrants a response from the FCC, why wouldn't 10000 square miles of interference warrant at least an inquiry?

Anyway, I really have no idea how to get Verizon to fix this. I'm just popping out ideas that may help. I'm not going to argue the point anymore. So unless you have a solution to offer yourself, please return the courtesy.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Is GPS back up just about everywhere tonight? Mine has had a lock all night in Tyler. How is everyone else fairing?
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
I was wondering the same. It has been working in Whitehouse all night.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Lol, you must be like a mile from me. I say Tyler, because no one knows where Whitehouse is...
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
I had to go to Jacksonville in the middle of the night for work and had gps all the way there and back.

It looks as though it has been fixed. (knocking on wood)
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DarwynZ:
thats weird... didnt know that the GPS lock would have anything to do with the Alltel or VZW towers, but more the satellites in space
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 66dude:
Oh wow... I'm sorry you had to find out after getting your replacement TB about that issue. At least you have a hopefully newer TB to play with, and I hope it gets fixed soon! I had no idea that GPS depends on the towers working correctly. What if we're in an area not being served by Verizon or another mobile phone network? Would that mean that GPS won't work at all?
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xenowulf:
The GPS apps on all phone do look at the towers as well as your wifi and the sats. but that's not why it doesn't lock. If your out in the middle of nowhere where there is no cell service and no wifi, you should still get a lock. I have 2 thunderbolts and an evo 4g in my family, the 2 thunderbolts suck getting a lock, they show all the correct numbers of sats, good signals but no lock, I've noticed a trick is to open one gps app then goto another and back to to first, that sometimes makes it lock. On the other hand the evo 4g locks in half a second the longest time it took the evo to lock was about 30 sec. and that was on a plan at 33000 feet going at mack .92 (almost the speed of sound)

The bottom line is verizon need to fix their crap. Its not HTC
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Z51:
Install gps status from the market and update it. Problem solved
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xenowulf:
this is not an app or network issue, the issue seems to be with the actual GPS data not being interpreted properly and preventing a lock onto my position. i can exit gps status, launch maps and the lock will be instant, but if i was to wait for it to lock in gps status (OR in maps, for example) the lock only happens after 15seconds to 15 minutes.

i will repeat, if i launch gps status, THEN launch maps the lock is instant, but launching either application standalone makes my lock-on time insanely long.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
In east Texas this is a Verizon problem. It affects all Verizon customers here no matter which phone they have. I don't fully understand how the GPS relies on the cell tower either. I do know, however, if any of us travel out of the Verizon east Texas network, our GPS works again.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonakin:
thewayne01, I live in Tyler and my parents live in Carthage and I am experiencing the same thing as you. Can't get it to lock, thinks I'm in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Ecuador, etc. I thought my TB must be bad, but when I read your thread I got my brother to try on his Droid X from Tyler and his GPS is out as well--and his has worked fine in the past. None of the fixes anybody has suggested worked for me either. I was about to flash the radio but now I know not to waste my time.

No idea how the Alltel/Verizon tower issues could affect the GPS, but I'd sure like to know why. My dad has the AT&T iPhone and his GPS works fine out here, so it's definitely a Verizon thing.

Hopefully they will get it fixed.

Any devs out there have any clue why the Verizon towers would possibly affect the GPS locking?
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] meringo:
I called Verizon today (useless ass holes) and they discreetly transferred me to HTC. They are claiming due to the crisis in Japan, gps satellites for their phones are malfunctioning and they are working to fix the issue. They did offer to swap mine, but did say it shouldn't be long.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonakin:
For thewayne01 and any others who may be interested, I think I may have figured out why the East Texas problem is happening. At least I am able to get the GPS to work enough to get locked and get my location. Not good news though.

I was browsing some other forums (searching for Verizon GPS Texas) and ran across some threads from a month ago with someone on the Verizon version of the iPhone. Somebody in one of those threads mentioned that the GPS on the AT&T version is on a different chip or processor than the antenna, but on the Verizon version, they share the same chip so the cell communication interferes with the GPS communication.

So I went outside, put my phone in Airplane Mode to totally disable the cell communication, then turned on only GPS and Wi-Fi, loaded up the GPS Status app, did a reset/download, and within 30 seconds, I had a lock on 8 satellites and it had my position. Of course, this is useless if you want to use it in the car because you'd have no data connection so Google Maps or Navigation wouldn't work. I tried doing this without doing airplane mode and only disabling the "Mobile Network" option to turn off my 3G connection, but that did not work--so it must be something with the plain old CDMA voice connection or something. I could only get it to work in airplane mode.

One thing I've noticed when it's not working is that the 2 or 3 satellites that it intermittently fixes on all appear to be at or near 0 degrees North. I never saw any satellites above me or in the southern half of the compass. However, with airplane mode on and 8 satellites locked in, the screen lit up like a Christmas tree with satellites all over the screen so that it could triangulate. I suspect that could be part of the problem as well. I'm a software engineer and don't deal much with hardware, so I'm just throwing out theories.

I guess we're at the mercy of Verizon to fix this issue. It has to be something that they changed to break it though, because it's affecting older phones like the Droid X that were working in the past, and I'm pretty sure my Thunderbolt was working when I got it a month ago and visited my parents--although it could have just been the Google location services fooling me.

Anyway, this isn't really Thunderbolt-specific, but hopefully it will help anybody else in Texas that is pulling their hair out and runs into this thread.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XfrostX:
Yeah, I live around houston and i have the same issue. Tried everything to fix it but it just wont lock at all. Hopefully they fix it soon...
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
Wow this is spot on. I put my TB into airplane mode and was able to get a fix with 7 sats. And after disabling airplane mode the sats slowly disappear.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
Do I know you? I too live in Tyler and my parents live in Carthage.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
I'm in East Texas as well with a Droid X. My GPS has been out for over a week. Same symptoms, no lock with only one satellite showing in the north.

I tried the airplane mode trick but that was a nogo. Doesn't even work if I disable the wireless network assist option.

This is just in the East Texas area apparently. The one guy that I talked to about it that even seemed to have a clue said the resolution is supposed to come this wednesday, but I would take that with a grain of salt.

I am glad to find a little more information about this being real though. I thought I was going crazy there for a bit. And Hello to all the Tyler people, that's where I am as well, heh.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonakin:
Very possible that you either know me, my brother, or my dad. I graduated from there in 1997 and my brother in 2002.

I'm glad to find others having the same issue and with some information about it. Did somebody at Verizon tell you it would be fixed on Wednesday? I have my doubts about that as well. I read another thread started by someone in Kilgore on another forum where somebody mentioned GPS testing in New Mexico that would clear up by 4/27. I wonder if that's where the Wednesday estimate came from.

Just a little more info... I am back in Tyler now and have the same issue as I had in Carthage. Interestingly, I can take my phone out of airplane mode after it gets a lock on the satellites, but once I leave the GPS Status app (or even go to another screen in the app) it loses it. And the only way I can get it to work is to go to airplane mode, start up the app, reset the cache and then download the GPS data. Without doing that, it still won't lock. But with those steps it usually gets 7 or 8 satellites, even from inside. Even so, it usually takes 30 to 60 seconds before it gets the lock--so that sounds like we're back to the issues that all the other people are experiencing.

I have the stock Thunderbolt but it's rooted. Sounds like thewayne01 already updated to the leaked radio update and a custom ROM. Did anybody notice their cell signal getting stronger early last week? When I first got my phone a month ago, the cell signal was pretty bad--usually in the -100 to -90 range at my house which meant 1 or maybe 2 bars. Then last week, I noticed that I had 3 bars and the range has been somewhere from -90 to -80 when I have checked. I wonder if that's just a coincidence?

No matter what, I'd be shocked if we get any real explanation of what the real issue was, even after they get it fixed.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xxxdroidxxx:
Don't know if this is mention yet but try wiping data. I had issue with my 3g not getting signal when first got the phone and after a data wipe it fixed it.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Don't bother guys. Let's see, three wipes, two roms, new phone. and the same there. It's a network problem....
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonakin:
Agreed. Possibly a data wipe could help if there were no hardware issues, and I sort of expect to have some of the more common Thunderbolt GPS issues when (or if) our regional antenna issue gets resolved. But at this point I don't think it would make any difference, or else I would have flashed the radio and possibly used a custom ROM a couple of days ago.
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wilydodger:
Just a little interesting info if anyone is still calling tech support about this. The first lady I talked to on the phone said it is totally illegal for Verizon to disable GPS on anyone's phone due to 911 location laws. Might help to light a fire under their asses if more people mention that they know that...

EDIT: Here's an interesting post from another thread on this issue:

"There is an open ticket in our area. A Verizon network engineer called me on Saturday. He said as of that point he had no idea why the front line phone techs had not been made aware of the issue. He also said that Google told them it would take between 2-4 weeks for their database to update after Verizon's tower migration. "
[Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thewayne01:
One of the sales people in a local store here said Google was updating their system and it should be resolved in a few days. That was last Thursday. At the time I figured he was just trying to pass the buck.