yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] NickeMan:
This doesn't sound too promising :/

I've been using my iPhone 3G to track my runs when I head out, and I assumed the Galaxy would do just as good (or better!) at it. Hopefully it's something they can fix with a software patch and not a hardware problem...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Evans_Prophet:
Did you get it from Expansys? I am trying to find out whether it is just a batch or it is a more generic issue.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] paul_73_uk:
I too am seeing poor performance with the GPS. Seems to be a hardware issue.

I did a test over the weekend comparing my Galaxy S with a friend's HTC Desire. Using one of the many GPS utilities the Desire was consistently seeing and locking more satellites when stood in an open area outside. When running Google maps and showing the current location I found that the "accuracy circle" (for want of a better description) was growing and shrinking several times a minute causing the map to zoom in and out.

I've also noticed that the compass is almost unusable and showing a much lower signal compared to the Desire. I did perform the figure of 8 calibration several times.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Nicolopolus:
Nope, got mine from Handtec. Really hope it's just a software issue that can be easily solved! Also noticed that google homepage in browser keeps saying I'm in China?!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dlci:
Think I've read somewhere that samsung galaxy (the first one + the spica) have a broken gps driver causing such issues...don't remember if it was in sportypal forums or for a similar application. Very sorry to hear it's not fixed.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Adriaaaaan:
Nope I tried out google navigation at the weekend and was really impressed by the accuracy, it made my old tom tom look really bad.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DonAndress:
So can we say that GS favours google navigation?

Can anyone confirm that?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tyxerakias:
This is very worrying, GPS is important for me, I don't want to have another N97 on my hands... fingers crossed it's a software issue.... :(
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Nicolopolus:
I'll have another play on the way home and let you know if there's any improvements.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
I've not noticed any problems in Google Navigation. It found me almost instantly, and was so accurate in terms of showing me where I was while driving that there was almost no perceivable lag.

Whatever people are seeing it very unlikely to be a hardware issue, most phones use GPS chips from only 1 or 2 suppliers, its much more likely something temporary like a driver issue.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Nicolopolus:
TravUK, have you tried google maps - did you have any problems with it? (although I assume navigation would be using the same data to find you)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Yep, Maps works fine, including latitude. Also used Waze which took a little while to get a fix, but was also ok.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Nicolopolus:
Well the journey home was much better! Probably helped that I was sitting by the window on the top deck of the bus, but I managed to get a much better fix, using both google maps and navigation. It wasn't like 100% accurate or anything, but certainly no worse than my hd2. Hardly got the large blue circle, but it did think I was in a field a few times, but that's to be expected. To note, didn't seem to make much difference whether I had both gps and cell data selected, or just gps.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] d0p3d:
My gps works perfect. Google maps finds it instantly and waze and speedometer apps work fine too. Localization is spot on. The gps even connects when I'm inside the house wich my Diamond never did.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lajson:
I tested Navigon, which can be download from Market for a tryal period of 30 days now, and it working great on my Samsung i9000
[Galaxy S I9000 General] izmenar:
it may be a firmware issue , everyone who is having problems should post the sw. version for comparision with others
[Galaxy S I9000 General] NickeMan:
Comparison of Galaxy GPS and iPhone 3G gps.

Hey everyone,

There's been some discussion regarding the "quality" of the GPS function in the Galaxy S, and after testing it out today, I sure hope it's a software bug or I'm going to be very disappointed.

This is my run as recorded by my iPhone 3G (with Fitnio): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/810054/samsung_fail/Picture%203.png

Now this is the same run as recorded by my Galaxy S (with RunKeeper): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/810054/samsung_fail/Picture%202.png

Take a wild guess which one actually reflects reality. Can anyone shed light on if the new "leaked" firmware fixes these problems?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
They're all based on standard chipsets so its unlikely there's anything wrong with the GPS receiver itself. I hope it gets updated soon as it seems to be affecting a fair number of people.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tyxerakias:
I don't understand... "GPS Refresh Rate Meter it's an application tool that it measure the refresh rate of your internal GPS".

Uhm..ok, it measures the refresh rate. It doesn't refresh the rate. How does that help?? Are you sure it's not a placebo effect? I tried it and saw no difference.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
Whatever calls it raises with the Galaxy S's GPS all I know is if I do not use it the GPS is not as reliable.

I'm not one normally to go out on a limb over a piece of software, purely because there are so many variables that can throw one off the scent and lead you to a false trail.

However, no matter how many times I tried the GPS with or without the application the results were either positive when using or slow to negative when not using.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tyxerakias:
Ok..I'll try tomorrow... but i'm losing hope. In your Location and Security setting, are both boxes in the first section ticked?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Intratech:
Using navigation the GPS works brilliantly but with google maps or layars it's off by many many Kilometres.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Hmmm, it might be slightly less bad. (Again with the good english) I still see GPS test flipping between 32.8ft and 500ft accuracy occasionally. I'll see what happens in the morning when I try to run Waze. Most mornings I start off from a different town and its a mystery where the GPS is gonna put me.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lgkahn:
gps fix - startup mode

apparently the gps does not download the future satellite data as someone summized.. the i8910 had an app that would download the data for the next week.. on top of that the gps driver is too stupid to figure out that you moved locations and give up on getting a hot fix..

I just flew from philly to nh and tried with the unit outside for over an hour and it could not get a fix..

I went into the gps menu and changed the startup mode from hot to cold and it had a fix within seconds.. i have tested leaving it on cold startup and it still gets a fix within seconds.. until they fix the driver so that it after a minute or so without getting a fix switches from hot to cold mode i recommend you change this setting.

the othersetting someone recommended skyhook was no good for me . when i tried it driving around philly it would pick up wifi and jump off the road i was on.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] widjaja74_us:
How do you enable the hot/cold startup on the gps, cos i cannot find the setting...please give detail step by step...is there app we have to install?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lgkahn:
Goto dial pad and type

*#*#1472365#*#*

Goto application settings and change startup mode.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
Yes, both are ticked.

I also use the 'Power Control' widget to make sure GPS is switched on.

Have you tried switching it Off then On before starting anything?

I know before I started to use GPS Refresh, if I did not turn it Off first then switch it back On before launching my GPS applications it used to take ages to lock onto my position. Whether GPS Refresh does something to make it wake up I don't know but now I don't need to first turn Off then On GPS from the Power Control widget.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] mstrandbo:
Thanks, will test this too. Too many times have I started Sportypal, and the GPS icon never comes up..
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Mike, I tried it your way this morning, and it worked with Waze, course its only a sample of 1, but thats the first time in over week I've had it work from home in the morning. I cant figure how it makes any difference since GPS Refresh is passive and only reads data, but if it keeps me on the right road until a fix, I'll take it.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
Great news Mark... Pleased as punch for you.

Same here, I've no idea how it manages to re-sample the data but who cares... at this stage I'll take anything that works.

I'm up in Scotland at the moment. Just finished a long-haul operation and in between I've tested it both at home in the Midlands and up here in Inverness.

I'll be testing it further at the weekend when I 'finally' get a bit of time to myself (and the dogs) for a good long walk.....
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tyxerakias:
I tried today with Sygic, and saw absolutely no improvement, the signal is lost all the time and it's very very unstable... But I'm still with JF3, I'm hoping an update will fix it.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
Like TravUK I too am still on JF3 so it can't be that what determines is accuracy.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tyxerakias:
I don't know what to tell you, maybe there are different batches of JF3, or maybe your wifi networks are better and since you have them enabled make the difference for you... I used copilot for a day last week as well, and it also kept losing the signal.

It finds it fast, but then drops it. And GPS test shows it too, the coloured lines appear and disappear and change a lot, every second or two.

My hope is that people reported the same problems (even holding it horizontally makes a difference for me like someone else reported), and then they disappeared when they flashed. Since I haven't flashed yet, I can hope :P
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
I really feel for you honest I do.... Before trying the items (Skyhook & GPS Refresh) I too was having a nightmare of a problem... I had to use my HD2 for navigation when out of my car (the car has it's own built in SatNav).

Using GPS Test just as you say when I used to hold the phone horizontally all satellites were immediately lost only to return 'grey' the second I held the phone vertically.

Now using both Skyhook & GPS Refresh it does not matter which way I hold the phone using GPS Test, the satellites stay lit (Yellow & Green) regardless.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] gllu:
There is a guy in the "androidforums" who got a replacement phone and the GPS performance got quite better... Where did you buy your phone from?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beards:
Yes, I know of him quite well and he does post on this forum too.

In fact I have literally just this second finished another post with him here
[Galaxy S I9000 General] larryccf:
saw an interesting possible fix to the GPS issue over on modaco

http://android.modaco.com/content/samsung-galaxy-s-s-modaco-com/313536/possible-gps-fix/
[Galaxy S I9000 General] wascaa:
How did you manage to run GPS refresh in the background? I started GPS refresh and waited for a good fix, but when I switched to mytracks the GPS was switched off and acquisition started again in myTracks. I didn't noticed any improvement in terms of performances. Am I missing something obvious here?

Wasca
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
I arrived this conclusion by observing my phone's GPS performance. When I move phone from down in the center console position to up in the dash board, a lot of the problem so many of you encountered almost dissappeared. Then I observed GPS signal fluctuation for a long time and compare that to my navigation performance at the time. This is very consistent to what I posted above. I believe TravUK, who works for BoradCOM (but not in the GPS division), also mentioned this noise issue on SGS before although he didn't specify the the details.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] HaTeNL:
I tested again with JP6 now and my results are very dissapointing! Before with Eclair it was all much better!

JP6: almost impossible to get a fix and always inaccurate

JF3, JM5: fix in 15 seconds and very accurate!

JM7 was slightly worser then JM5 and JF3 in my experiences.

How the hell is that possible? I thought / read that JP6 / JPM where much better with GPS :S
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
It is not. Nothing special in JP6/JPM as far as GPS goes. All indications are Samsung is still working on the GPS fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DamianGto:
It is....

Sent from GT-I9000 JPM with Z4Mod
[Galaxy S I9000 General] betoNL:
You tested in wich conditions and using wich software?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] HaTeNL:
My tracks and GPS Test.

Finding Satelites is not the problem.. 9 in view, but zero locked..

I installed voodoo lagfix.. can dad be the cause of bad GPS?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Adevem:
so today... i went out for a drive. miraculously it started fixing and tracking me like a beast! when i go for a drive, i always try my navigation luck.

when i need it the most, it doesn't work.

today, i tried for the hack of it, worked like a charm.

i have a feeling this thing hates me.

but on a serious note, the performance is very flactuating. some days it doesn't work at all, some days(today) it's tracking everything perfectly! speed and all. too bad i didn't record the track, but IT'S PERFECT, and believe me when i say that!

Conditions : Today was hazy (damned neighbouring countries burning down forests)

Firmware : JPK

Navigation software : NAVFone (some SEA only stuff)

only things i've changed was.

Off and on GPS, off and on Sensors(Froyo). launch GPS status. updated NAVFone(had a new version pushed) and it's working lol. little details if it matter.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] boyanovv:
I do not think the noise is the problem in your case, but the line of sight to the satellites. I played in the same manner and the result is as you describe, but I noticed how in a while satellites are disapering.

I did some trials with different softwares: iGo My Way 2009 (as replacement to my WM experience) - very disaponting, from time to time it places you in the nearby streets. The same with Sygic. Then I tried Ndrive - surprise - so far no flaws. tracks perfectly with even less lag than I was used to with the best iGO versions in WM.

Another observation I have is that it happens to get GPS lock indoors, what I never had seen with my older HTC Touch HD. So the GPS is good in my mind, just need better navigation software. I will continue testing the Ndrive for proving of this thesis to myself, but if someone have similar experience please share.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
line of sight to the satellites affects signal level. Lower signal level means lower SNR as the noise floor on this phone is pretty high.

Broadcom 4751 is touted to have better handling of weak satellite signals than other GPS chips. So, it looks like Samsung has a really messed up hardware design or BroadCOM has a messed up chip.

When you have strong enough signals, all the problems went away. That, combined with the fact that other Android phones as well as the same SGS phone using an external GPS receiver works just fine with Google Navi proves the problem is with SGS, not software. Of course, better, smarter software will help. But I personally will not settle for a second rate GPS on a high end phone I paid for. Maybe it's ok for you. But not for me.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] g@l@xyS:
i think that the navigation software doesnt have to do with the GPS receiver... it was supposed that the 2.2 would solve the problems of the GPS in SGS but i see that i have the same probs as before... first time locket within 8 secs after first time 1 minute and now if i leave the GPS receiver closed for 1 week and try again to find GPS signal it takes about 2-3 minutes to lock... i think in my opinion that the SGS gps just SUCKS!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] neil85ae86:
carrier admits

my corporate carrier rep. (who also carries an SGS with broken GPS) told me yesterday that the gps problems affects all of the SGS in one way or another sold through them, "don't worry, they have promised us a fix, it's their flagship device, they'd be crazy not to" ..so it's good to hear my suspicion confirmed, it is all devices and it's not just some and now I know those odd couple of folks that are touting their gps works perfects are full of BS. Which also somewhat undermines Samsung yet again as I believe they originally said it only affects a few phones.

oh well, this is ammo for down the road when it's January and they still haven't released a fix and I've had enough. It's bad enough to be bound into a 3yr contract, let alone 3 years with a broken phone. I can't tolerate that.

Neil
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Landorin:
Yep the GPS does suck and I will most likely return my phone. :P

However, what you describe happens to EVERY GPS; if you turned it off for a week it will have to re-acquire the satellites and find out where the GPS device itself is located (easy spoken). Use AGPS to compensate this (GPSStatus offers such a feature).

Check "Position calculation introduction" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Basic_concept_of_GPS
[Galaxy S I9000 General] g@l@xyS:
hehehe a little bit scientific explanation... but thanks i didnt knew these kind of stuff...!!!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] brisnick:
My Winmo has some software called QuickGPS. It downloads GPS data and makes the GPS work much better that without it. But the data is only valid for 6 days and 23 hours, so I'm not surprised that if you don't use GPS for a week it takes longer to lock.

I want my GPS to work where I don't have mobile reception, so aGPS isn't going to cut it for me.

Has anyone written an Android App similar to QuickGPS? Maybe this will help the GPS issues. I know it helped my HTC Diamond out.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DamianGto:
Did take a ride with my car today.

People requested that i should write down how it could look fir me.

Most of the time it was 11 satellites in view and 9-10 locked.

Most of the time it was around this.

42 41 39 39 38 36 35 27 25 16 12

Most of the time i did have 2 over 40, 5 over 30, 2 over 20 and 2 under 20.

Sent from GT-I9000 Jpm with z4mod
[Galaxy S I9000 General] t1mman:
This is a track made this morning with my SGS, stock Rom (JH2) with NO lagfix and NO rooting

http://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...39479225419447.000493345c5ba1c36c83e&t=h&z=14

Can you tell me exactly where the BS is on this? Where do you see it as "unusable"?

I even use the GPS as a training helper for my workout (to track my jogs) and I get about 3% margin of error with sprortypal and about none with RunKeeper, so where's the "BS" in this?

Only thing I did is to drop accurancy to 15, the rest is stock.

If you REALY want to troubleshoot, get the device stock first and if you still have issue, get it replaced, that's all! But then, this is "IF" you want it...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
I'm sure your phone works fine. Please post the GPS SNR numbers as posted above by DamianGto.

For every perfect track, there is another crappy track from someone else. Just because your phone works, you can't speak for everyone else. And vice versa.

And FYI, the new Samsung Windows Phone 7 (Omnia 7/Focus) reportedly has the same crappy GPS performance from the reviews I saw.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] t1mman:
By GPS SNR, you mean satelite numbers and fix right?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Two pictures, showing opposite sides of the motherboard......
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
No, the SNR number is the equvilent of signal level. You will find it in lbstestmode (next to satellite No) and GPS Test app or any other GPS test app.

Each satellite has its own SNR value bouncing around and typically range from 10s to 40s. The higher the better.

For example, DamianGto has two in 40s and couple others in higher 30s. That means his phone has a near perfect GPS reception. Mine occasionally has max of 1 in 40s and a few in high 30s. But most of the time, they bounce between low 20s and low 30s. That makes my phone marginal in GPS performance.

This reception number directly relate to your GPS experience.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
So the GPS chip is right next to the RF chips on the other side of the board. No wonder it picks up all the RF noises.

For comparison, here is the pic of Captivate PCB:

Notice the GPS chip has been relocated. But it still suffers the same problem.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
I was just posting a couple of pics I found on the web.....
[Galaxy S I9000 General] :
Well the placement of the GPS chip is not very clever.

Some interference with the power amplifiers and the transceiver could explain our observations.

Any information on what chip is beeing used?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
BroadCOM BCM4751. That is certain.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] robbiev80:
I updated my Bell Galaxy S to Froyo (JPM) and my GPS works now.

It finds a signal really quick too.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
So, can it track you accurately while driving? That's the real issue for the SGS GPS problem. Getting a quick lock isn't that a big deal for most of us.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zorxd:
+1

Also, you sometimes need to drive for half an hour or more before getting the bug.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] SkinBobUk:
I just compared my sgs gps with that of an orange san Francisco, wow the difference is incredible. The Francisco saw more satellites and achieved a higher snr also.

Now consider the Francisco costs a quarter the price of the sgs!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ehe12:
That only means your device works, that doesn't prove all devices work. many people's don't work. Would you like to try mine? cause you would get very surprised.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kartola:
I really can't read all the thread.

I've just bought the glaxy S and the gps is unusable to navigate.

So there is somethings that REALLY can fix this problem?

If i send the phone to the assistence they can fix it?

Or maybe the only thing i can do is buy another phone???
[Galaxy S I9000 General] neil85ae86:
I'll take the carriers word

when a carrier tells you that they cannot give you a replacement with a fully guaranteed to work GPS because all the phones have a GPS problem, including every phone I've held which included two reps personal phones at two different stores then I'm likely to side with the carrier on this one, maybe you have a 'lucky' bug that actually improves yours, maybe when everyone else's gets a fix yours will get broken.

my phone is 100% stock, the only fix I've applied is the Bell fix that came out a little later through kies.

I won't mod this phone.

Neil
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Yeria:
I have noticed my GPS starts to jump around when I'm surrounded by tall buildings. I have been using Google Navigate application in Toronto downtown and it basically gets stuck with the blue ring around my location to represent it doesn't really know where I am right now. It also randomly but less frequently goes off in open areas as well.

They say Froyo should fix the GPS problem, so I can only hope they release the update soon. GPS is unusable especially when there are a lot of overpasses and streets running close by.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Yeria:
Try travelling somewhere away from your town with your phone. I can tell you my phone's GPS works fine where I live and it also led me to believe the GPS issue doesn't affect me. Once I traveled to downtown I realized this GPS thing really is an issue. Also try driving, not just running. It doesn't make sense your phone works while everyone else's phone has got the problem.