yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] :
GPS (again) Does anyone else have this?

Yes it is to do with the problem and I am sure I have read a long techy post somewhere but I cannot find it to amend to. (not the "hopes dashed" one)

Anyhow I thought I would have a mess with it so opened up Maps and MyTracks. Both showed me 3 miles away but hey I thought it is using the cell towers until it gets a sat lock. Now here is what seemed odd to me. I had switched off WIFI in Wireless and Networks, use wireless networks in Location and Security and use my location on Privacy. All these were off.

As soon as I opened Maps the WIFI for some reason came back on and when I tried MyTracks I got the message and when I tried My Location in the MyTracks menu I got the message "cannot be determined" and to "enable more location sources".

So is this familiar? I am concerned about it switching my WIFI on even though I had it off.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] MoWa22:
I think Samsung got the idea that GPS means Guessing Positioning System.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Kil:
As far as i know, a "Blackstone" is a HTC Touch HD..

As the man said "Had tomtom running on my old Blackstone".. Think before you copy what some other people are saying..

And as enigmameusa said, no one is buying this kind of devices as "just a cellular phone".

The GPS is just not good if you compare it to other (even older) devices.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] andrewluecke:
I was thinking about something like that before, but could never work out what P would have meant (you might be right)..

There is certainly some branching happening, but just curious about where it fits. It's also possible that the actual builds are given designations we've never seen either, and all releases we've seen were semi-final builds of that series. But honestly, just guessing. Certainly interested to find out..
[Galaxy S I9000 General] gTen:
How about something more simple..as leaving N and O as a buffer just in case? I would not branch fixes into N and O because you never know when a new issue can come up.

It is also possible N and O were old froyo builds that didn't even work..
[Galaxy S I9000 General] andrewluecke:
He said that the dodgy GPS for him was a "safety risk". Who cares which century it is, if dodgy GPS poses a safety hazard to him (and therefore us), he should NOT be driving. The golden rule is drive safely, navigate, communicate. Cheap GPS systems DON'T tell you when the signal might be erroneous (there is no RAIM) and it doesn't matter how great your antenna's are, GPS can drop offline at any time (even though it seems at least in Australia, loss of signal is incredibly rare, but not impossible).

I'm not saying mark out paper maps (although, with flying, we do). I'm saying have a basic plan in your head of how you are getting there first (use the GPS to develop that plan if you have to). Then, simply use GPS to help you find the turns, and get an idea of when to expect them

In many countries, GPS has caused drivers to drive off cliffs, drive into lakes (thinking it was shallow), and go down roads which are wrong. Yes, I have seen a truck drive the wrong way down a one way single-lane street before Maybe it was GPS related? Oh, but I guess it's ok, since it's the 21st century. You are right, it's ok to pose a danger to others, because the GPS told you to..

If I'm "hateful" because I care about others safety, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Because there is a 18 tonne truck driver out there who seems to allow their poor GPS to compromise their safety and mine. Read their comment, and tell me, I don't make sense. I understand many short haul truck drivers are under extreme pressure, but that is no excuse. There are already too many stories of both car/truck drivers and plane pilots relying on GPS too much.

In fact, one plane pilot I know had his planes electrical bus blow out (so avionics and GPS were lost). Had he relied on GPS, he could have flown into restricted airspace or be forced to crash-land the plane (he's a pilot who once wanted to fly with me without having a map, but now I think he knows why he needs maps). Whilst the consequences aren't so dire with truck driving, if you rely on your GPS to tell you when to turn and your GPS freezes 5 mins before a turnoff on a freeway, have a fun trip. Even large planes use 2 separate GPS systems on separate electrical buses to provide additional safeguards. Most of these units though have serious error detection capabilities, and pilots still are trained to avoid relying on them.

Assume GPS can fail at any time, and DON'T let GPS pose a safety hazard, even if you have an expensive dedicated GPS unit (roads can change, one way streets can pop-up, and only emergency services, military and pilots generally have proper error detection/RAIM on their units). It's simply unacceptable though that some people seem to be allowing unreliable technology such as GPS to compromise their safety.

The GPS DOES suck (true), and it isn't that usable (yet). But if I were driving trucks commercially, I would rather leave 5 minutes later each day, than risk killing someone because of a GPS.

I only hope takerbaod is exaggerating when he says that the quality of GPS affects his and others safety. I find it odd you guys are defending his recklessness though..
[Galaxy S I9000 General] andrewluecke:
I wonder if there is a way to compare the separate firmwares, to automatically generate some kind of a tree..
[Galaxy S I9000 General] cheetah2k:
I've never had any issues with the GPS on my SGS. I've been disapointed by the AGPS however, usually triangulating my position to about 150m off. However, I've also found that the AGPS on my iphone 4 to be even worse.

So... I cant really complain about it now, unless the iphone 4 is also faulty! :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jaapschaap:
That's not totally right, the GPS in the device is the same as in the iPhone 4 ;) That the software screw it up doesn't make it bad hardware...

I track my route with 'my track' almost daily for fun, and it's pretty accurate, even if i go under tunnels it shows the right route ;)

I think it will be fixed, and if not your device is just faulty, but others are just fine en good enough for a cell phone GPS system!

edit:

Not exactly same as iphone 4 btw... they use a BCM4750 and we use the BCM4751...

BCM4750	Single-Chip AGPS Solution (iPhone 4)

BCM4751	Integrated Monolithic GPS Receiver (SGS)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] takerbaod:
The reason the GPS becomes a safety risk is because for most of a journey it can be fine. Then suddenly when your somewhere where you've never been before with a full line of traffic up your backside it can start dishing out weird directions. This causes a split second of panic and confusion. No matter how good a driver you are this occurs to everyone on the road.

I've actually stopped using my SGS and am back on my old Nokia N900 which has never to this day lost a satellite lock. That even includes the mid part of London around the sky scrapers.

I do mark out routes and plans for journeys but a paper map does not tell you about one way roads traffic information and road works. A properly functioning GPS with traffic downloads does.

Ive been driving trucks for over 10 yrs now and hand on heart I can honestly say i'm A better driver with a quality GPS aid at my side that works correctly. If you ask around a majority of people who drive for long hours on a regular basis to destinations which they have never been to before they will tell you exactly the same thing.

Going back on subject. Samsung for me have 32 days roughly to sort this out. Otherwise I personally will have to sell this phone on Ebay as i'm contracted on a mobile tariff and purchase something which is probably inferior in every other spec department but has a reliable functioning GPS receiver in it

Takerbaod

Proud Truck Driver for 10 yrs with 0 accidents!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Logicalstep:
Yes I was using my blackstone with TomTom and unless you're in a city Center, it's rock solid.

So I would expect that the next generation of smart phone be able to show at least the same stability as the old.

It comes down the the fact that if a phone has a feature it should work as people reasonably expect it to. Fact is that for alot of people the SGS doesn't work like it supposed to.

I've designed a few products of my own of a more industrial kind and I can tell you if it doesn't quite work how it should the customer jumps up and down until it's fixed.

If I knowingly sold a customer a product that didn't work as it should based upon their reasonable expectation, they are well within their rights to return said product. It's as simple as that and if I'm not confident I can provide a product that will work as they reasonably expect, I will not sell them that product, because otherwise you are just asking for long term hassle.

So as I said Samsung have the next update to fix it, if it's not fixed and working as I would reasonably expect for the advertised features, it's going back.

Logicalstep
[Galaxy S I9000 General] vrodic:
Hello all,

According to Harald Welte of OpenMoko and OpenBSC fame, the GPS unit in i9000 is a "software GPS" i.e. it doesn't contain the usual ARMv7 core that GPS units have, which means that NMEA is generated inside the application processor most probably. Here's my addition to Haralds opservation:

Since it's probably a userspace program, it might suffer from insufficient real time performance that is required by the GPS signal processing.

So it's possible that this could still be fixed on the software side by making the linux kernel treat the GPS userspace daemon (if that's how it's implemented) as a top priority process, and avoiding any latency. It could also be a bug in the GPS NMEA software that's unrelated to latency.

What's also possible, and I guess most of you guys fear exactly that, is that the whole hardware setup is buggy, that antenna is wrongly positioned or badly shielded or something similar.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Greg82uk:
I like this! :o)

Saw a great viral the other day where a chap was raving about how wonderful his iPhone 4 was and how for 3 weeks, he'd played with the apps and loved everything about the phone, then the viral finished with "and the other day I managed to make a 3 minute call without being disconnected!" :o)

At least I've not lost reception during calls, not even video ones! But then a smart phone isn't a phone... it's a pda with a modem built into it... if you want a phone you buy a phone... if you want a pda with satnav, compass, HD cameras, and a modem, then you buy a smartphone... and if ya want all a that with lag and jittery GPS... then you buy a Samsung! :o)

I LOVE my Galaxy S, but then I've always thought that odd things that don't work quite as they ought were lucky!!!!!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
That would be great except its wrong, the software is embedded on the BCM4751 which is a mix of programmable core and a dozen dedicated HW components.

In terms of external interference that is a more sound conclusion based on the highly variable nature of the complaints people have raised.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ~gtw:
Or the laggy phone may be a contributing issue... Does it work better when lag fixed?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] foxbat121:
No, Lag fix has no impact on GPS accuracy.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Logicalstep:
Just read back over this....I mean this is such a stupid statement;

Would you expect your car radio to not play music properly, just because it's a car and cars when they first cam out didn;t radio players?

Would you expect your TV to not have a TV guide because it's a TV and when they first came out they didn't have TV guides?

Would you expect your bike to not change gear because it's a bike and when they first came out they didn;t have gears you could change?

Would you expect your phone to not, take pictures, have and address book, play MP3 ringtones, send text messages and finally the big one....make calls without wires, just because they didn;t when they first came out.

The answer is no....you expect them to do all these things, because the they have been doing them for years and doing them well.

Same for your phone.

Logicalstep
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Kil:
Finally, couldn't have said it better.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] milsjg:
Yes the lagfix improves some GPS programs (My Tracker and Maps for example) making them not lag so badly. This will enhance both position and track.

Track:

http://maps.google.se/maps/ms?ie=UT...09137413725907.00048eb5461d6a5a0c7e7&t=h&z=12
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sturmeh:
They are unaware of the issue as there is currently no solution, they'll be informed as soon as they can 'tell you' how to fix it.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] AllGamer:
just remove the settings to use WiFi

next time it runs, it should not engage the WiFi
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sunwee:
good points! :)

I am not expecting galaxy's gps to work as well as a standalone gps unit. i am also not expecting the galaxy's camera to work as well as something from canon. those are not my benchmarks. my benchmarks are other similar/older phones. the galaxy, being the latest gen phone, should at least perform as well if not better, than those phones.

are these unreasonable expectations?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] :
From my question.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] AllGamer:
yes, but you said as soon as you ran the app it turned back on

so set the app to not use wifi
[Galaxy S I9000 General] boomerbubba:
He said he is using Google Maps and My Tracks. AFAIK there is no such setting within either app.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Kil:
Nope, you're totally right in my opinion.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] MAMBO04:
My Galaxy works fine... Ok AGPS goes a bit haywire but GPS works fine for me, i dont even use it that much tbh. Only issues ive had is with the wifi dropping at times but a new FW fixed that. The lag is a nuisance but i like applying custom roms etc so its alright, it lagged ALOT with the leaked JP3 froyo build but thats because nearly all of these fws are leaked.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] andrewluecke:
Actually, there is no sound conclusion I'd say based on the evidence.. Nobody has produced evidence that proves their theory.. All we know, is that if Samsung doesn't fix it in September, then it is likely to be hardware related (because then we KNOW Samsung worked on it).
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
EDIT: Removed.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] boomerbubba:
So what is the mechanism to update the embedded software on this chip? Is is flashable as part of a firmware update for the whole phone? From inspecting the filenames and sizes on the dump of a Galaxy S unit, can it be apparent that this internal Broadcom driver software is updated by a general firmware update?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Might be flashed at ROM upgrade, or might be a binary embedded in something larger and loaded at boot time, but unlikely to be an individual file you can look at.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] chookmeister69:
Can I suggest anyone having trouble with the GPS give the new JM6 firmware a try. I've done some testing with it and it's the first firmware I've tried that:

a) Has made the compass work accurately all the time

b) Under conditions of no tall buildings around gave me a near perfect track log during a long walk down 2 streets (dark cloudy/rainy day)

All other firmwares I've tried (JF1, JF3, JG5, JM2, JP3) have all not worked at all with the compass and had very ordinary track logs when walking down a street.

Of course, everything changes when I walk in the city down a street with tall buildings but even the best dedicated GPS units struggle with that and often can't get a sat lock. At least the SGS gives you a rough ballpark in those conditions
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DonDragon:
Hello,

because every one is saying that the gps is crappy of the galaxy i test mine. because i use it a few times a week and haven't had any problems so far with drifting and stuff i that i read on the forum.

Im running on JM5 with lagg fix CFLagFix 1.80 ext 2

i did test with gps test, and made a screenshot this morning. the accuracy is 5 meter all the time. in the next day's i will test it with mytrack to see how that works out.

this was mad just out side home on the road i saw a few times 8+ with max of 11 in view and lock on max of 9.

i couldn't make a screen shot of it because i was on the highway :( will try to make a screen of that aswell in the next days.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sjdean:
Epic fail there too. Actually I was fed I up people saying how good their time to fix is, and how good google maps is.

I've posted a lot of information elsewhere and this post was designed to colgate all of that information and the facts. Yes some of it has to be second guessed, because we stol don't know the cause, the fix, our what "optimisation". Actually means in marketing speak.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sjdean:
K ofind like the old alcatal adsl modems, when you had to load the... I can't remember what out was now, but done kind of run file binary.

I think that would have to be the must likely way
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sjdean:
Maybe its a fluke, but I've just got my brodit car kit.

My tracks haven't been the best, but its been much mires reliable and dependable the whole week. Been getting much quicker locks, google navigation has been 99% flawless, and I've been waxing happily.

C urrently running jm5 and epic fix.

I might reflash jf3 just to see
[Galaxy S I9000 General] enigmameusa:
Have you tried the new (I think it's new anyway) leaked firmware, I think a few people have had good results. I think the firmware is XFJM6, note the "F" it's not XWJM6. It also shows the correct time which people in the know seem to think shows whether the GPS is working

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=7872524&postcount=155
[Galaxy S I9000 General] mrmagmrmag:
Bluetooth GPS Mouse

I am not sceptical anymore -- I installed the free version and it's working fine (search for 'Bluetooth GPS Mouse' and select the free version). ;)

You don't have to buy it right away but you can use the free version available at the market to try it yourself. For in-car-usage it's an order of magnitude better than the built in GPS of Samsung. This is where I need GPS most -- for navigation.

You have to enable the 'use mock locations' development setting of your phone for this program to work though, but this is no problem as far as I am concerned.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jootje:
I did a long test yesterday while driving more then 100 km.

I used navigon to show me the way, meanwhile mytracks was on.

For the complete route, navigon guided me to my destination and mytracks showed me a very accurate position (I could even more or less find out in which line of the highway I was driving). Only one turn, I was driving 2m next to the turn.

I don't know whether this high accuracy is because of the help of navigon or just a good working gps?

Rom: jm2 (originally on the phone)

only root, no other fixes

edit: I'm not able to post a linkas new member
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ghosty_uk:
so do you need an external BT GPS reciever, or can this fool the built in gps into working ?????
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
There seems to be a small number of people suggesting the fix has finally leaked out in the XFJM6 firmware, not to be confused with XWJM6. There's not enough evidence to confirm it yet, but the timing is right given when the bugs where fixed locally and what they are reporting is consistent with what I was told to expect.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ghosty_uk:
Read this thead over with much laughing,

i got the SGS as an upgrade to the Blackstone (HTC Touch HD), as i had an andriod rom for my blackstone but it was way to slow on that phone. my origional choice was to a be a HTC Desire, but on going into the shop the SGS was better choice (well at least on specs it was). the first one i had could not get any kind of gps fix, even when i took it back and showed them via the hidden menu, they were still all gobsmacked, they did however swap it for a new SGS (still sealed from the factory) so i was the first to open it and use it, and i can say this one is much better sometimes seeing more than 8 sats, however it only locks 7 at a maximum.

the gps on it is very good at times but at others it is unusable, where as my blacksone was faultless (WM 6.5 custom rom, using garmin mobile xt), it would always get me to where i wanted to go.

most people these days are into space saving, this is why i have an all in one printer, it faxes, prints, copies, scans, if even has a built in memory card reader and colour screen so you can preview the images without needing your computer on, yety only takes up alittle more space than my old printer (that was just a printer). its the same with modern mobiles, why take out a phone, a camera, a gps device, a music player, a video camera, a gaming device, a movie player, if you can get all these rolled into one very attractive package.

if it says GPS on the box (which it does) then it should at least be able to perform the function without the bouncing around, after all the blackstone can track perfectly smoothly.

my final thoughts are, if samsung cant fix it then there will be alot of annoyed customers, i had to sign a 2 yr contract to get this phone, so i for one will be taking legal advice, as the phone is not upto the spec they stated, in other words its a misrepresentation of the fact that the gps is crappy, im also sure alot of other people will do the same.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ghosty_uk:
ok so i just updated my SGS to JM1, using the backdoor of kies method, as you mite recall i had somewhat functioning GPS after my phine was swapped for a new one,

anyway doing a test using lbs test mode,

1st one took 155 secs and no lock at all,

2nd one took 35 secs and locked on 3 sats,

3rd one took 15 secs and locked to 5 sats including a 19 dBHz satalite,

that is the first time i have seen it lock onto a satalite that low, so im assuming now it is all a software issue, either that or i got damn lucky with my replacement phone.

edit: just noticed in the task bar the silent button has been replaced with a gps button (cool)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
JM1 doesn't have the GPS fixes. XFJM6 appears to be the first firmware version with the updates in them. Here's hoping we get them on Kies in the not too distant future.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dakine:
Has anyone here tried that new firmware? How good are these fixes? With all the new users in this forum we are getting alot of 'Im getting a fix in my bathroom so it must work' posts. Are we actually getting proper tracks now?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Fatherboard:
I've tried - Bad tracking, as usual. the new firmware didn't change that.

There's a fix inside my house, that means nothing.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
I've not tried it. It hasn't been out for long enough yet to confirm if its really a fix or another false hope.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
XFJM6 or XWJM6 ?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Fatherboard:
XFJM6, obviously.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Oh well. :(
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Fatherboard:
yea... if that is samsung's solution to the problem, then I'll have to sell it, or ask for a refund from clove. this is unacceptable.

I was thinking about opening a thread which collects serial numbers from people who claim that their gps is crappy, maybe there are certain batches (as for now, probably the majority is faulty) which are ok.

I do believe that for some the gps is working as it should, but unfortunately that's not the situation with mine. the gps lag makes city navigation impossible, in addition to the inaccuracy.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Case_:
I'm still very satisfied with XFJM6.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] TravUK:
Case, do you have some tracks to share?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Evans_Prophet:
TravUK thanks for your help and info. Do you know whether this GPS chip supports refresh speeds (i.e. how often your position is updated) of up to 2hz as the one of the iphone does?

I' ve run some tests and it seems to support only 1hz speed. I googled and couldn't find any specs on this matter. It is quite obvious that 2hz (or more) refresh rate can dramatically increase accuracy / lag / speed tracking.

Do you have any info on this?