yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Vibrant General] snowdogging:
You are not alone op. The GPS on this phone is broken and after taking it apart numerous times and applying every fix known the GPS barely works with a horrible accuracy and then stops working completely after a day or so. Sure, if I do a cold reset I can get it working again for a bit but again the accuracy is so bad it can't be used for navigation in any area with more than one road. You will get some confusing reviews on here from some people in the midwest using there navigation 20 miles from the nearest road or building taller than 2 stories but for those of us that don't have a 360 degree line of sight to the sky are pretty much screwed.

I used GPS on my 4 year old blackberry daily and I can't believe I am debating going back to it.

The GPS on this phone is broken! It is a hardware issue and is not going to be fixed on this forum. Samsung is unable to fix this issue without a recall and don't kid yourself...they are not going to do that.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
Recall is such a cute word, consumers like to throw it around when they have a problem... if you think the phone is going to be recalled you've got another thing coming. "recalled" LOL
[Vibrant General] dattaway:
It sure is a hardware issue. My G1 if left on the flooboard of my car behaves exactly like my S with a clear satellite view. This GPS radio has a poor signal/noise ratio that no software can fix. QA missed this one.
[Vibrant General] timsterzzz:
I picked up a HTC G2 yesterday. I ran gps status on it. The gps had never been used before and it locked 9 sat's in less than 5 sec's for 9ft of accuracy. I knew my vibrant wasn't the greatest gps device, but I didnt know it was that bad. on the bright side, I never had any real navigation issues with the vibrant, so it still served a purpose. I understand some people have real lemon gps units, so I guess im lucky.
[Vibrant General] ionic7:
Mine gets a gps lock as soon as maps gets open and gps was turned off so that was just with cell networks finding me, turn on the gps and boom 9m accuracy, and samsung will not recall these for it.
[Vibrant General] s15274n:
^ mine too... I really do not understand all of these GPS threads....

well, actually I do.. darkside makes most of them.
[Vibrant General] nomadrider123:
Maybe if you had one like I do you would understand.. Makes you want to rip your hair out when some ppl have great gps and you look at yours and say pos:mad:
[Vibrant General] proresearch:
GPS works perfect for me right out of the box, since I bought it, only takes about 5-10 seconds to get a lock, even in bad weather. I also live in the south though which makes me closer to the satelites, so I take it the people with issues live up north?
[Vibrant General] zoid_99:
Locks are one thing, Accuracy is another. Look at this map. Zoom in on it. It rarely has me driving on the road. I even took a train track for a little distance.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201142930973527917117.0004965a1c506459779a6
[Vibrant General] presence06:
When I first got the phone the GPS sorta worked, after JI6 it worked better but not the greatest. Now I've reverted back to Stock JFD and have used GPS in many situations, even used it to drive 1.5hrs to the Cities with Navigation, never lost signal, was dead on (except starting out because I didn't follow it until I got onto the highway) and on my way home I used it too, no loss of signal or anything.

I've used it to check in on FS and have no problems finding my location.

I got my phone maybe a after it was released? Just saying..
[Vibrant General] Lodingi:
My Fascinate takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes to get going. If I don't gave a general sense of direction when starting my trip, I must wait.
[Vibrant General] snowdogging:
Thanks Lodingi...now I can add the fascinate to the list of phones I won't be buying when I dump this one.

To those of you who can't seem to find anything wrong with the GPS try using it in any densly populated area. Even the mightiest of the GPS fanboys on here aren't getting any better than about 100 feet of accuracy. 100 feet of accuracy is crap and makes the GPS totally unreliable for the majority of the US population that live in dense areas.
[Vibrant General] presence06:
Minneapolis/St. Paul is "Heavily Dense" population. I picked up a signal that was dead on in a few seconds.
[Vibrant General] snowdogging:
Lol sure you did. What software were you using and how many feet accuracy? chirp...chirp...
[Vibrant General] presence06:
Wow, you're a little prick aren't you?

I'm using Stock JFD, with GPS/Use Wireless networks checked. Navigation/Maps locks on with in a few seconds.

does it piss you off that it works on my phone and not yours or what?

Just tested accuracy INSIDE my office, connected to 6-10 sats and within 150FT This is inside.
[Vibrant General] snowdogging:
Do you know what use wireless networks checked even means? You also failed to answer the how many feet question. You can keep calling me names but it doesn't mean your gps is working.

I am not the emotional one here.
[Vibrant General] presence06:
Yes I do , It uses the Wireless Networks/Towers to Triangulate your location.
[Vibrant General] dalepa:
@samsungservice told me to do a factory format reset which actually wipes the phone clean...

After the factory format, my phone lag is gone.

GPS is once again locking within 10 seconds, however now when I come to a stop in the car, GPS wonders 100's of yards off causing the MAPS to recalculate the route which totally screws you when you lost.

I also ran run GPSrestrore app which didn't fix the wondering issue.

This GPS issue really bites. STILL
[Vibrant General] presence06:
I guess I never have had the "wondering" issue while using Nav. But I'm not saying the GPS is perfect, I'm just saying it works on my device just fine. It's accurate enough to get me from point a to b without getting me lost.
[Vibrant General] disturkis4u:
If you claim your "gps" works and you're using wireless networks then you're obviously missing.the point of why people keep saying the gps does NOT work.
[Vibrant General] Wisefire:
My GPS locks in seconds, but it's a little off.. Possibly by a couple miles.

My Nexus has no issues like this.

(And lately I have had 0 bars of signal everywhere I go.. Even after rebooting and changing from 3G to Edge)
[Vibrant General] Master™:
Mine DOES work and no, I dont have "use wireless networks" on
[Vibrant General] disturkis4u:
that's not to say nobodys gps works. My boyfriend has a vibrant and i've used both together and one gets a lock and the other doesn't with the SAME settings.

i can't think of any other reason why that would occur except that there is a set out there with defective gps.

I can have 10 satellites in view and 0 in use.

Then again i've given up on fixing and im working on getting a new one.

Ps: i dont get why the people with working gps have such a difficult time accepting the fact that there are phones out that DON'T work. If yours works, great im happy for you. Wanna trade with me?
[Vibrant General] presence06:
Again, I've never said it's perfect. But there's a group that say it's broken and doesn't work at all, and then there's a group that says it works.

I've done it with USE WIRELESS NETWORKS Checked and unchecked and it works just fine. It might take a few seconds but it locks on, might not be accurate to the feet but it's pretty damn close. All I said was that it works on my phone, it was worse when I had JI6, now reverted back it seems to work better.
[Vibrant General] Scoobyracing03:
I voiced my opinion to both GalaxyS support and Samsung mobile US on twitter yesterday saying time to admit there's a hardware problem since it made mine worse than ever after trying it. I have yet to get a response from either of them.
[Vibrant General] Scoobyracing03:
From what me and another guy on the T-mobile forums were talking about there has to either be poor QA testing or different hardware used for the GPS is why it works for some and not for others. Both mine and my girlfriends have the same issues with the various fixes. Both phone were made on 8-16-2010

Mine gets a lock quick but I can be using the my tracks app and start it while sitting in one place and it starts moving me all over the place after this "fix" granted I get a lock but when I'm not really moving I'm moving a lot according to the GPS. I had it move me from my driveway to 8 blocks away yesterday afternoon all before I even moved the car an inch.
[Vibrant General] tomykat:
So I have had the Samsung vibrant since day 1 of the release, I preordered my phone and like everyone else I have TERRIBLE GPS connection. I have tried all the fixes all the patches and some made it better but DONE made if functional.

Yesterday I got a RMA replacement phone from T-mobile. I used clockwork recovery to put the same image on both phones. I then used the new Samsung GPSRestore tool on both.

Old Phone

: still took about 40-60 seconds to get a GPS lock then within 5 minutes or less it would lose the signal and switch to using the cell towers to get my location. Thus my actual location bounces all over the place. When i ran GPSTest it would show between 3-6 satellites available but it would only randamly connect to 1 or 2 at a time.

RMA Phone

: it would lock consistently within 5-10 seconds. I did several test routes with the phone and in areas where the GPS always got confused before (mainly because I would loose GPS and switch to cell towers for location) it stay solid. GPS test would show that I was connection to 90% of the satellites seen.

My conclusion is that some phones, mainly the first release phones, have bad GPS hardware in them and NO FIX will correct the problem. Thus some people are complaining more than others. My recommendation is that if you have a phone with the type of issue you call T-Mobile like I did and complain untill they will send you and RMA replacement.

Just thought I would share my experience. On a side note my RMA phone doesn't seem to have the Gallery lockup issue either?
[Vibrant General] mmas0n:
My box date is 07/11/2010 and my GPS has been spot on since JI6. I lock in 10 seconds in my house and 5 seconds outdoors. If I'm in the middle of a very large building it can take a full 45 seconds or sometimes no lock at all, but that's not really surprising. My Garmin eTrex has the same problem.

My understanding is that most the GPS issues are due to cellular network congestion and/or poor implementation by T-Mobile. Once locked, I can go into no-service areas and maintain geo-location within 15m but if I'm trying to obtain a lock without data service, it usually won't happen at all. The GPS in the Vibrant relies mostly on a highly advanced aGPS as opposed to standalone, but the trade-off is that it doesn't really use much power at all.

Again, that's just my understanding of what the real problem is. Yes, they could have included a bad-ass standalone GPS in the Vibrant but do we really want anything else sucking our battery? I think if they had done so, people would be returning phones over battery instead of GPS. Some people just need to complain.
[Vibrant General] :
I'm willing to bet that it does not. What you are getting a a network-based lock, not a GPS lock. The fact that your cell radio work well does not mean that your GPS works well, especially when you point out that the GPS wasn't even enabled.

Try going someplace with only one cell tower and see how well your GPS works.

For example: I just opened maps. I receive a "lock" in about 9 seconds, accurate to 100 meters. Then I open GPS status. 1 Sat in view, 0 fixed. After 15 minutes or so of waiting, I am now up to 2 Sats in view, 0 fixed.
[Vibrant General] funeralthirst:
yeah, not a hardware issue...

i've use mytracks where i didn't even have cell signal and it came out perfect. and i just got 6 sats locked in 11s inside with 7m error and maps shows me exactly where i am... and i actually leave 'use wireless networks' off because it's useless.
[Vibrant General] snowdogging:
Even out of all of the videos on youtube proclaiming a gps fix...which is a pretty biased group to begin with...the best accuracy on the videos is about 80 feet. If someone posts a video of a vibrant doing significantly better than that I think that would show that it is in fact an intermittent hardware issue. Since noone has...

As an example, my phone from a hot start with a recent cold reboot I can get a gps lock in 3 seconds on 6 out of 12 sats. At 90 feet accuracty my phone actually falls within the "good phone" status according to a lot of you. The problem is the accuracy at 90 feet places me two streets away in manhattan. Subsequent updates from the satelite scatter me an opposite two streets away. On my recent trip to europe in an area with tight streets if I try to use navigation my location updates so often that the announcment of my directions sounds like an abbot and costello skit.

In every case I can use my wifes iphone or my buddies droid and they both are sub 20 feet accuracy with perfect navigation and also update my location significantly more often so that I get no scattered movement.

I am just surprised at why people defend this. Even if the "good phones" are as high as 50% do you really want the next poor sap to buy this phone if he needs gps and is flipping a coin on whether he gets it?
[Vibrant General] darkside79:
Hopeless it seems! And what's up with it showing im moving on Google maps. Im standing still but it shows im moving like back and forth. Like a block or mile or two! Lol!!
[Vibrant General] :
How do you know it's not a hardware issue? Your anecdote actually points to it being a hardware issue, and not a software issue. Hardware can have defects that exist in some batches and not in others. Software does not.
[Vibrant General] ksizzle9:
Foe the person saying Samsung fascinate GPS sucks they do not DJ05, this is a leaked maintenance update we received and my GPS is spot on and never gets confused and for the most part is 100% fixed. I still don't understand how they could release the i9000 and know its GPS is **** and then turn around and release multiple US variants with the same issue. Fixed or not fixed, this phone will be gone soon so **** Samsung. And don't even get me started on froyo. I laugh at the people who actually thing Samsung will get gingerbread to the galaxy line. Face it. You can have the best hardware in the world and can't replace **** software and 0 support
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
snowdogging-

Here is a video I shot today of my stock Vibrant with the JI6 update (installed about 2 months ago). The update fixed my crap GPS. I did not make any changes to the settings after the update, nor did I bother with the GPS Restore app that just came out. (Since it's no longer broken, I'm not going to try to "fix" it.) You can see that it locks fast and gets down to about 15' of accuracy within 15-20 seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms5zqvXEtlE

I've been following this issue pretty closely - here and elsewhere - and it's pretty clear to me that there is no universal fix for those who have been having problems. There are: 1) phones like mine where the GPS was crap, but got fixed by the update, and 2) those where the GPS stays crap. Maybe this does mean that some people (a lot, really) got defective GPS hardware in their phones.
[Vibrant General] 12paq:
+1

Send it back, maybe you'll get a good one like some of us who were lucky too..

Also, when I ran GPS add ons on early handheld and PDAs there was a "snap to road" feature on almost all the software. If I turned it off it would show me wondering around fields in my car. You can bet this is built in too car GPSs. This is an example of a software used for a specific application tp appear more accurate. When I toggled it off for hiking it was always wondering a bit here and there and apeared less accurate. Not to say this is the problem now but just an easy example of how software plays role.

This would have nothing to do with people that never get locks. Well this still could be software, how well antenas are connected or other quality control issues. Who knows?

I'd return it if you can, becouse there are people like us with well working GPSs that only needed small tweeks or nothing at all to run great.

Roll the dice.
[Vibrant General] qreffie:
I got my phone on 09/01 and it had horrible GPS and would rarely ever lock. On the rom I have now with the supl settings set to supl.google.com & port 7276 I consistantly see 12 sats and lock onto 5-7 of them withing 10 seconds. My accuracy has been down to 5 meters at best.

I don't know if it's a hardware issue or not, but I am pretty sure there are several flavors of Vibrants. It's already been proven with Voodoo lagfix beta 4 not working on some phones and some phones not being able to OC/UV. Right now I'm in the working category, but I do believe that several people just have broken GPS. I would consider trying to get a replacement if I was in the non-working category.
[Vibrant General] darkside79:
Sick of this sht! Calling T-Mobile in the morning and telling them I want a replacement with a working GPS or I'm going to cancel my service!
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
darkside-

I think that's an entirely reasonable course. I was going to do the same until JI6 fixed my problem. And when you get the new phone, please report back. Good luck.
[Vibrant General] reuthermonkey:
My GPS when I got the phone worked fine. Then people whined about their phones so I tried a GPS "fix". That royally screwed my GPS when I had "use wireless networks" enabled. Started seeing the issues everyone else was describing. But if I turned off "use wireless networks", the GPS would lock on instantly when I was outside (as any GPS would).

Then I updated to JI6, and it worked great again with wireless networks.

And ever since I got JK2, it's worked fine as well.

With "use wireless networks" disabled, my GPS itself has always worked properly.
[Vibrant General] JeremyNT:
I can't understand why some people claim the GPS on this device works "fine." Either there's massive sample variation, or these people don't know how the GPS is *supposed* to work.

In 2007 I bought my first phone with a GPS, the Nokia N95. That thing locked very quickly, but far more importantly it tracked my location *accurately*. I used it instead of my Garmin to log my cycling routes. It never missed a beat! I later switched to an iPhone 3G, and had a similar experience.

Not so with the Vibrant; it's just totally unusable as a cycling tracker, having me biking through meadows or woods or rivers consistently. The software fixes for AGPS have made it lock quickly, but there's a core accuracy issue that has my tracks going all over the map. Even when it reports <10m accuracy, I can often look at the map and see that it thinks I'm *well* over 10 meters away from where I actually am!

Google navigation can hide this weakness to some extent due to the "stickiness" of roads, but even then in that best-case scenario things go wonky on me frequently. If I'm stopped at a light, the GPS will start rerouting a good bit of the time. If I'm in a city with buildings, the GPS will lose lock pretty consistently (note, I've used the N95 in NYC, and it didn't have this issue!) Even when I'm driving down a highway with clear skies, sometimes it'll drift far enough from the road that the nav stickiness stops working, and I see where it thinks I really am: sometimes driving through a field or woods beside the road.

Now I won't discount the possibility that some people's Vibrants work better than this, but it seems unlikely to me - my wife's device behaves identically and it's bone stock. I'm more inclined to believe that the people satisfied with the GPS performance simply don't use it enough to notice the issue, or they have lower expectations than I do.
[Vibrant General] reuthermonkey:
Lemme stop you right there: I agree.

As long as people continue to whine about the GPS not working while they're sitting in their parents' basements with 2 floors and a roof between them and the sky, people will never be satisfied with the GPS.

Really though, is the GPS on my Vibrant as accurate as my G1? No. Does it report my location within 15 feet though? Yes. Is that my definition of "fine"? Yes. I use it for navigation a couple times a week. I don't sit at my computer desk running GPS test apps to find out how many satellites it locks on to. I don't use my tracks with it, as I have no use for it. I just use my GPS.
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
You hit the nail on the head. The GPS in the Vibrant simply SUCKS!!!! It's a hardware issue and no firmware or hack will fix it. This thing can't get a lock from a cold start in less than 5 minutes and it's accuracy is way off. My GSM HTC Hero can lock outside from a cold start in less than 30 seconds. As the OP title says "Give up on the GPS working right!".

This isn't true. I only try all of the so called fixes outside in a clear no clouds sky in SoCal and it still SUCKS period.

And...BTW I just tried again with the "Leaked JK6 firmware" and it took over 10 minutes to get a lock even after using the so called fix GPSRestore from Samsung.
[Vibrant General] presence06:
This.

It's people that find something wrong with it and stick with it. "it's broken, it doesn't work like my phone from 1997 did, it's not accurate to 10ft from my actual location."

If it's pretty damn close to where you are, then IMO it's fine, if it's showing you 100ft/miles away from where you actually are then, yes it's broken. But holy crap a "fix" comes out and everyone jumps on it like it's a cure for AIDS. I haven't touched my GPS settings, haven't applied any fixes, just the UWN setting checked. Like I said before, it gets me from point A to point B and does it well.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
This is a curvy, hilly area. Speeds of about 40-55... stopped twice in that track. Updated to JK6 after this track.

At my house right now on JK6
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
I would be interested to know the build date on your phone. My phone's build date is July 8, 2010. To everyone that's having good success with the GPS what's the build date of your phone, is it new or is it refurbished? I'm telling you this is a hardware isssue. Some people have success and some don't that should tell you something about the quality control.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
This phone was a recent replacement from T-Mobile.

The Galaxy Tab has this problem eradicated. HTC has horrible QC problems. The myTouch 4G may or may not come with a misaligned front facing camera.. dust under the screen, etc.
[Vibrant General] dinan:
My vibrant has "6/30/2010" printed on the box, so its an earlier one, and the GPS sucks. I'm going to try and get my hands on a september 2010 unit and compare... will report back.
[Vibrant General] barmanham:
I noticed with wireless networks ticked the gps just goes haywire without it checked works pretty good i just dont know how people are getting sub 15 accuracy mines is normally at 20-30 no matter how many sats i have locked
[Vibrant General] barmanham:
Anyone think the gpstest app works different on htc phones like bench marking sometimes i think so
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
My first track with JK6... EXCELLLENT performance. Several stops.

Can you see them?

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=206183530153556093074.00049673ea16ddbc6d48f
[Vibrant General] reuthermonkey:
My build date was 7/10/2010.
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
It's as I suspected. Definitely a hardware and quality control issue. Especially since your phone was built near the same time as my phone and yours works with no problem.

This stupid phone will not lock from a cold start in less than 5 minutes outside and no less than 1 minute from a hot start after the initial lock. Don't get me started about accuracy.

I should have known to stay away from Samsung. The Instinct I had on Sprint sucked also but I gave them another chance anyway. Oh well, lesson learned for sure now and I wanted a Nexus S (I'll pass this time).
[Vibrant General] ZachLL88:
Been working great on my phone. Had it almost 2 months

Sorry to hear all you guys having problems. Samsung has always been good to me.