Network location update not working

[cehc754]

Hi,

I recently set up GPS tracking on Samsung A20 with Android Pie. I noticed no track was left anywhere I went.

Then I noticed that if the phone GPS was off, network location update never kicked in (last network location sent timestamp never updated to more recent). As a result no track was found.

Once I turned on GPS location update worked.

Also I can only set network location interval down to 30 secs and nothing less (except 0 which means disabled).


Any ideas?

Thanks.

PS: On the Samsung phone, whenever the screensaver kicked in, GPS was turned off right away.

[admin]

Hi,
The app is designed to use the GPS signal. The network location is only considered as fallback if no GPS signal can be found. If you use only the network location the tracker should show you the current location but it won't draw a track because usually the network location is not as accurate as GPS location. If no GPS signal is available the tracker waits 5 minutes (starting from the last GPS location update time) before it would fallback to the network location.

[cehc754]

I see - thx.

I think it happened because I checked the box "GPS on Viewers Only" to save battery, so as you have explained, I don't see any track at all if I uncheck this box and no viewers so only network location is used.

Would be nice there's an option to still draw the track w network location data.

If I do check this box, it looks like battery is consumed a lot faster.


Read this news (2018) there'd be newer GPS chips that'd use a different kind of GPS signal that'd be more accurate and also saves battery life even more.

https://www.eweek.com/mobile/power-savi ... ng-in-2018


Not sure if these newer chips are now in the cellphones in the market or it'd be later on.

[admin]

Well, as I said, it's hard to draw tracks, if the location is not exact. Actually I also count on the fact, that GPS chips should be energy efficient in the future, so hopefully it's possible in the future to always use GPS without having battery problems.

[cehc754]

A follow-up observation:

I'm actually seeing, if 'GPS on viewers only' is checked, the location time isn't refreshing, even if there's an active viewer (the A20 phone is set as an authorized 'friend' on the viewing phone). Time is showing '12 days ago'.

Only when I launch the App on the A20 phone then I'd see an update on the location 'time' from the viewer's phone.

Any reason location is not updating at all unless the App on the A20 phone is launched?

I checked, and on the A20 phone settings, Autostart and Auto-continue are both checked.

Thanks.

[admin]

Hi,
I just tested it on my phone - for me it's working. As soon as I watch my location in the browser I see the GPS icon in the notification bar. Can you check if your phone shows a viewer counter greater or equal to 1. If this is the case GPS should be enabled. Please note if the GPS signal is weak it still could happen that the location is not updated.

[cehc754]

Hi,

I am still seeing this problem on the Samsung A20 phone. From the browser I can now see the location information was seen 2 days ago. The user name is dwnsmyx. Feel free to take a look. The A20 phone is on the whole time and is up now.

Thanks.

[admin]

Sorry, I cannot analyze the problem without physical access to the phone. Just to be sure, are you aware that it's not enough that the phone is online? The tracking service must be running as well.

[cehc754]

K is there a way to check if the tracking service is running - without launching the App?

I reinstalled the App a day ago, and right after the install was done, it asked me for permissions to access photos/videos/etc. I refused as it shouldn't need to access photos/videos. That shouldn't matter?

[cehc754]

Also, on my other phone,I now see a frequent message whenever I launch the realTimeGPS Tracker App, saying that GPS was turned OFF on my phone. It asked me to turn ON GPS.

I never turned off GPS on my phone. So I didn't know what to do. When I went into the App's permissions, location permission was turned ON. When I quit the App, I then saw a msg saying 'GPS tracking service is started', which was strange? As I used the App and had everything set up a long time ago? Autostart and auto-continue was checked in the App's settings.


I have 'Data Saver' turned ON on this phone. Not sure if that'd affect GPS service.

This is Android Pie.