GPS not working on iPhone 3G?
I was having some problems this morning as my iPhone wasn't able to locate my position. It worked perfectly before, but somehow the location function in Maps kept spinning for minutes.
I did a little searching around to find out I wasn't really the only one facing similar issues. The forum thread contains lots of suggestions that might work, but no real solution.
As I didn't want to waste too much time getting it to work (I suppose Apple will fix it shortly anyway), I just rebooted the iPhone (don't really know if that is necessary, but did it anyway) and disabled everything related to location positioning (Wifi, 3G, Edge and Location Services). Opening Maps afterwards resulted in a popup asking me whether I wanted to use the built-in location services. I chose to do so and boom, it found my exact location within seconds ...
21 comments so far
I tried this, and while it at least gave some reference (gerenal crosshair over the town) to location, it didnt finally show the blue dot it always does...any other things I may have to try?
Posted on 1 September 2008 at 07.24 h by Hernando - Permalink
hello evrybody i Need help here
I bought an iPhone 3G firmware 2.1
in my country the mobile network(Vodafone Egyot) they sellin the iphone 3G with no GPS so its gives me when i press locate me a circle with no blue point!!.. i asked the customer service if they remove the gps ship from the iphone they told me that NO its just colsed on the firmware that sellin with frimware 2.1..
so is there any solution to activate the gps on my iphone 3G??
Posted on 25 December 2008 at 17.10 h by Mfekry81 - Permalink
@Mfekry81: sorry, no idea about that. Didn't even know in some countries the iPhones were sold without GPS.
Here's how you fix it:
- Go to settings, general, auto-lock, change it from 1 Minute to NEVER
- Go to settings, general, reset, reset network settings (THIS WILL REBOOT YOUR IPHONE)
- Go outside, in a clear place with NO tree's, buildings, or anything blocking your view of the sky
- Open "MAPS", click NO on all that wi-fi crap, then click the little gps icon, and let it sync up with the satellites (this could take a few minutes)
Posted on 15 April 2009 at 04.42 h by Logan - Permalink
Thanks for providing this information. I've tried all of the fixes suggested here including Logan's good suggestions and none of them work for me. My phone used to be right on my location, but now it is consistently a few miles (about 3) off regardless of where I am. My wife also has a 3G iPhone and hers still works perfectly. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Could some of my other apps be causing the problem?
Posted on 20 September 2009 at 22.53 h by Rollin - Permalink
I also have problems with the GPS on iPhone 3G. In my case it works for a while pretty well and then it stops working completely for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes or so. I used my GPS over the weekend for a few hours and was able to try many of the suggestions here to try to fix it. None of them worked for me. Very frustrating! I was able to compare my 3G to my friend's 3GS and her iPhone had no problem at all. We were both riding in a bus and hers was ticking away just as it should while mine had no signal.
Posted on 22 September 2009 at 22.32 h by Bob - Permalink
CONFIRMED GPS FIX
Q: So what's the problem?
A: "locationd", the process that makes GPS work, isn't working correctly.
Q: Why?
A: It's Apple so who the hell knows why. One thing that's for sure however is that deleting the cache can fix the problem.
Q: Tell me more.
A: No restore required, not even a restart. It's a simple fix, you'll just need a jailbroken iPhone to do it. If you haven't jailbroken yet, you should consider (as of 2009-09-28 you cannot jailbreak if you've updated to OS 3.1). You'll need to be able to send commands to your iPhone, which can be done through SSH or through Terminal, which is an app that can be installed from Cydia.
1. Go back to the home screen.
2. Open Terminal or establish a SSH connection. Note that these commands are case sensitive (capitalization matters).
3. Type the following, it will terminate the locationd process (the process will restart next time your iPhone uses the GPS):
killall -9 locationd
4. Type the following, it will delete the GPS cache (don't worry about deleting the cache, it'll rebuild itself next time your iPhone uses the GPS):
rm -rf /var/root/Library/Caches/locationd
5. Open Maps, your GPS should be working now.
So to reiterate the commands:
killall -9 locationd
rm -rf /var/root/Library/Caches/locationd
Posted on 28 September 2009 at 06.32 h by Unicornprincess - Permalink
i did the locationd removal and i still have poor gps accuracy. i get a lock but its 47 meters (IN)accurate. updates about every 3-4 seconds. broken gps chip or antenna in my phone ?
Posted on 29 September 2009 at 23.39 h by Xjust - Permalink
Not working for me. I tried everything, even change my iPhone 3G GPS antenna. The GPS works randomly. The problem is widely spread in the world. I think people should report the system log of their iphone.To do that; download "iphone configuration utility" from apple.com, then go to the "console" tab after double clicking on your iphone name (under devices).
This is my error log:
Wed Sep 30 15:14:03 unknown kernel[0] : launchd[169] Builtin profile: MobileMaps (seatbelt)
Wed Sep 30 15:14:04 unknown com.apple.locationd[170] : WARNING,Time,276009244.602,Function,"void CLGpsController82::setupLtoDownload()",could not parse LTO file or data has expired (0.00 seconds ago)
Wed Sep 30 15:14:05 unknown com.apple.locationd[170] : WARNING,Time,276009244.998,Function,"void CLGpsController82::feedAssistanceLocation(const CLTypeFix&)",no assistance location available
Wed Sep 30 15:14:05 unknown com.apple.locationd[170] : WARNING,Time,276009244.999,Function,"void CLGpsController82::feedAssistanceEphemeris()",could not parse LTO file /var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/lto2.dat
Wed Sep 30 15:14:05 unknown com.apple.locationd[170] : WARNING,Time,276009244.999,Function,"void CLGpsController82::setupLtoDownload()",could not parse LTO file or data has expired (0.00 seconds ago)
Wed Sep 30 15:14:05 unknown kernel[0] : AppleSerialMultiplexer: !! mux-ad(eng)::bsdIoctl: unrecognized ioctl on minor 12 (0x402c7413), data (0xea61fedc, @int=0x00000000),fflag (0x00000007), ret 0xe3ff8001
Wed Sep 30 15:14:06 unknown com.apple.locationd[170] : WARNING,Time,276009246.079,Function,"void CLGpsController82::feedAssistanceLocation(const CLTypeFix&)",no assistance location available
I think the "AppleSerialMultiplexer" thing is the key of the problem but I don't know if it's an hardware or a software issue..
Thanks to report your system log...
Posted on 30 September 2009 at 15.17 h by Phil - Permalink
The above fix does work for people whose GPS randomly stopped working completely, others have confirmed it. If it's your accuracy that's off it doesn't sound like this fixes it, but it doesn't harm anything either so it's worth a try.
Posted on 1 October 2009 at 03.01 h by Unicornprincess - Permalink
This has got my gps up and running again, thankyou. Mine just out of the blue stopped working.
Sometimes it would get a good fix just to lose it moments later and then not fix again for a long time. I tried restoring twice and other fixes (turn this on, that off etc) but this one seems to have done the trick.
Posted on 1 October 2009 at 10.17 h by Finker - Permalink
I tried the method to clear the cache but I get an error: "You don't have enough permissions to delete this directory" or something similar.
I have 3GS with OS 3.0 (7A341) and I am stucked in middle of USA without GPS.
I also tried to reset network settings, but I couldn't go under a clear sky, so didn't worked so far.
I tried another fix as well, to turnoff Location Services but didn't worked either.
Help?
Posted on 7 October 2009 at 05.23 h by Lucian Florian - Permalink
so. i tried over the terminal and when i typed in comand "killall -9 locationd" i got message --> "no matching processes belonging to you were found"
i have iphone 3G unlocked
jailbrekan with blackra1n
installed openssh and terminal
but gps still don't work. actually it shows in g maps just some pint somwhere arouond and blue circl with varition wher can i be. it looks like that it works on tri angle from antena and not from gps.
Posted on 26 October 2009 at 23.58 h by Zupym - Permalink
When I type in those commands nothing happens. Could anyone tell me what am I doing wrong?
Posted on 5 December 2009 at 09.48 h by Michal - Permalink
Its because you are all using a jailbroken device, specially a blackra1n
This cause the iphone firmware 3.1.2 jammed!
GPS simple dont work for those who jailbroke firmware 3.1.2, GPS only drop a blue glowing circle, basically what happens is, doesnt really move or work
the blackra1n devs need to fix some couple of caches and files there, not only GPS getting a problem also the YOUTUBE cannot be connected to the server
Wait for the update boys!
But if you want to end your problems, as said above, RESTORE YOUR IPHONE! GPS will then properly work with a 99% of accuracy!
Posted on 5 January 2010 at 16.00 h by Jerome Joaquin - Permalink
My 3GS was working fine. Now it thinks I'm somewhere a bit different than I actually am. Very annoying. No mods, std OS, latest patches.
Any ideas?
Posted on 18 January 2010 at 19.31 h by Jon Innes - Permalink
I have jailbroken iphone FW 3.1.2 GPS worked for months. Few days ago it just stoped without reason, i tryed everything wroted above and coudnt make it work :(
WiFi is also jaming from few days ago :(
youtube works fine, like always.
Posted on 4 February 2010 at 20.37 h by Crazy Milojko - Permalink
same as above but no wifi problems,
navigon worked fine, one day just cannot get reception :(
any ideas?
Posted on 18 February 2010 at 23.57 h by Yozi - Permalink
My phone is iphone 3g, 3.1.2 firmware with blackra1n jailbreak.
no complication about wifi and youtube:) but GPS is killig me:(
i tried to reset notwork settings, tried stop every thing and open one by one bla bla... etc.
Tried Push fix application which somebody says fix the issue. Not working for me.
Try push fix, maybe it can help you,
add http://apt.macosmovil.com/ to your Cydia source via
Cydia->Manage->Source->Edit->Add, and search for Push Fix. 6.6 kb. run and restart your phone. Also you need uninstall and reinstall the apps which use push(like navigation app)
Posted on 19 February 2010 at 19.08 h by Maktama - Permalink
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So what do you think about GPS not working on iPhone 3G?? Leave a comment and let me know. Make sure to fill out all fields marked with an asterisk (*). Your email address is not shown (and I won't abuse it to spam you either).
I read somewhere (can't remember the URL, sorry) that turning of the location services will do it.
I had this problem about 3 times now and I restarted the whole phone. Maybe just disabling the location service is the better choice.
Posted on 26 July 2008 at 11.11 h by Carsten - Permalink