Captivate - GPS Issues

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@dwmitchell61 wrote:

Nope. But the odd thing is that my wife's Samsung Captivate with the JH6 baseband and 2.1Update1 OS has GPS that works just fine! Locks right on if you are not in a large structure with lots of metal (i.e., mall building).

 

We loaded the JH7 baseband update this morning. See how it works after that...

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While the GPS may seem to lock on, try navigating with it.  Chances are, even with the update to JH7, the navigation will still either fail or fall off track.  This is because the phone is using aGPS, not the GPS.

Here is a good explaination of GPS vs aGPS (from the XDA forums):

http://ip208-100-42-21.static.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=789383

I received my Captivate a week ago after almost not considering the purchase after reading all the GPS issue messages.  GPS is important to me but the prospect of moving to android (after YEARS of WM) forced me to get it.  I ordered from third party commercial site....unlocked.  I hated to even try GPS because I love the phone but was scared of GPS disappointment.  I'm happy to report that I don't know if I'm lucky, or if this phone is in some way different, but the GPS has been flawless and even better than my previous tilts, Fuze, and HD2.  It gets a satellite lock INSIDE my house in less than a minute (no other WM phone I had could do that), outside, generally faster.  I have in the last week used CoPilot, IGo myway, and MyTracks..A LOT...all have been completely flawless.  My point certainly is NOT to gloat in any way, but to express my fear that any future 'fixes' or updates put me into the GPS frustrated party.

It appears that it is hit or miss on the gps issues.  According to the people, on XDA, who actually got the new update to work, the gps is working better.

I've had Google Earth up trying to find my location for 15 minutes and no lock...the little satellite icon is still active...

samsungcarla tweeted that gps fix is with update for this week and many people on twitter are saying their gps is fixed.

I have the update installed from today, and I'm getting no better GPS signal.  This is a little ridiculous.  The code to get into the GPS settings doesn't seem to work either.  I had done the so called work around and changed some settings, I wonder if that is messing up the fix?

I've heard elsewhere that some people who have loaded other baseband versions than the stock have had trouble updating, but nothing about people who have just fiddled with the XDA work around.

I just did the update about an hour ago and the accuracy of the GPS is way, way up (from 300 feet before the update to 16 feet), though it still takes a good 60 seconds to get a strong enough signal to locate me at all.

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@stefanjk wrote:

I have the update installed from today, and I'm getting no better GPS signal.  This is a little ridiculous.  The code to get into the GPS settings doesn't seem to work either.  I had done the so called work around and changed some settings, I wonder if that is messing up the fix?

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I have noticed the same results. As in the GPS does not lock, and is very inaccurate with the triangulation being used. Also there now seems to be a "lock" in place to get to the settings, or that menu has been removed all together. I say that because on mine, it does not work anymore. I am hoping and praying that this "update" was a mere test on how it would work against the network for when the 2.2 firmware is ready to be pushed.