The Samsung Galaxy S24
Blackjack II's profile

Mentor

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58 Messages

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013 4:12 AM

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 GPS Issue

Anyone else having issues with their Note 3 GPS? I'm having an issue were every time I plug or unplug the charger from my phone the GPS drops out. I have to then toggle the GPS on/off in my quick settings to get it working again while navigating. It also seems to drop the signal when I get an incoming phone call while using the navigation app. I have confirmed this same behavior on 2 other friends Note 3's. I'm hoping this is just a software issue that will be fixed in a future os update.

Tutor

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2 Messages

10 years ago

Same here, GPS signal lost. It happens at least once a day, I am just so dissapointed

Scholar

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131 Messages

10 years ago

Mine and my wifes both have this issue. We were riding down south to a frends house and mine lost gps signal and my wifes would never connect. ATT wont do anything. Look at the issues with the wifi dropping also. I think both are are the same chip so its probobly a hardware issue. I 

went and got a LTM Garmin GPS from bestbuy during Black Friday thank god. 

Scholar

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63 Messages

10 years ago

Update:

I just received my new, wait scratch that, 3rd referbished Note 3 (yes it has MJ5) from FedEx. Just did the OEM 2.1A charger plug/unplug test, GPS icon still there. So I rebooted the phone, then let it get a full lock while on wifi, walked down the street to make it switch to 4G, still good. Still need to test 4G to LTE, but I'll do that later and report back.

 

Like I said, if you are having GPS issues, call AT&T and get a replacement. If they don't want to replace it, ask for a supervisor. Remeber to be very nice and polite and the supervisor will help you. Let's see how long this one lasts, maybe I'll get luckey this time... Now the "fun" Smiley Frustrated task of reinstalling everything

 

[UPDATE 1/16/14] - Everything & all my apps are reinstalled. Went out and after testing last night and this morning (4G - LTE and back) multiple times thorugh multiple areas, including making and receiving calls in an LTE area, so far my GPS is working. 

 

There is something odd, the GPS icon will blink like it is trying to get a lock, but when I check how close the lock is, it is about 3 meters. Not sure if it means anything, but it works (knock on wood)...

Voyager

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3 Messages

10 years ago

I finally managed to find a somewhat fix for my Samsung Note 3 GPS lock problem. The problem seems to be software related, note hardware. After rooting my note 3 and installing a ROM that did not solve the problem, I installed unofficial KitKat ROM,

 

[Edited to comply with Guidelines]

 

My GPS now locks every time I power on my Note 3, using the free app: "GPS test", it locks to the satelites just as effective as my Note 1. When I see the lock taking place in GPS test, I open Sygic (the car navigation program I prefer to use) - and this works super. However, if I turn on my phone and do not open the app GPS test straight away, then the lock problem happen again. But every time I restart mye Note 3 (power off, then power on / do a reboot), the unofficial KitKat ROM really do a great job. 

 

My guess is that the Samsung Note 3 GPS lock problem is partly caused by a "permission conflict", a purely software problem that Samsung can solve making a update.

 

When the official KitKat update / ROM is launched by Samsung for Note 3, and if the GPS lock problem still is not solved, this will really be a catastrophe or incompetence on behalf of the Samsung team responsible for the Note 3 GPS.    

 

Take care 🙂

Scholar

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63 Messages

10 years ago

Wow not even 24 hours this time. Plug/un-plug & switching between 4G/LTE it dropps again. I even tried going into safe mode (while powering on the device,. keep hitting the menu button) to disable all of the installed apps, still nothing. 

 

I know this sound wierd, but I wonder if there is some hidden power save menu for the GPS?

 

I'm did a factory reset and it started working... I'm only going to install Ingress and Ingress wakelock and see how long this lasts. This should not happen with an $800 device. I think this is the last time I get a Samsung 

Teacher

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10 Messages

10 years ago

Add me to the GPS issue.  It looks like I have the issue when you plug and unplug the charger, change the cell phone towers (from LTE to 4G and back), and it also loses the GPS signal when the phone is put in and out of airplane mode.  

 

I called ATT support and they transferred me to samsung.  After a few diagnostics they said I need to send the phone in/get a replacement.  

 

Before calling ATT support I reset the phone to factory.  Resetting it fixed the gps issue for one day.  After the reset I could plug/unplug the charger, change cell towers, and put the phone in and out of airport mode without the GPS turning off.  However after one day the GPS issue came back.

 

After the GPS problem came back, I stopped at the ATT store and tested the two note 3s they had on display and both of them had the GPS issue.  Also while talking to an employee at the store and showing him the problem with the two phones they had on display, he took out his note 3 and it also had the GPS issue.  He never knew he had the problem. 

 

It also looks like this could mainly be an AT&T problem.  I have checked three verizon and two T Mobile note 3s and none of them have the GPS problem.

 

I just reset the phone again and the GPS is again working correctly.  Will wait and see. 

Mentor

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28 Messages

10 years ago

@james27007 @nicman @TeddySkinner 

Like you guys I have been doing the same thing. After wipe it seems to work fine, and I do suspect it's a software issue. I was actually in the process of writing an update here last night, as I was writing I decided to check it one more time to be absolutely sure I'd gotten rid of the problem when it happened again.

At the time I suspected the Flipboard widget that's preinstalled on our homescreen as that was the last app I started up before it happened. So then I wiped my phone a second time last night to test out Flipboard, but to my dismay the GPS continued to work perfectly even after I had signed in to the widget. Then I suspected GSam as that was the app I set up prior to Flipboard. So I left GSam uninstalled since the wipe last night, everything was still working until a few hours ago. I was going to drop by here and give an update when I thought, okay one last test... then boom we're back to square one.

It has to be some sort of software issue as all 3 of us have noticed, a factory wipe without installing apps/backup restore works but after we install our apps and use it for a day or so it bugs out again. But I can't think of what might be causing it, what app could affect the GPS chip like that? Plugging/unplugging normally has NOTHING to do with the GPS, so why is it causing it to shutdown. And the 4G LE to 4G switch too, it's on a separate radio, so how does it affect GPS? This is beyond annoying but at least we've been able to confirm with a 80-90% probability that it's not a hardware problem.

Mentor

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28 Messages

10 years ago

Also head to this thread on XDA where a few others confirm it's some sort of software problem and flashing to X-Note ROM has solved their issues.

forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2612757

Hopefully the jump to KitKat will fix this issue.

Mentor

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43 Messages

10 years ago

Add another one,owned my note 3 for about 10 days this issue kept occurring swapped it out for another new one same issue yet again. I really don't believe it's a hardware issue definitely seems like something related to when it switches from 4G To LTE and so forth. In any case I hope it gets fixed either by kitkat or some update as for such a high end expensive phone this is unacceptable.

Mentor

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43 Messages

10 years ago

P.S before any AT&T "technical support" mentions factory reset again been down that path also. (P.p.s rarely does that actually fix any issue for any phone beyond a day or two.)
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