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Droid Eris - Wrong Network/Location

Hello!

For the past week or so, my husband and I (both with DROID Eris') have been having issues with our phone's location. We live in Panama City, FL, however as of late our location has been showing up as Tallahassee, FL (some 100 miles away), or even just 'Florida' with no city. This is causing problems with our weather widget, as well as our travel directions. I thought that when we received the 2.1 Update that this would fix itself, however I just got the update today and am still having the same problems.

I've done several power downs/power ups, and did several searches on the internet, however I cannot find anyone with a solution to our problem. I turned off the 'Use wireless networks' setting, and ensured the 'Use GPS satellites' is on, but beyond that I'm not sure what I can do.

Any ideas? If you need more info, please let me know.

Thanks!

Comments

willanaya

Ateres wrote:
Hello!

For the past week or so, my husband and I (both with DROID Eris') have been having issues with our phone's location. We live in Panama City, FL, however as of late our location has been showing up as Tallahassee, FL (some 100 miles away), or even just 'Florida' with no city. This is causing problems with our weather widget, as well as our travel directions. I thought that when we received the 2.1 Update that this would fix itself, however I just got the update today and am still having the same problems.

I've done several power downs/power ups, and did several searches on the internet, however I cannot find anyone with a solution to our problem. I turned off the 'Use wireless networks' setting, and ensured the 'Use GPS satellites' is on, but beyond that I'm not sure what I can do.

Any ideas? If you need more info, please let me know.

Thanks!

you should leave your "use wireless networks" and "gps satellites" option on when using your gps. having both on will give you a more accurate reading. but try this:

Some people have issues with GPS accuracy, such as showing your location 1000 feet or further away from your actual location, and this can be resolved by following these steps.

1. Download GPS Status from the market (it's free).

2. Make sure your GPS is turned on and open GPS Status.

3. Go to a location where you don't have magnetic devices around you (like electronics of any sort), such as outside (ideal) or room with minimal electronics nearby.

4. Hold your phone in your hand flat. Spin it around 3 times. After that, hold your phone on it's side, spin it around 3 times again. Finally, put your phone right side up (end on end) and spin it 3 more times. You can also do figure 8's, but the spins worked for me.

5. Go to Google Maps and see if your location is closer.

Ateres

Thank you for your response!

I have turned 'Use wireless networks' back on, and have downloaded the app recommended. I did the turning thing you recommended, however it is still placing me hundreds of miles away from my actual location.

Any other advice?

willanaya

Ateres wrote:
Thank you for your response!

I have turned 'Use wireless networks' back on, and have downloaded the app recommended. I did the turning thing you recommended, however it is still placing me hundreds of miles away from my actual location.

Any other advice?

when you have your map screen up, press the menu button at the bottom of the phone.

then choose the option "my location", see if that forces it through. if not, there has to be a google sign up sheet for people having the same problems you are having. if enough people complain, assuming that the complaint has been submitted to google, then they will move that up their list of priorites and hopefully issue a fix for it.

willanaya

willanaya wrote:
Ateres wrote:
Thank you for your response!

I have turned 'Use wireless networks' back on, and have downloaded the app recommended. I did the turning thing you recommended, however it is still placing me hundreds of miles away from my actual location.

Any other advice?

when you have your map screen up, press the menu button at the bottom of the phone.

then choose the option "my location", see if that forces it through. if not, there has to be a google sign up sheet for people having the same problems you are having. if enough people complain, assuming that the complaint has been submitted to google, then they will move that up their list of priorites and hopefully issue a fix for it.

if this is all bothering you to the extremes, then you can go to the market, click menu, click downloads, click on the google maps icon, then at the bottom where it normally says "uninstall" it should say "uninstall updates" choose this and revert back to a past update of google maps.

Ateres

Tried that, no avail. Still showing me not where I'm at.

The frustrating thing is that its been working fine since I got my phone in January. Its only this past week or so that its gone weird. So its a Google thing, then? That's disheartening... would I look under Google Maps for this sheet, or Google Latitude? My concern is that if there's not a lot of others out there with this problem that I'll be out of luck.

Iceman1906

Try turning your gps of then go into your Application manager to the weather wigit and clear data. Also do a clear data for google maps. Once both are cleared, turn gsp back on and run the weather app or google maps to see if you location is corrected.

Ateres

Sorry for the late response, I have been away from my computer.

Re: Budone -- I'm not sure, to be honest. I know when I was driving home from work last night, I checked Google Maps and noticed that it had my location correct and was following me as I was roaming, and I thought whatever it was had fixed itself. I got home that night and checked again, but as soon as I was stationary, it reverted my location back to Gainesville, FL. My husband checked me periodically throughout the day, but to him, my icon never moved from Gainesville, FL. I hope that made sense.

Re: Iceman1906 -- I just did as you asked, however its still showing Gainesville, FL as my location on both Google Maps and the HTC Weather. My phone time is also an hour ahead due to the timezone change (but I overrode the autodetect to set my time correct again).

I posted my problem elsewhere, and received a response from someone in my same general area who is having the same problem, and knows of a friend who is also experiencing the same thing. Could it be a problem with a tower in our area?

Thanks for the replies! Keep 'em coming! :smileyhappy:

KJRadz

My wife has a Motorola Devour and I have the HTC Incredible. We also live in Panama City, FL but her phone is showing her in Gainesville and mine currently has me in Crawfordville.

FYI... I've opened a ticket with a Verizon Engineer thorugh their call center in Little Rock. They are supposed to be looking into the problem but I haven't heard anything back yet.

Iceman1906

I have reviewed the ticket for this is issue and it is still open. I thank you for your patience as our technical support works with manufactures to pin point a resolution. The the wrong location is due to incorrect data being provided by the aGPS system.

"As a workaround, in Settings > Location > uncheck 'Use wireless network', verify 'Location setting' is set to 'Location On' and check 'Use GPS Satellites', then retest. If unsuccessful, under Settings > Applications > Maps, click 'Clear Cache' and 'Clear Defaults', then retest."

If the workaround does not work for you, I do apologize and will keep you post on when the issue has been resolved.

eidiamonddot1

I also live/work in the Panama City area and have been affected by this "glitch" since about last Friday. I have done all of the mentioned to try to fix it and to no avail it is still showing either Tallahassee or Gainseville, which is even further away. Both my daughter and I have the Droid Eris and it is affecting both of us. At my work several people have advised they are running into the same issues, they don't have the same phone necessarily but do own some form of DROID and they do use VZW as their carrier. It was nice to see that I wasn't going bonkers and that is an issue for others.

atrogs

I also need to chime in on this one. I have the Motorola Droid ,wife has Eris and also live the Panama City area. Neither phone will give the correct location now. This affects everything: weather, news, map widgets, even browser. They are showing either Gainesville or Micanopy, Fl. So today I called Verizon's technical center and they walked me through the items mentioned earlier in the thread here (powering on/off, clearing caches, recognizing location through network/wi-fi and GPS) nothing worked. She then told me this was a Motorola problem and gave me a number to call them. I told her about the HTC Eris having same problem, she told me they have a problem also and gave me HTC's number. That was the end of help from her. I called Motorola and went through the same troubleshooting as with Verizon's tech. Then was told I could do a master reset but that probably wouldn't help either since it seems to be some kind of GPS signal problem. After questioning several friends with android network phones the problem seems to only be with our carrier. So please if you get a resolution, post it. I love the phones and the service normally, but cannot operate like this.

KJRadz

I spoke with Verizon tech support again yesterday and after being given the same initlal runaround asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor did acknowledge that their engineers are aware that the problem is not with the handsets but with the location being broadcast from their network. I informed him that the workarounds did not work for many applications and widgets and that Android phones were not the only ones affected (my daughter is getting text messages on her non-Android non-smart phone that have incorrect timestamps).

The best I could get out of him was a promise to touch base with me next week as things develop. Quite frankly... it's mind boggling to me why they haven't reverted back to their previous configuration until they can fix this since it was working fine before they made their changes.

ubah

I have the same problem. Talked to tech support for nearly an hour, they sent me a new phone. I knew I was in trouble when it was showing Tallahassee as my location right out of the box (I live in Panama City Beach). It's not a handset problem, it's not a software problem -- it's a network "doesn't know where the heck I am" problem. C'MON VERIZON - get this fixed!

Iceman1906

I would like to thank everyone for your patience as our Techs works to find a resolution. Currently the master trouble ticket is still open and no ETR is available for me post. Our Techs are having to work with other Techs due to it being a 3rd party GPS issue and not directly related to the Verizon Network. They advised that the appropriate teams are engaged and working on the issue.

KJRadz

Yeah... well the patience is running thin. We pay a lot of money for this service and quite frankly your excuses are crap. This was working fine before you made network changes. I'm about one more excuse away from standing ourside your biggest local store to make sure everyone going in knows about this problem before they buy.

aczuprynski

I am having the same problem. I am in Madison, WI, and the phone often gets my location wrong. Sometimes its a place I've been, sometimes its a place I've never been.

All I can deduce so far is that this is absolutely a problem with Verizon's network. If I turn off use wireless, and use just the GPS it gets my location right every time.

Try the app "gps status" and tag and map its location. If that gives you the right location then it is a network problem.

KJRadz

As expected... No call back.

KJRadz

Looks like they've corrected the Time Zone portion of the issue. It's still reporting the wrong town... but progress is progress right?

KJRadz

Or not... it's back to an hour off again.

LCACdriver

I am in the same boat. But I have the Incredible. I mentioned it to my wife who has the Eris, and sure enough, it has happened to her as well, and she swears it used to be accurate, just not sure when it went bad.

It not only happens to MAPS, but any location based service. And for the record, I can sit right next to her and hers will say Tallahassee and mine will say Crawfordville. Go figure that one out.

The only difference is if I am outside, my google maps will usually reset to current location after a minute or so, but not affect/update my location based apps to the current location. Her Eris will not do this. As soon as I am inside, it reverts back to google maps FUBAR.

This is quite BS and shouldn't be that difficult of an issue to correct, no matter who the problem lies with. Since the issue seems to be predominantly in Panama City, Fl, I am quite convinced it is a Verizon issue vice GPS glitch. The majority of the location based apps should work through cell tower triangulation/correlation. They will work faster/better with GPS, but it is not required. In fact, I'm pretty sure there is some documentation that states such about google maps and other apps.

So what is the answer now Verizon? Iceman, can you please respond to that?

cdrras

I live in the Panama City, FL area and I have also been experiencing this issue. I believe the issue has been going on for over a month now (possibly closer to two months). When my Motorola Droid tries to find my location, it finds places like Micanopy FL, Gainesville FL, Citra, FL or it just does not find my location at all. These are absolutely no where near Panama City. Of course, because of this, my location for Google Maps is wrong, local weather is wrong, local Google searches are wrong, as well as any application that uses GPS for results. I have tried every combination of settings possible and my results are it either returns one of those places listed above or I get a location unavailable. I just got back from a trip to Texas this week and I can say that I had no problem with the GPS picking up my location in the city I was at. It would be great to see something done about this.

KJRadz

Just got off the phone with HTC this time... Was assured that Verizon is working closely with them and in conjuction with Google to come up with a solution to this problem. Interestingly enough he wasn't willing to commit to what the problem could be even after confirming that the location information was collected from cell tower triangulation but he did let slip that they might be working on a software update to address it.

Wish I had better news.

superfly15

I hope they're including WinMo in the update :smileyhappy:

jenkies

I just recently, a month and a half actually, relocated from Suwanee county back to Wewahitchka, close to Panama city. I own an HTC Eris and have been having this problem since a little even before the update for the 2.1. I thought maybe it was just me because I have not yet changed my area code and all these incorrect locations were close to where I was living at the time....wrong. I talked to my wifes uncle, who also owns an Eris, only he lives in Wewahitchka and has a correct area code, his Droid is having the same problems. He rooted his phone before the VZW update was made available and it still does it. I have since used the VZW update to 2.1 and it seems even worse. I bragged for so long how the Android was the better than the iPhone, I still believe it is. We just need some help. It can't be like some oil spill that noone can seem to fix. I know someone/nerd somewhere can fix this. Im depending on them whoever they are. I love my phone yet I have had urges to throw it out the window going 70 mph down the road.

Ateres

We should meet up and arrange a sit-in in the Verizon store on 23rd street. :smileyvery-happy:

Just kidding, but man is this frustrating! From reading KJRadz post, it sounds like they're not sure what the problem is, or whether they're going to fix it. Starting to wish I wasn't locked into a 2 year contract now...

KJRadz

I've had the same thought... might even be able to be talked into providing a grill and some hot dogs for the party...

KJRadz

Let's see what we can glean from this thread...

1) The problem affects multiple handsets.

2) The problem affects multiple Operating Systems.

3) GPS and aGPS work fine (verified on my wife's Devour).

4) Country code information as displayed by Google Maps is inconsistent.

The only thing that makes sense from this would be a problem with Cell ID lookup.

So someone should...

A) Verify that our handsets are getting the correct data. If not... Fix it.

Take that data and do a manual lookup in the database to verify that it has the correct information. If not... Fix it.

C) If tests A and B pass then let us know how long it will be until the software patch comes out to fix it.

If it is true that the problem started for some before their last software update and that for some of uss it started sometime after the last update (not to mention that it affects multiple OS's) then it is unlikely to be the handset software that is the problem. But if it is they should at least be forthcoming about it.

jenkies

Do we get discounted for any of this? It's been at least a month and nothing is fixed for me here in wewa, Florida or anyone else I know in the panhandle. Wrong location, faulty Bluetooth, slack tech support and customer service. I love my phone.....but I sure am getting to the point where I don't love Verizon. What's sad is I was with Alltel for 3-4 years with three lines in my name. Ever since Verizon took over I get the feeling that they don't care for the consumer. I will explain more if I need to, this ain't my first rodeo with Verizon. Maybe they'll get it together before they lose business. If it wasn't for my phone and them having the best coverage on my area, I would find another provider when my contract is up. Sorry to all, guess I just needed to vent a little. It'll probably ne fixed soon enough, we just gotta be patient.

KJRadz

Got a call back from Customer service and am now expecting a call from a director in Tech Support. The issue is related to network upgrades and migration and they are still researching the cause. I'm hoping that we'll be able to provide enough additional information to get the investigation moving in the right direction.

@Jenkie... As a former Alltel employee I'd like to thank you for the kind words about my old employer. I can assure you that most of the people I've talked to regarding this issue do care and want to see it resolved (if only to avoid hearing from me again...). Several of the tech support folks I've been working with are former Alltel and they still strive to provide the best service they can under the new banner.

I've worked on issues like this many times in the past. It's very difficult to plan and test this kind of work when your office is hundreds or thousands of miles away from the affected area. It's impossible to account for every possibility when you consider the number and variety of devices involved on the network and in the customers hands. The hardest part is getting good data to work with to narrow down the possible causes. I think we've done a pretty good job of providing that here and that will go a long way in helping them get this resolved.

jenkies

This is true, hopefully this and the Bluetooth issue won't be long. They say you appreciate something more anyway when you wait patiently for it. Good encouragement ol chap. Thanks.

KJRadz

Well... I was told I'd get a call in a day or two from a director in Tech Support. Gave them a week... it didn't happen.

superfly15

Unfortunatley, I'm not suprised you didn't get a call, KJRadz.

KJRadz

I'm not terribly surprised either. Another hour on the phone with customer service and tech support and quite frankly from the sound of it they still don't understand what the problem is. They keep going back to the aGPS system and saying that we need an update from HTC. That doesn't explain why the phone works everywhere else in the country.

hotmop

I too am in PCB and I'm about to go back to the Verizon Dealer on Back Beach Road and return my phone or ask for a refund of my data plan. There is nothing better than paying $30 a month for a smart phone that tells me I'm in Tally or Gainesville. I've been following this thread since the update and have had the same problem since then.

LCACdriver

KJR,

Just got back from Virginia Beach. Incredible location for Apps worked fine once I got to some point east of Tallahassee, and worked for rest of trip. Didn't think about checking again until I actually got home...so I forgot to check and try to pinpoint area that it stopped functioning correctly.

One wild-ass question...will reverse locator for emergency services/ law enforcement work? If I become lost or missing and can't make a call, the way I understand it, the phone can be traced to a vague area via triangulation using data from last phone calls. If I ran off the road on 79 or 231 and pinned in my car not able to reach the phone, I'd hate for authorities to start looking in Alachua or Crawfordville when my wife gets around to filing a missing persons report.

I say unable to reach my phone, because apparently you have to at least be capable of making a call for e911 or the Location on to be traced on the GPS side. At least according to this link: http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/cellping.asp

KJRadz

Very good question. Emergency situations shouldn't be handled by the same software so we're probably ok there. e911 calls will use the GPS (or at the very least "Last Good GPS fix") for location when available. Law enforcement agencies should be working direct with the carriers if they need to use tower triangulation so that information would most likely be coming from an internal database rather than Googles.

Thanks for the input. Every bit helps.

KJRadz

My... how interesting... no software update but all of a sudden my phone knows where it really is...

or more precisely it thinks it's in Panama City while I'm in Panama City Beach. Still much closer than Tallahassee.

The message must have gotten through finally. Let's hope this isn't just some anomoly.

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