Droid 3 - Flaky GPS, 3G coverage, cell reception

ab20852

Hello,

Has any other users noticed the Droid 3's GPS REALLY SUCKS! I upgraded from a Droid 1 which occasionally needed a battery pull in order for the GPS to locate me, but with the Droid 3 - I always have to pull my battery for 10 seconds in order to use any type of location service - such has Google Maps, Navigation, Geo Tagging (Camera), Web Browser (use my location).

My running app CardioTrainer is pretty much useless with this phone, if I have it in my pocket - no GPS reception, where as my Droid 1 worked perfectly fine.

I've used an app called GPS Status in order to reset the GPS state (on both Droid 1 and Droid 3) - which doesn't resolve anything, and unless I've recently pulled the battery - it will never acquire GPS signal.

Speaking of crappy GPS Signal coverage - If I'm driving in my car and I close my sunroof visor - NO GPS signal. I mean COME ON seriously!

This is actually my 2nd droid 3 - I returned my brand new one for a recertified hoping it would be better. Well I was wrong. Also I've watched my 3G turn to 1x whenever I'm browsing. This also wasn't resolved with my used replacement. My cell phone reception constantly? jumps between 1bar to 3bars, NEVER 4 bars. That was the same behavior with my old "new" phone and my new "used" phone. With that said, I've dropped at least 3 calls now, whereas my Droid 1 NEVER dropped a single call.

I live in MD work in VA, both areas with extensive VWZ coverage. I travel a fair amount for work, my GPS was absolutely did not work in Seattle Wa, nor did it work in Palms Spring Ca. Also in Palms Spring I my coverage was so bad, I dropped calls and had voicemails randomly showing up.

Basically I hate this phone so much because of the spotty cell reception, and garbage GPS and data service. I'm tempted to reactive my Droid 1 and use this stupid Droid 3 as an expensive paper weight to remind me how far Motorola has diverged from making quality products.

Accepted answers

ab20852

It is totally an issue with the current phone's software. I reactivated my Droid 1 and used GPS Status - instantly got 10 satelite fixed on my location. Didn't have to pull my battery or anything, it just worked. It even works inside my kitchen, something the Driod 3 couldn't do.

There is hope - apparently there is an OTA update coming out soon that addresses a BUNCH of bugs in the Droid 3 OS.

You can read about it here,http://support.vzw.com/system_update/droid3.html, there is a PDF that lists some of the bug fixes coming soon.

All comments

mgerbasio1

I have a Droid X and recently purchased the D3. Google Navigator didn't work well for me. I didn't get a message saying GPS signal lost but the blue circle around my location would frequently get larger and smaller during a trip. The GPS would put me on a nearby road then try and reroute me.

The phone was in the same location I'd keep my DX. I posted a message on the Motorola forum but didn't get any responses so I figured this was not a common problem. My solution, I'm sending the D3 back for a few reasons, that's one.

ab20852

I was on travel and wasn't able to send my {word filter avoidance} back... now I'm stuck with a {word filter avoidance}.

AntonioC_VZW

ab20852 wrote:
Hello,

Has any other users noticed the Droid 3's GPS REALLY SUCKS! I upgraded from a Droid 1 which occasionally needed a battery pull in order for the GPS to locate me, but with the Droid 3 - I always have to pull my battery for 10 seconds in order to use any type of location service - such has Google Maps, Navigation, Geo Tagging (Camera), Web Browser (use my location).

My running app CardioTrainer is pretty much useless with this phone, if I have it in my pocket - no GPS reception, where as my Droid 1 worked perfectly fine.

I've used an app called GPS Status in order to reset the GPS state (on both Droid 1 and Droid 3) - which doesn't resolve anything, and unless I've recently pulled the battery - it will never acquire GPS signal.

Speaking of crappy GPS Signal coverage - If I'm driving in my car and I close my sunroof visor - NO GPS signal. I mean COME ON seriously!

This is actually my 2nd droid 3 - I returned my brand new one for a recertified hoping it would be better. Well I was wrong. Also I've watched my 3G turn to 1x whenever I'm browsing. This also wasn't resolved with my used replacement. My cell phone reception constantly? jumps between 1bar to 3bars, NEVER 4 bars. That was the same behavior with my old "new" phone and my new "used" phone. With that said, I've dropped at least 3 calls now, whereas my Droid 1 NEVER dropped a single call.

I live in MD work in VA, both areas with extensive VWZ coverage. I travel a fair amount for work, my GPS was absolutely did not work in Seattle Wa, nor did it work in Palms Spring Ca. Also in Palms Spring I my coverage was so bad, I dropped calls and had voicemails randomly showing up.

Basically I hate this phone so much because of the spotty cell reception, and garbage GPS and data service. I'm tempted to reactive my Droid 1 and use this stupid Droid 3 as an expensive paper weight to remind me how far Motorola has diverged from making quality products.

Hi ab20852,

I understand your discontent with your phone's GPS performance. I have checked my resources and this is not a known issue with the Droid 3. Please ensure that your GPS is properly setup by touching Menu>Settings>Location & security>Google location services, then select Standalone GPS services.

For the data signal issues outlined on your message please try Disabling and Re-enabling Data service on your phone to improve data signal.

We can also work on resolving the dropped calls issue noted on your post. For this we must identify all dropped calls to identify the root cause. Please mark all dropped calls by dialing ### after each dropped call for a week, then call us back from another phone at 1-800-922-0204 and we will located the dropped calls in our system and work on a resolution for you.

You are a valued customer and our goal is to provide you with the best wireless service and resolve all your concerns. Please keep in mind that this is a peer to peer forum and while our Social Media Team monitors the forum, you can get more expedited assistance via Twitter @VZWSupport Monday to Friday 7am to 10pm and Saturday 7am to 4pm. You can always call us at the above number from 6am to 11pm CST 7 days a week.

schwegjb

Verizon Support,

I have experience similar GPS issue with my Droid 3 pretty much since I have received it a month or so ago. My Droid 1 never had any sort of GPS issues at all, but using the same apps on the Droid 3 I experience no GPS service at all. Google Maps only works because of the cell tower proximity to my work and home location. I always see the blue circle of varying sizes around my location. I almost never see the GPS icon in the status bar. I will pay more attention to the battery removal that the previous poster mentioned. That may be correlated to the few times I have seen it actually work as well. For sure my golf apps, cardio Trainer, vehicle diagnostic app, etc are useless with the Droid 3 as those apps never seem to locate my position using GPS on the Droid 3. I find this really strange since I rarely had an issue on the Droid 1 that I couldn't explain with overcast skies or structural interference of the building I was in. I do have the standalone GPS services enabled by the way.

The latest frustration has started occurring this week when the phone will reset the OS constantly when the 3G connection is active. I was using 3G all day yesterday and it reset every 30 minutes to 1 hour. Today it was resetting more frequently up until I connected to a wifi access point. Then the phone stopped resetting all together. That is until I lost the wifi connection and went back to the 3G connection. What gives? I haven't experienced this type of issue on my Droid 1 at all and not on the Droid 3 until this week.

schwegjb

Good news for the GPS and running restart issue I was experiencing since 28-Aug. The problem description at the following link

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=18460

matched my experience exactly. Now that I have cleaned my wifi managed network from 20+ networks remembered to just 2, my phone has not restarted in over 8 hours when it was restarting at least 4 times an hour unless I was on a stable wifi connection. Surprisingly, the GPS started to work with my other apps after this buffer issue with the wifi connections was avoided.

Strange but True. At least Google knows how to understand their issues and communicate them.

ab20852

That is pretty strange. Maybe I should run that logcat... I have 2 'remembered' wifi connections.

I still have to physically pull my battery out for 10 seconds / turn phone back on, every time I need to use any GPS application (CardioTrainer, Google Navigation, GeoTagging a Picture)...

ab20852

How do I reactivate my old Droid 1?

Ann154

If it was on the same line, you should be able to turn off the current active phone, turn on the DROID 1 and dial *228, option 1 to program the phone to the network.

The other option is to sign into your MyVerizon account and click on the activate or switch device. Make sure you have the currently active phone turned off for this process.

unknown

Good Morning!

Thanks to everyone for bringing this to our attention! Based on customer feedback, Motorola is investigating these concerns and will correct them in a future software update soon. I will post more information as I get it. As always, it will be pushed to your Droid 3 over-the-air systematically.

Thank you again for your feedback and understanding!

AndrewDS

I'm seeing (I think?) the same issue with Droid 3 and GPS. Frequently when I open an app that needs GPS (such as Google Maps), the GPS icon does not show up in the status bar and the location is clearly based on the nearest cell tower and not on GPS. Waiting does not help. I have tried turning off and on the GPS enable in the location settings to no avail. The only thing I have found so far is to power down the phone and power it on again.

My Droid3 did restore settings from my previous Droid so I don't know if the restored wifi settings are an issue, but my girlfriend's Droid3 is showing the same behavior and it did not have any restored settings.

I'm certainly frustrated, as my Droid was a lot more reliable with respect to location.

ab20852

There is hope - apparently there is an OTA update coming out soon that addresses a BUNCH of bugs in the Droid 3 OS.

You can read about it here,http://support.vzw.com/system_update/droid3.html, there is a PDF that lists some of the bug fixes coming soon.

timotheus

My mom and I have had similar problems, where Google Maps will only show a Cell tower based fix, with a blue circle around it, and other GPS apps simply fail, (GPS Compass map, FWIW)

Someone at the Verizon Store mentioned resetting the phone (Droid 3) to factory defaults. it fixed the problem, but we had to call tech support and go through a manual activation process in order to be able to actually use the phone for data or calls.

The problem then cropped up on my Droid 3, and I saw schwegjb's post. I only have one remembered Wi-fi network, but it has a really long and complicated password and once I "Forgot" the network, GPS started working again.

Not sure at this point if it was the long key, or using WPS to set the phone up chat caused the issue.

ab20852

Sounds like the exact same issue I encountered. Typically the only way I was able to fix it (reacquire GPS) was to literally pull the battery out for 10 seconds and turn it back on. Seems ridiculous right? It is - that is why I switched back to my Driod-1.

Hopefully the update I posted previously will be released soon and FIX the bugs associated with the Droid 3.

goreo95033

My Droid 3 GPS does not, nor has ever worked. Brand new phone as of 1st week of Sept. 2011 - software is up to date as of this writing.

Google location services and Standalone GPS services both appear greyed-out or disabled. Neither option can be selected (similar to the emergency 911 location service).

Any suggestions?

jcsamonte

My GPS was working fine before I got the update. After getting the update, my GPS became screwy.

ChaunceyM_VZW

Hello goreo95033 and thank you to all of the community members for your valuable input. In regards to the performance of GPS, it would appear to be a situation that we will need to troubleshoot in order to determine the root cause of the issue. If we are unable to resolve the issue after completing our diagnostic tests, you would be eligible for a replacement device if it is still under warranty. Since there were several of you experiencing this issue, I would ask that you call Customer Service at 800-922-0204 and complete troubleshooting. Please call from an alternate phone, which will allow your wireless phone to be available.

ChaunceyM_VZWSupport

ab20852

That sucks dude, seriously after the update my GPS just worked (like it did with my droid-1). No more battery pulling...

Battery live also increased, as in it will last the entire day even when I play angry birds or stupid zombies....

xyvyx

Same, have had more probs AFTER the recent OTA update... there was a maps update in Sept I think (I remember the notes made some specific mention of gps improvements) and it made the GPS lock great... it could acquire precise location super fast.

More recently, however, the gps when using GMaps sometimes doesn't even appear to "start"... the gps icon on the notification bar doesn't show up. Stopping/starting the gps via widget or settings doesn't fix it.

GortsBud

I tried using the GPS on my droid3 today and it its still not working. Has moto fixed this yet? Had same thought as other poster: go back to my original Droid and forget this thing. What a disappointment.

ghenry512

First of all, this issue is clearly not resolved, so the 'Solved. Go To Solution' link should be removed.

I have had the same problems with my new Droid 3 since I bought it. The GPS is entirely too flaky, making navigation unreliable, and other apps such as running/biking logging worthless. My phone is up-to-date on software.

VZW Support, what is the status? Calling the 800 number is not the answer.

Androidguy

Same GPS issues- brand new phone, blue arrow showing my location jumps every few seconds to a new street or a new town, even if I am standing in my driveway. Trying to use Goggle Maps or V Maps is a fail- no way to know where I am so directions constantly recalculate, then the phone thinks I am in the next town, the directions recalculate again, repeat.

Spoke with tech support, they said get a different phone, no solution for Droid 3. OUCH. Love this phone after 2 days, except this wacko flaw.

Adjusted every setting, tried every trick mentioned in this and other forums, no change, problem seems systemic.

Without solid GPS, its not a smartphone, just a phone. Not worth the price, the hassles.

ddavidn

Any updates? This is the perfect phone for me....except that I need to use it for the GPS. Most of the time I get zero GPS, leading me to read directions and try to drive at the same time.

ghenry512

VERIZON SUPPORT - This is not 'Answered'! It needs to be fixed!

frustrated22

Just got the droid3 2 weeks ago, and the GPS sucks. always get the blue circle around my location, and its always WRONG! My DROID 2 was always spot on right. So disappointing that this phone can't get GPS apps working properly. Now what do I do? I use GPS all the time!

There are no updates available for my phone, I just checked. my phone is up to date.

who will fix my phone.... google? motorola? verizon? or me, by getting a different phone? such a shame.

AnEternalEnigma

I just got a Droid 3 off eBay and the GPS is HORRIBLE. Easily the worst I have ever seen. Even on my piece of crap HTC Eris, the GPS worked perfectly.

This thing is abysmal. Never keeps a lock and often times says I'm in a spot on the side of the road where I am.

Was this ever addressed?

Dean_Collins

I concur with the other comments this is a verizon or google introduced problem.

I purchased a droid3 early (i think second week available - upgraded from droid1) and the GPS tracking worked absolutely fine for the first few months (i use google maps a lot), but then something happened basically "Searching for GPS" always happens unless i pull the battery (Turning the phone on and off is not enough to sort the problem out most times).

This is getting really really frustrating, originally i was hoping verizon would fix it but now it looks like they are denying the issue even exists.