[adventuremax]

I've been having the same problem of a very slow lock on the GPS and finally got it resolved.  I had A-GPS ticked but had not defined an access point.  It was taking 10 to 30mins to get a lock but now takes less than 1 minute every time. Here's how I fixed it ...

from the front screen press the white button (Menu)/settings.phone/application sett./positioning/positioning server/Access Point

on my phone as default this said access "point must be defined".  Change this to your internet access point which should come up in the window when you click it (I'm on o2 in the UK and mine is "o2 Active").

It is stupid that you have to use the internet to speed up the lock, I think the in-built GPS is not very good but at tleast this solves the problem.

Incidentally, I have an external bluetooth GPS device (which I used with a previous phone) and if I use this I get a lock in seconds but am angry Nokia have put such a poor GPS device in this otherwise great phone.

Hope this helps.

[gsauri]

Hi All -

In my case, the "http://" was not there, but still the GPS has been really slow.

finally what I did was to disable A-GPS, and only use integrated GPS, and now it works very fast.

I believe the issue is that in order to use A-GPS you need an internet connection, and the connection methods options available do not include wifi (which is the only internet connection I have). As a result, the phone is waiting to connect to supl.nokia.com for a long time through my cellphone provider's 2G/3G network, which doesn't work for me.

So if you don't have 3G access, try disabling AGPS, and use only integrated GPS. It works much better!

Sauri

[AlxxRO]

Same problem here.

It is clear that the problem is with the phone and Nokia should do something about it or my next phone will be from a different company.

A-GPS is something to help you in poor signal areas but the fact that it might not be available is no reason for the integrated GPS not to work !

I think the problem is in the software of the phone.

[herrmarder]

I have never tried to get a signal for as long as the others did, but I have the same problem as all the others on the thread.

The GPS works fine if I use Google Maps. I get a much better "first guess" and after that a GPS-connection.

Nokia's maps has neither a guess nor a GPS-connection.

I have tried setting the Nokia-Server without "http://", using only GPS, disabling Networking at all, waiting 10 minutes, using Google Maps first and then Nokia Maps, but the program simply does not work.

[dim33]

I've been experinementing with the issue of getting a lock without AGPS for days now. I have a data plan so for the last 2 months that I have owned the 5800 I have been getting a lock extremely quickly.

Since I will be going to France in a month and therefore will turn off data, I was curious to see how long it would take to get a lock without GPS. I was astonished to see that it could not get a satellite lock at all. Since then I've been reading everything I can, but whilst there are a lot of users complaining about the problem I have not managed to find any solution.

I am running v31.0.101 firmware. I recently flashed it back to v21.0.25 (with a Cyclone box), but unfortunately I was not aware of the problem then so did not test the lock before I flashed back to v31. However reading around the lock problem seems to affect pretty much all firmwares.

I also bought a bluetooth GPS receiver and the 5800 works perfectly with it.

To understand why the lock problem exists using only the integrated GPS (without AGPS) I have fully looked through the Private folder on the C drive and have tried removing files like LastKnownPos.dat just in case it was holding up the lock, but to no avail.

The internal receiver is clearly alright as it works perfectly when AGPS is enabled.

Today however, I managed to get a lock without AGPS. Using Garmin XT I looked at the satellite lock bars. As usual without AGPS it would only see one satellite no matter how long I waited. I then disabled the Integrated GPS receiver from within Garmin. I then enabled it again and this time (without me moving an inch) the 5800 could see three satellites. I disabled the Integrated GPS again, waited a few seconds and then reactivated it. This time the it could see 5 satellites and then achieved an accurate lock. Finally after another minute it could see 7 satellites and was locked to 6. I did this successfully twice today.

My feeling is that this has to be a software glitch. By software I mean the 5800 firmware as there is nothing wrong with Garmin XT or the phone hardware. I can't imagine that Nokia don't know about this, it's just a question of whether they will/can do anything about it.

[svsingam]

When I got my 5800 several months ago, the GPS worked fine. The map was not great but it was adequate for my needs.

I guess the problem began when Nokia upgraded the Maps application recently. Maps are now a lot better but GPS connectivity is terrible. I discovered this when I was travelling and could not get any GPS signal. That almost ruined my holiday. Fortunately I was able to navigate with a regular map. I thought there was some hardware problem with my device. Now I learn that it is a problem all Nokia users face and is very likely a software glitch.

I was intending to call Nokia support if my web search failed to get any solution. I can see that Nokia Support will not be able to give me any help. They will only give me runaround answers so I will not waste my time.

I trust that someone at Nokia is monitoring these discussions and will take appropriate action.

[dim33]

It's funny you should say that but it did not even occur to me to contact Nokia. I just assume that with these glitches you will get the run around and be told things like "make sure you're outside in the open".

Maybe I'm being unfair to Nokia!

[svsingam]

Contrary to what I had written previously, I decided to call Nokia Careline anyhow... and I got the run around that I expected. What really annoyed me was that, at the end of the call, when I was supposed to be connected to the survey, the connection was cut off and I heard the "engaged" tone. I suppose the call centre operator who couldn't fix my problem didn't want to risk getting a bad report on the survey.

Today, I dropped by the Nokia Service Centre where the technician was a lot more helpful. Between the two of us, we figured out that the GPS chip is working properly and is pulling in the many satellite signals but the application is not able to access them. He reinstalled the application but it still didn't work. Then he reflashed the OS but the problem persisted.

As they did not have any more loaner units, I could not not leave my phone with them for further investigation. He promised to call me as soon as there was a loaner available. Hopefully the problem will get fixed before I have to travel again at the end of next month.

[dim33]

That's very interesting.

Please keep us informed. My suspicion is that some glitch/setting is preventing the GPS software from interpreting the signals from the receiver.

[dim33]

svsingam

Have a look at this thread /discussions/board/message?board.id=navigation&message.id=15032&jump=true (see message 59). Try this - you should be able to get a lock this way. I would be curious to know if this works for you.

If it does then you will have some hard facts for the Nokia service centre.

[jjegan]

The cold start topic is probably right in some way .

I have trialed Okia    Google    Garmin   NDrive and Sygic GPS mapping all suffer from the at times no lock on GPS .

Using exactly the same positions each time . One day lock another no lock  swop GPS software say from NDrive to Garmin and i get a lock .Often if move off  in the car i will get a lock on quickly . It does seem to be that initial start up that is a problem .

  jje

[svsingam]

dim33,

Thank you for that information. It explains some of what happened during my testing.

As I said previously, the Maps application was reinstalled on my device and when that didn't work, the OS was reflashed. I don't imagine that I can achieve a colder boot than that. :-)

Upon startup, the satellite display was blank. Then it begin to populate. At the Nokia Cantre, my device could recieve strong signals from 4 satellites and weak signals from several others. But neither Nokia Maps nor Google maps nor the Location utility could receive any GPS data. At my home, I get two strong satellite signals. After I register the signals, when I move indoors, the signal strength fades to below half but does not disappear. All the weak satellites disappear.

As far as I can see, the GPS module is working perfectly fine. There is some other fault at play here which I suspect is a software glitch. Hopefully the guys at Nokia can identify and fix it. And by fixing the problem on my device, they may get a handle on what is the problem with all 5800s.

Cheers.

[svsingam]

Latest update -

The nice chap at the Nokia Support Centre called to tell me that the stock of mother boards had arrived and asked me to come in to get mine replaced. Which I did.

Then he tried to get the GPS working...  no luck. he called his HQ for help and then tried replacing the antenna assembly. Still no go -satellite status showed that several strong satellite signals were being picked up (as before) but these could not be retrieved to the next stage for processing by any of the applications.

He checked, muttered, fiddled with buttons, compared with his own phone (not a 5800), discussed with his counterpart at HQ... and suddenly, viola! he got GPS response!

At that moment, he had just disabled network based positioning so he figured that was the cause of the problem. Anyhow, he closed the case and returned my phone to me. No charge!

But after I had restored my backed up data, again I could not get a GPS response. I checked and verified that Network Based Positioning was disabled. Just for the heck of it, I enabled it, rebooted and then disabled it to see if that restored GPS. Nothing.

Then, all of a sudden GPS became available! I exited the application and restarted... it came in quite quickly. I powered off and back on,  GPS came back in quite quickly. I powered off and left the phone off for several minutes. Upon power on and restarting the GPS application, I got a signal. I exited the application, left it overnight and restarted the next morning... Halelujah! We still have GPS!

I am still none the wiser as to what went wrong. My guess is that, in my case, it was a coincidence of two separate problems. My hardware had failed, which was why I had been getting zilch for so long. After the motherboard had been replaced, we were merely encountering the problem everyone else had faced - slow start.

When I restored my data, again the system got reset and I had to wait quite long for the GPS to kick in and sort itself out. Once it did it, came back on again quite quickly.

Hopefully, this fix will last.

Thanks to all for the interesting and useful feedback and suggestions.

Singam.

[5800XM_user]

dear all

i'm working on  GPS application since one year back on another devices (not nokia phones)

i need to bring your attention to something else:

not only the locking time is the issue but the accuracy also,

have any one checked his 5800XM GPS accuray while connecting ? i guess NO

to check the accuracy of GPS while connecting go to (applications>Location>GPS data>Position) wait for GPS to lock

then check the accuracy (normally should be 10m and the best that you can get is 3m)

i was checking it today morning while driving in high way outside the city (it mean very good conditions) and it was varying

between 160m to 25m at best conditions (depend also on the direction of mobile face)

after all that i can say its hardware fault not frimware or software

buy the way it took arround 1 min to lock while my friend bought new E52 and it

took only a few seconds to lock

so i thing that the best solution is to go to Nokia service center and fix a new GPS

module from another model like E71 or E52 and i feel it will work

kindly check this solution and tell me your opinions

deep regards

[peter108298]

---

adventuremax wrote:

I've been having the same problem of a very slow lock on the GPS and finally got it resolved.  I had A-GPS ticked but had not defined an access point.  It was taking 10 to 30mins to get a lock but now takes less than 1 minute every time. Here's how I fixed it ...

from the front screen press the white button (Menu)/settings.phone/application sett./positioning/positioning server/Access Point

on my phone as default this said access "point must be defined".  Change this to your internet access point which should come up in the window when you click it (I'm on o2 in the UK and mine is "o2 Active").

It is stupid that you have to use the internet to speed up the lock, I think the in-built GPS is not very good but at tleast this solves the problem.

Incidentally, I have an external bluetooth GPS device (which I used with a previous phone) and if I use this I get a lock in seconds but am angry Nokia have put such a poor GPS device in this otherwise great phone.

Hope this helps.

---

This solved the problem for me too. I'm on Vodafone UK.

[kermit]

Just like to say - Thanks to aliwiper  for his tip

I checked my settings & for some weird reason I had 'h-slp.mnc015.mcc234.pubnetwork.org'  in my settings for AGPS

I changed it to 'supl.nokia.com' and also turned Maps application to never go online - it now take ~ 6sec to find satelites, where before it took ~5mins.

Even with Maps Appication set to go online - it only took ~10sec for satelite location (but that could be because I had maps already updated)

[naxxal]

 Hey 5800XM_user

I just recently bought nokia 5800 express music. Also I have been using Nokia e71x for some time and in addition to that i have installed free nokia maps on both units. I have noticed that on e71x it took less than 5 sec to locate my position where on 5800 at first "inside of the building" took about 5 min. I tried 5800 outside and it took more than 1 min to locate my position, same time for e71x. I read here that we should delete http://  and that improved my 5800 only outside, now it takes about 10-20 sec, as for inside it takes about 1+ minutes. Accuracy on 5800 is not so great, my true position is not on the road and my position shown is on the road at about 40m away. E71x is very similar to 5800 about the accuracy.

I FOUND a little TRICK that can lower your time for youe positioning even more.

1. Place your "MAPS" shortcut on your main screen

2. Before you about to turn on your GPS activate your "PHONE CAMERA", right when it opens "EXIT" camera ------> Sattelite symbol will be shown next to your battery lever indicator

3. While it is active, open your "MAPS" shortcut from your main screen

Without this trick my 5800 sometimes takes 10-30 sec outside "inside some kind of transportation" to locate sattelite, but using this trick now it takes as low as 2 sec up to 10 sec.

I hope it helps in some urgent situations.

[giltic]

I have Nokia 5230 and the sattelite reception just sucks. I did some tests and on the place, where my Garmin Nuvi 350 finds 5 or more sattelites in a matter of seconds, the Nokia can find not a single one in 20 minutes. Garmin DOESN'T HAVE and DOESN'T NEED some A-GPS or internet GPS. It just works excelent as it is with 6 or less meters accuracy. So go and figure it out - Garmin has Sirf III sattelite receiver and Nokia (as I've read) has some cheap lo-life Texas Instruments sattelite receiver which needs I don't know what help from internet and such **bleep**. I can leave My Garmin turned off for a couple of months and when turned on it finds sattelite before you can say ''Nokia sattelite receiver sucks big time''. I can sit on my Garmin and it will still find more sattelites as my Nokia.So the sattelite receiver is the problem and not tall buildings or a small cloud somewere in the sky or solar wind or moon shape or the colour of your shoes or whatever. Try to borrow a quality bluetooth receiver and Nokia will find sattelites without A-GPS and without internet.

[svsingam]

...and that is the truth of it!

The GPS function on many Nokia phones is more a toy than a real GPS device. It is nice to play with and explore, but don't depend on it. it is likely to let you down just when you need it most. I found that out the hard way.

I currently use the Nokia Maps application as a street directory to locate and mark places (with the help of Google Maps) and plan routes before actually travelling. When on the road, I do try to obtain my real-time location, but do not depend on it. If, by chance, I do manage to lock down a satellite signal, I take that as a bonus.

[dingaling222]

yeah...

Seems like nokia will never acknowledge that there is a problem with the gps function on its 5800 devices.

So as a return-favour i will never buy a nokia again... HTC Desire here i come...