Gps Network Recently

[flobadob]

Has there been some sort of issue with the GPS network recently? I use an app to track my walks now and again and noticed recently that the distance readings that it was giving were way off the norm and also might not even have matched up day to day from what it had given previously.

The first thing I did was download a different app to see what would happen and it was exactly the same, as in highly irregular and innaccurate distance readings.

I then read through the review comments for various different apps on the same genre and found a similar theme of inaccurate GPS readings coming up.

So I'm wondering if this problem is being caused by something happening to the GPS network recently rather than all these apps happening to have the same fault beginning to occur coincidentally at the same time?

[Etch]

Where were you? Anywhere near to a military training area?

[Buenchico]

Are you sure that GPS is actually enabled on your phone? If it's not, your app will still do its best to work but will attempt to triangulate your position from the signals strengths of nearby phone masts, rather than by receiving satellite signals. That method is FAR less accurate than using GPS.

It's actually quite easy to disable GPS on a phone without realising that you've done it. (e.g. by selecting Battery Saving Mode). Perhaps that's what's behind your problem?

[flobadob]

Etch, no I live in a rural location and not near anything military.

Chris, I've got all the necessary location settings turned on, including improve accuracy. As I say, looking at the comments in the reviews of mine and similar apps, lots of people are mentioning the same thing happening to them.

Saying that, I've noticed that my phone has got a system update available so I'll try that now and see.

[Buenchico]

A single GPS satellite was out of service from 2053 on 15 November for just a few hours (until 0146 on 16 November). Otherwise all GPS satellites seem to have been functioning normally recently.

See if anything here helps:
https://helpdeskgeek.com/help-desk/android-gps-not-working-heres-how-to-fix-it/

[flobadob]

Thanks for the info. Did 3 phone updates but same problem. What appears to be the problem is that there are spikes throughout the route, that go way out and back again, that aren't part of the route, but they are then counted as the distance covered. That's why it says you've done a mile before actually doing one.