GPS temporarily unavailable???

[matt12792]

I have a blackberry 9650 with OS 6.0 and it seems as if my GPS is not working. Every time I try to use blackberry maps or googles maps my location is only accurate to 1600 meters and theres a message saying my GPS is temporarily unavailable. My location service is turned to location on and it still doesn't work. Can anyone help me out. Thanks

[nealbscott]

Did you try to get a fix while outside? Sometimes thats all it takes.

[lindros2]

Originally Posted by matt12792

I have a blackberry 9650 with OS 6.0 and it seems as if my GPS is not working. Every time I try to use blackberry maps or googles maps my location is only accurate to 1600 meters and theres a message saying my GPS is temporarily unavailable. My location service is turned to location on and it still doesn't work. Can anyone help me out. Thanks

I have this happen quite often on my Bold. I went to Verizon, RIM, and third parties, and no one had an answer (and of course blamed software - EVEN WHEN I WAS IN THE RIM DIAGNOSTIC SCREEN - and recommended reloading system software). Useless offshore morons.

Basically every once and while - for no good reason - the GPS stops working on these devices. Why? Hardware, software, or otherwise.

What I do:
1. Turn off/on GPS and Location Assist. I've found that it doesn't matter if you're actively using the device in Google Maps or otherwise.
2. Reboot device (CTRL-ALT-DEL) or battery pull. I found that turning off/on does not solve GPS issues.
3. Wait. This normally solves most problems if #2 doesn't help.

The "external" factors can include heavy cloud cover, sun flares, thunderstorms/electricity in the atmosphere, or other weather related issues (mostly at night). These were the culprit when my GPS bombed out in December (in Houston). My home area is Atlanta, and it tends to work better here.

Final note - if you really need this to work all the time, get an Android device or an iPhone. I can't trust GPS on my BlackBerry any more, and the support is (as I said above), rubbish.

[BoDeb]

I have had occasions where my GPS loses its mind and thinks that I am somewhere in Kansas when I'm actully in central TX. It has had me in various other locations also when I'm in my home area. I was noticing this the most in BE Weather and found that a bat pull fixed it every time. I also decided that I would set the locations that I keep in Be Weather with zip codes rather than GPS coordinates and thus I have had less issues as a result.

[lindros2]

Originally Posted by BoDeb

I have had occasions where my GPS loses its mind and thinks that I am somewhere in Kansas when I'm actully in central TX. It has had me in various other locations also when I'm in my home area. I was noticing this the most in BE Weather and found that a bat pull fixed it every time. I also decided that I would set the locations that I keep in Be Weather with zip codes rather than GPS coordinates and thus I have had less issues as a result.

What is interesting about this post is "Texas".

When I was in Houston (from my post above), it thought I was in Lake Charles, LA; then in the middle of a wildlife preserve in Louisiana; and finally in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

The *only* thing I could pinpoint were (1) BlackBerry service outages (the week in December when the whole service went down), and (2) Verizon stress-testing the network in preparation of the iPhone.

Either way, I was screwed (got lost twice thanks to bad GPS) and Verizon was of no help.