Location GPS not working during navigation - iPhone 17 Pro

Short story we’re stuck with this until an update fixes it. Everyone is having the same issue despite service signal/ app being used, only temporary resolve is to restart the phone. Dear Apple we buy your products for reliability …fyi.

I was also using an offline map and the issues persist even when I have very good network access.

When the issue occurs with GPS it remains until I power cycle the iPhone. It looks to me like the GPB gets very un accurate. It still moves but it’s about 1 km out so not useful anymore.

The issue is evident on all apps.

in my case I also have CarPlay on so testing today and will test again tomorrow without CarPlay. Want to test this because I noticed that YouTube’s are slower when connected to CarPlay so maybe it is exposing a timing issue in the latest version 26.

Please note that with the same phone and CarPlay I never saw this issue before, even if I crossed no Network zones. I did about 100k KM in the last 3 years and never saw this issue before I upgraded to version 26

Also reporting back that after updating to 26.1, I haven’t noticed the issue. Although I’ve only tested it on short journeys of max 20 mins. Looking promising.

You say you replaced the iPhone with a 17 and you still had the problem. When you set up the 17, did you restore from a backup, or transfer the data from the old phone when setting up the new phone, or did you set up the 17 as a "new" phone?

My iPhone 17 pro 1tb is doing exactly the same thing will work for a bit then freeze and all the apps that use gps will not work a restart of the phone doesn’t fix the issue I have to hard reset the phone volume up down keep pressed of power button until it restarts it’s happened so many times now so so anoying my iPhone 14 Pro never had these issues at all

I have been having this issue the last few days never had it before.

I'll be driving down the road and its happened to me on googlemaps and on waze 4times now.

It will suddenly say i'm driving 100-125mph (i'm not) and then then my location freezes and stops updating.

If i switch to another map app same thing it plots the route but says i'm at the location i was when it locked up. if i switch to apple maps it get stuck on loading location and cannot plot the route.

Tried airplane mode on/off nothing.

Only way to fix it is turning the phone on and then off again and then it works fine.

I'm going to try using only apple maps this week and see if it happens still.

Iphone 17 running 26.0.1

Got the 17 Pro Max — same issue here. The navigation just freezes. I have to restart my phone for it to work for about five minutes, then it gets stuck again. I’ve tried every app: Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, Radarbot, nothing updates. GPS is completely stuck, even in Life360 and Find My.

I’ve talked to support multiple times since I rely on navigation for work. I drive for hours every day and this issue has made me late to almost every meeting. Honestly makes me want to throw the phone out the window. I’ve started carrying my 14 Pro with me instead; same iOS version, and everything works perfectly. Feels like I just threw €1.5K out the window for this useless phone.

Seems I’ve the exact same problem, I’m on iOS 26.0.1 and when navigating with Google Maps it seems to work for the first minute or so and then it simply stops and does not update my position, after a couple of frustrating app shutdowns and starts it starts working again but it’s far from ideal.

this is whilst driving, no CarPlay just the phone in a holder, never had this problem before only with the iPhone 17pro.

I think it must be a software issue. After years of no problems with GPS on my iPhone 13 Mini, it started becoming very unreliable just recently. The pattern is as others have described ... it starts out fine but about 10-20 minutes into the journey it starts lagging and then just gives up and has no idea where I am. I've tried every fix I can think of including mounting the phone where it has a clear view of most of the sky.

I think (but can't be totally sure) that this coincided with installing iOS26. Very disappointed to hear that the 26.1 update apparently hasn't fixed it, but I've yet to test that myself.

In what part of the world is this happening? A recent post here showed that some countries do not allow point-to-point navigation another Maps features, and referenced this Apple article:

iOS and iPadOS 26 - Feature Availability - Apple

Find what Maps functions you cannot use and see if your country shows. If not, your government, not Apple, is deciding what useful features you can access. It seem we need to eliminate this as a root cause to go forward.

I am having the same issue and never had it with my 14 pro. I cant determine if it is Spectrum service 26.1 or hardware error. Sometimes it will start working on its own and other times I have had to reboot the phone as well. I know Spectrum likes to connect to other wifi hot spots and today I turned wifi off and it seem to fix it but I am not 100% convinced that is the long term fix.

Would love to hear what service you have and if / when 26.2 fixes the issue. 26.0 had lots of little bugs so wondering if this is one but only seems to have started over the last week and well after installing 26.1.

janehou75 wrote:

Hello. My Apple maps is not working and I really need Apple to fix this. Google Maps doesn't work. Mapquest doesn't work. I have updated everything and I am still having this issue. It is very frustrating, and I need Apple to fix this. Please. I have used Apple products since 2011 and almost never have issues. In recent yrs (past 2 yrs)...issues. First my iMac desktop computer, now navigation on an Iphone that's only a year old. I am tired of this. Please fix this.

Well, they all don’t work because they all use the same navigation engine. If you need Apple to fix it you need to contact Apple support, because, believe it or not, this is a problem with your iPhone, not hundreds of millions of other iPhones. As this is a user-to user forum, and not Apple support.

Start here: If Maps isn't working on your Apple device - Apple Support

PhilippeThouin wrote:

Hi,

the issue with GPS not working started when I updated from 18 to 26, and now persist with 26.1

I power cycle the phone to correct the issue but it stops working soon after, the same day.

I did notice that the issue occurs much more often when in areas with low or no cellular reception.

Good observation. Navigation apps require a cellular connection (or Wi-Fi connection) to download maps. When on the road Wi-Fi is not generally available, so with no cellular coverage maps apps can’t work unless they have previously downloaded maps, or have a complete map database built into the app (such as Garmin).

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What did the Apple Tech at the Genius Bar say when you demonstrated the problem to them?