GPS not working after update to IOS11

Had the same frustrating issues with all of my GPS applications.

The "Do Not Disturb" setting was set to "When Connected to Car Bluetooth" by default. Changing it to "Manually" fixed the issue for me. Hope it helps!

Seems some unnecessary agro here. Fact is either hardware or software issues can affect GPS functionality.

First, a few pertinent facts about getting a location.

The GPS system as employed by mobile phones has an accuracy of 5 metres on ground position and 3 metres on height assuming multiple satellite acquisition and no interference from building reflections or other effects.

Cell tower triangulation gives position to hundreds of metres routinely and down to about 30 metres where there is dense population of towers.

iPhones use 'assisted GPS' in which interpolation from cell position, nearby WiFi networks and Bluetooth are used along with GPS to try to get best accuracy and as quickly as possible. In urban areas this combination can be very good in compensating for lost lines to satellites because buildings get in the way.

Now to the problem. My iPhone 6s+ recently gave very bad data during walks and on the golf course. Definitely not accurate enough for normal use and sometimes wildly out. On careful examination of data and comparing with historical tracks it showed that in town it was about 30 metres off and out of town up to 400 metres off. That is exactly what would be expected with no GPS availability and the phone doing the best it could with cell, wifi and bt signals only.

Downloaded GPS diagnostics app and it showed as expected that location services was not acquiring any satellites.

It was able to turn off and restart the GPS module but could get no satellite signal. That looks like an antenna issue, or possibly a GPS chip fault but certainly a hardware fault.

Those stating that location started off close got worse, then at times got better therefore had 'intermittent GPS' almost certainly have a broken GPS antenna or chip and NO GPS since the cell, wifi, bt interpolation will give exactly the results reported.

Advice to reset software settings are worth trying since occasionally things get confused so you my get a solution.

My advice is download GPSDiagnostics, that will tell you exactly how location services is working and in most cases show that your phone cannot aquire any satellites, so you need o get the hardware fixed.

Humble pie to be eaten I think......

IOS 11.2 released late yesterday (UK Time) no mention of GPS fixes in it but I decided to download and install.

Left the phone doing this very late last night.

This morning did a reboot of the phone after checking the 11.2 update was installed.

Started GPSDiagnostics and walked outside....bingo...multiple satellites acquired with very strong signals.

Been out today and tested IPhone GPS on walking and around golf course, also with Watch S3 using phone GPS and everything works perfectly.

So, there has been a software fault and to me looks like one deep in the chip control area and this 11.2 release resolves that.

My plan for Monday was to (very reluctantly) go buy a new iPhone believing I had a hardware fault and therefore cut my losses with a new phone that would be under warranty. All along this has been a software related issue although there will be some who do have a hardware antenna problem.

VERY poor of Apple not to acknowledge this fault openly and that they were working on it. I nearly bought a new phone and having read the thread on iPhone 8 problems with GPS I would have been wasting my money.

Confidence in Apple now at an all time low.....it takes a bigger man (or woman) to admit to a mistake than it does to ignore it or deny it.........

The good news is it looks like for a lot of IPhone users installing 11.2 will give you a fully working GPS again.

I have experienced all of the GPS issues as described in this thread and was convinced that the problems were due to the fact that I installed an early iOS 11 update back at the end of Oct.

However I have discovered today that my assumptions were incorrect.

Since I first experienced the GPS problem at the beginning of November I have been to the Genius Bar had my phone checked, Apple reported no hardware issues found. The best they could offer was £120 towards the cost of a new phone as mine was out of warranty. Not wanting to give up I tried all the tips found on various websites, restoring the phone, restoring the phone to factory default and only installing a couple of apps that require GPS, installing earlier versions of iOS and nothing worked.

Having re-read the above thread I found a link to an article on issues with the antenna flex cable on the iPhone 6. I bought a new antenna flex cable, WiFi antenna & a tool kit and followed the instructions to complete the replacement. It was a bit fiddly but relatively straightforward to replace the components.

Having powered up the phone and tested googlemaps, apple maps, mapmyrun all appears to be working normally. GPS accuracy has improved dramatically when checked on a gps status app.

So what I originally thought was a software bug appears to have been a hardware issue. My next step was going to be to purchase a new phone which I really wanted to avoid. I'm pleased instead to have fixed my existing handset for under £20.

Dont discount replacing the antenna flex cable/wifi antenna if you are having GPS issues with your iPhone6 it worked for me.

SOLVED:

At least for my phone, let me tell what I exactly did:

I turned off/on location services

Reset location settings

Restar phone

Reset network setting

Turn off 4G network mode (this is the Key !)

Turn on location service

Open Waze

Accept all asked authorizations.

Done!, working back again.

Source of the solution: https://appletoolbox.com/2016/05/gps-issues-iphone-latest-ios-upgrade/

Good evening to everyone. I faced the same problem with GPS of my iPhone 6 and for months I could no longer use google maps, waze or even maps, I waited several updates and I also joined the developer program for more updates in the hope of solving the problem.

I have also waited for the latest update iOS 11.3 convinced that the problem was software. Unfortunately, the GPS still not working properly.

As for many of you, my GPS detected the position but does not move on the map. Wi-fi and bluetooth works regularly. Finally I decided to replace the antenna and the wlan module due to the low cost of the modules (less then 10$). An hour of work full of hope. Eureka ... GPS is back to work properly.

Ok... in my head I'm still convinced that everything was a bad software nightmare ... but hardware fix has solved my problem.

Hope it can be the same for you. Good luck.

In the pic below the module set.

For me this solution worked perfectly fine:

1. Open your phone Settings > Privacy > Location Services and toggle the switch OFF.
2. With the switch toggled off, please perform a hard reset on your iPhone. To do so, hold the Home and Lock buttons until you see the Apple icon. (Note: this will not affect any of the applications or data on your phone).
3. Go back to phone Settings > Privacy > Location Services once again and toggle the switch ON

I'd like to give an update on my "fix". Hope it'll help other people.

My initial "fix" was to wipe the phone ("reset all settings and contents") and set it up as a new phone. GPS worked for about a week, then started malfunctioning again (not updating my current location in navigation apps, like Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc.).

As stated by other users, I got it back to work by performing the following:

1) Go to Settings > Privacy > turn off "Location Services".

2) Perform a hard reset. (on iPhone 6, hold the power button and home button simultaneously until the Apple logo shows up on reboot screen)

3) Go to Settings > Privacy > turn on "Location Services".

After that, all navigation apps work flawlessly. Some people said it was the flex cable problem. I just don't understand how a cable problem can be fixed by resetting the phone.

I fixed this with my two iPhone 6s that seemed to have GPS issues in Waze after upgrading from iOS 10.x.x to 11.x.x.

1. First, I bought the "GPSDiagnostic" app on the app store for a couple dollars to confirm that the issue was unrelated to Waze (where I discovered the issue.) This app confirmed that my iPhone could only see GPS satellites every once in a while outside with a clear line-of-sight (like 10% of the normal time.) Alternatively, see if you are having issues with another mapping app like Google Maps.
2. I tried a bunch of other things as others have posted here and other places, but they didn't seem to work. (Hard resetting the phone, uninstall/reinstall Waze app, Resetting Network Setting seems like a good one to try, too.)
3. I reset my privacy settings on the phone which I read in one place but not in most. (Settings-->General-->Reset-->Reset Location & Privacy.) This "opened up" all the privacy settings back to their defaults, and I believe it this made it work.
4. In the end, it seemed that a specific Privacy Setting was causing the issue: specifically, the "Location-Based Alerts" settings had to be enabled /set to on, and that was the issue for me. (Settings-->Privacy->Location Services-->Location Services-->System Services-->Location-Based Alerts.)
5. (So in the end, perhaps iOS does something different with the Located-Based Alerts setting between 10.x.x to 11.x.x)

I did the following to address issue. It worked for me but just figured it out today. Hopefully it sticks and works for others.

This is the order I used and the steps listed below.

1. Remove application
2. Reset Network Settings
3. Reset Location Service settings
4. Restart device
5. Re-install Waze application
6. Verified application settings for location services.

Removing the application.

1. Find application, Press and Hold the Application Icon until all icons shake on screen
2. Press the X in the upper right corner of Icon to delete app.
3. Restart Device

Resetting Network and Location Services Settings:Reset Location and Network Settings.

1. Go to Settings >
2. General > Reset.

1. a. Reset Network Settings:
2. b. Go to Settings > General > Reset.
3. c. Reset Location & Privacy: Enter password to reset.
4. d. Tap Reset Location & Privacy button or Reset Network Settings button and then enter your password to reset.

Good Luck and hopes this works for others.

If it's a bug it fried the GPS hardware.

You can wait forever for an update fix.

There are 2 reasons why it's not coming:

1. Apple never admitted there being a lost GPS problem on iPhones 6 and 7 following an upgrade to iOS11. How then would they fix the bug?
2. I solved the problem by replacing hardware parts. No software update ever helped.

As to your conclusions:

• A new battery? I changed mine at the Apple store for 29$. It did not help but at least now my iPhone 6 has a great battery life (as well as a GPS 😎)
• A new phone, yeah sure but watch out: there are many reports on this site of GPS problems on brand new iPhone 8 and X.
• Sit out and wait for the fix? Worst solution ever, it won't happen.
• You should add this option now that you seem to be ready to part with your phone: spend $15 to buy the repairkit and change the GPS flex cable antenna. While you are at it also change the wifi antenna, it's right next to it. If you follow the iFixit instructions then your problem will be behind you for good in 2-3 hours.

I advise all of you having no GPS since iOS11 on an iPhone 6 to consider this repair as it worked for me even though I was convinced for months that it was a software issue and that I was one reset or one update away from a solution. Well guess what? Had I not changed the hardware I would be just like you: still waiting for a fix.

All the best.

DT.

The developer of the GPS Diagnostics app is correct: it is a hardware issue even though your GPS might be functioning from time to time. That's the catch that made me think for weeks that it was a software issue that could be resolved by an iOS upgrade. Well it is not, either the GPS flex cable was broken and needed replacement either just taking apart the phone and putting it back in solved the problem which means it would have been a bad connection.

Either way you can troubleshoot and reset for weeks like I did hoping for a software fix, until you follow the iFixit guide and replace the part you will never get GPS back.

Don't base your troubleshooting on what the manufacturer says: for them there is no problem and your GPS chip is working fine, the only thing to do is reset forever then buy a new phone.

AppleQer wrote:

PS: if it is actually a software issue, resetting and then restoring won't help, as you will merely be reinstalling the faulty software, unless you have a backup of your phone before all your troubles began.

A "Genius" told me that there are two ways to reinstall your phone.

• First is via the settings on your phone. This way it reinstalls the iOS which is already on you phone, which means the basic iOS + the updates. This would not cure any problem caused by the consecutive upgrades.
• Second is via iTunes. This way it reinstalls a completely new and up to date iOS. This is the cleanest way to reinstall your phone.

He got my hopes up as I had never used the second way. But it did not solve my GPS problem. The only thing that did is replacing the antenna. There is no other known solution.

The problem is a hardware problem. Some software fixes (like turning off bluetooth) or resets might help for a while but they are only delaying the inevitable: your phone has faulty hardware and Apple is never going to fix anything with an update because they don't acknowledge any problem in the first place.

They can't not know that sometimes their GPS antenna goes bad and that a repair kit sold on Amazon and on iFixit is the cure.

fabiobbsa wrote:

I’m still having this problem, does any one solved the problem?

There might be different types of problems at hand.

Some say that it's very easy to solve: just "Reset All Settings" in your phone options. The 40 pages of discussion on this post alone indicate that it's not so easy for many. The "Reset All Settings" fix has been found on page 2.

For many others this does not work. For them even reinstalling the phone from scratch via iTunes does not work.

If you have reset your settings and reinstalled your phone from iTunes and still have no GPS then you have a hardware problem. If you have an iPhone 6 you have 2 choices:

• get the GPS and Wifi antenna replaced (there is a repair kit with instructions on iFixit for $15). I know it solved my problem as I replaced the parts myself and never had the GPS problem ever again
• replace your phone

If you have a 6S, 7, 8 or X, there seems to be no repair kit so your only choice is to replace your phone.

There is a reason why the failing parts are sold on Amazon: it's because many people have a GPS hardware problem and need to replace them. Even if your phone manufacturer tells you that they are not aware of a hardware problem with GPS be certain that it does exist. It's just a failing part on a phone that many want to keep seeing as perfect.

All the best.

If you have an iPhone 6 and no amount of contacting Apple Support or resetting your settings/your device has been able to give you back a functionning GPS fear not, there is hope.

Please check these posts further up in this thread where people have succesfully managed to get their GPS working again:

• Saravanc
• Mrcdecid
• StephanU
• DublinTimo (only a picture of the old antenna)

It clearly points to the problem being hardware. The GPS chip might be responding to the diagnostics and to all apps as being turned on, but the antenna is not able to access the satellites, either all the time either most of the time either some of the time. That's sometimes how something breaks: slowly, erratically. And because it's erratic you end up believeing that some software change you made made it come back and are even more convinced it must be software.

Until you end up, as the 4 above with no other solution than to either throw your phone away or replace the GPS chip.

You know what you need to do.

And if, like me, you get the battery changed at an Apple store for $29, you end up with an almost brand new iPhone 6 with a great battery life and a very good GPS.

Here is how to replace the antenna, step by step.