GPS not working after update to IOS11

Just in case it had something to do with a 3rd party app, I resetted the phone yesterday via iTunes (full & clean reinstall), did not install anything else and drove to work using Maps only. Sadly still no connection to the satellites.

I did get some GPS on Monday though for some strange reason. Nothing to do with the case, the car, the orientation, the time of day. As you said: "Can't find any rhyme nor reason as to when it works and when it doesn't.".

I

I went to a non-Apple repair store that said that they already replaced the GPS antenna without success on other iPhones with the same problem, said they would do it for free and i would only pay if it worked but said it was not even worth the effort, that's how low the guy's confidence was over this solution.

For the "fun", next time Apple says to anyone of you "strange, first time I've heard of this problem" show them these:

Hello all,

I also had GPS problems with my iphone6 which started around the time when ios 11 came out. It was working rarely, most of the time hundreds of metres off (sorry for the metric unit, I‘m from Germany).

So I suspected ios 11, but then I found this thread about broken GPS antennas (aka F-cable) on iFixit.

It turned out my GPS antenna was also „broken“.

See the photo of my old antenna: The black „sticker“ is supposed to fully cover the copper-colored area.

So I ordered a new cable for 15€ (including repair kit) and it took me half an hour to change it.

Now, GPS is working again :)

Hope this helps some of the iphone6 users here.

Update: my iphone GPS worked for a few times after I updated to the latest update ios 11.2.6 but again stopped finding my location with google maps or waze. Yesterday I replaced the GPS antenna which It seems fried probably by phone overheated in the past. After a installed the new antenna Waze is working wonderfully. It was worthed the time I spent replacing the antenna.

What if, and this is a big if, Apple turned off the GPS receiver on older iPhones as part of its battery preservation program. The GPS receiver is turned on only if an app specifically requests GPS level accuracy in a location services API call. (This is part of the location services API. If the app doesn’t request GPS level accuracy then it just gets Bluetooth/Cellular/WiFi accuracy.)

I’ve found that I can fairly reliably force the GPS receiver ON by opening the Apple Maps app and starting a navigation.

I used this technique this morning to get the Strava app to record a cycling workout. The GPS receiver stayed on for the entire ride.

And here is a picture of mine. Indeed the mesh seems to have moved a bit.

It's probably glued. What if iOS11 changed something with the battery (in fact it has) which made the phone overheat, the glue melt and the mesh move? It could have made (and probably did make) the GPS stop working.

Q.E.D. ?

Dear Team

In our case it was definitely a software issue. Otherwise how can my phone and my wife’s one got the hardware failure at the same time once updates OS?

I too did allbos things on the internet to do bee On my overcome this bulb t need t succeeded.

One of my friend had done hard reset with complete wiped out data but still not succeeded. I almost buying a new phone.

Suddenly this setting reset worked. This worked for me, wife and for my friend. I do not know how setting reset worked when hard reset doesn’t.

This is all my experience and GPS still works on my phone.

Sorry for autocorrect errors in the previous post.

It should have been as

Dear Team

In our case it was definitely a software issue. Otherwise how can my phone and my wife’s one got the hardware failure at the same time once updates OS?

I too did all the things on the internet to overcome this issue and did not succeeded.

One of my friend also had done hard reset with complete wiped out data but still not succeeded. I almost buying a new phone.

Suddenly this setting reset worked. This worked for me, wife and for my friend. I do not know how setting reset worked when hard reset doesn’t.

This is all my experience and GPS still works on my phone.

I caved and downloaded GPS Diagnostics. You're right. GPS is broken, and all the GPS I do have is probably 4G+wi-fi.

Still frustrating, as I did in fact get the antenna replaced. But apparently that didn't solve the problem 😟 Any other suggestions re: hardware that would possibly need replacing?

(thanks for the help btw)

[edit] I was too quick. It's showing up fine now. But unless the update to 11.3 magically worked, I doubt I'll have working GPS outside city limits...

Okay thanks for the reply, I just tried it again (I’m desperate to solve this issue!) and been watching my gps diagnostic app the signal varies A LOT from second to second now (will include some screenshots)

Did anyone else have this issue?

Read this thread from a year and a half ago. Most people seem to have resolved that same problem with a hardware fix.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7607449?start=105&tstart=0

I've opened my iPhone a number of times and even have a tool kit specifically for fixing phones. I may have a look at the cable and make sure that anything hasn't shifted around in there. I do drop my phone from time to time so there is a chance that something has come loose or simply failed. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Thousands of users out of hundreds of millions of iPhone users? If it was millions moaning about this then i'd agree. Thousands may sound like a big number but considering Apple sold over 10,000,000 iPhone 6's just over the launch weekend, then maybe the coincidence is actually that all our phones suffered a similar hardware issue at a similar time that just happened to be around the first few versions of ios11.

I don't know exactly when my issues started but I doubt it was the same day as the other people on here. I'm not personally seeing thousands of people discussing this issue in this thread. I was convinced it was purely software but if that's the case, why did mine work perfectly after bending it around a little and tapping it on a soft surface? How could that be software?

Read this thread from a year and a half ago and you may realise that people have already lived through this before and accepted an alternative to the software only fault, subsequently fixing their phones with a replacement hardware cable.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7607449?start=0

I reserve my right to reply to this only as it contains a question directed at me, although Orangemm has requested that I no longer post to this thread from this point on, which i've agreed to do, but for other reasons than to satisfy his own personal preferences.

If you look back through my posts on this thread, I linked twice to a thread that started mid 2016 where people with iPhone 6's were claiming the same issue but blaming iOS 9 (although if you read on carefully, you can tell that people had started blaming iOS 10 without realising the thread starter had blamed iOS 9). It's a good read. Actually, it's much more interesting, enlightening and tolerant than this thread. It highlights that the issue was solved for the major majority with a hardware fix. Either the antenna flex cable and/or the GPS antenna.

Quote WooDz "However here is the crux in all this Hardware/Software debate... If it was indeed a hardware issue then why would the problems only start since the introduction of iOS 11, surely a hardware fault would have been apparent in all previous iOS versions... Of which they were not."

If you read the thread i'm recommending (link below), it's very clear that this is not the first time people have associated a major or minor iOS release with an issue with their phone, or indeed a GPS issue. It probably won't be the last either. The problems you mention may seem wide spread but it is totally not if you do your sums. I've made it clear before that the figures don't actually add up due to this affecting only a virtually pico sized percentage of iPhone 6 owners. As I am probably upsetting Orangemm (he can't resist reading my posts!) i'll stop now but do please read the whole thread...

This is the thread

iPhone 6 GPS not working

Before I go. here is the same issue reported after iOS 10.3 from April 2017

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7909006?start=0&tstart=0

An earlier one when iOS 10 came out from Oct 2016

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7693853?start=0&tstart=0

There are more if you search.

Regards. Rimmer

Not sure if it has been posted in the thread but here's another thread I've been watching which is along the same lines. It mentions Apple being aware of a problem. However, it's mainly with iPhone 8 and X users.

iPhone 8 GPS problems