location isnt working, late or no notifications, please help

nervousball

hi everyone,
installed GoS few weeks ago and im loving it. started to play around with arora/f droid store apps just to get myself comfortable with the options
i've noticed that currently i do have these issues that serves a bit of inconvenience for myself and the others (trying to reach me), and hopefully i could get some advice (as community support here is fantastic)

location:
device simply cannot identify my actual location. i've tried this via google maps and city mapper apps. location permissions - sharing enabled whilst using the app, internet and mobile network connection is in reach, device itself recognises location sharing (as i get location icon on, top right corner of the screen, green font)
notifications:
this is a tricky one as i tried most of the options (to the best of my knowledge). i either get no notifications at all or i receive very late notifications (in both instances - only when unlocking the phone OR actually clicking on app itself)
i barely receive notifications whilst phone is locked, and it is only for specific apps. the moment i unlock the phone, i get quite a lot of notifications all at once, (e.g. banking app when i paid for the transaction) and as mentioned, some alerts - only pop up when clicking actual app, such as whatsapp. anyone calling me on whatsapp during phone being locked - gets no ringing at all, neither i get a call, however, if my phone is unlocked - that is not a problem..it must be something to do with settings maybe?
apps have internet connection permission, app functionality in the background is enabled. GoS and pixel 8 software/updates are up to date

anyone could advise what im missing? are there any recently reported bugs regarding this or im being silly and missing something obvious?

thank you

de0u

nervousball device simply cannot identify my actual location. i've tried this via google maps and city mapper apps. location permissions - sharing enabled whilst using the app, internet and mobile network connection is in reach, device itself recognises location sharing (as i get location icon on, top right corner of the screen, green font)

By default GrapheneOS derives location information from GNSS, meaning signals received anonymously from satellites (GPS, GLONASS, etc.). This often does not work indoors. If you haven't yet, you can try going outside and/or using the GPSTest app.

It is possible to turn on Google's location service, which is based on Google's database of cellular tower location and Wi-Fi access point location. This means sharing your location with Google. There are plans for GrapheneOS to eventually support a privacy-preserving location service.

"Geocoding", meaning turning latitude/longitude location into street addresses, is not implemented by GrapheneOS at present. Google's service does do that, I believe.

nervousball

de0u hey @de0u
thanks for your reply here.

so unfortunately location isnt functioning for me on both:
city mapper & google maps and it doesnt matter where i am - indoors or outdoors

when i turn location on GoS, it recognises that location is on when im using google maps or citymapper, as there is a slight green icon top right corner of the screen, but i cannot locate myself in the map

you mentioned that GoS isnt using google location services, not sure if you mean:

i shouldnt allow google maps to enable location as google will know it;
OR;
GoS arent getting location off google services and not sharing it with google as a default, and gets their information from satellites, anonymously

anyways, do you know what the issue could be?

de0u

nervousball Can you try the GPSTest app?

nervousball

i managed to fix it! by enabling google services to run in the background...

wonder if that uses a lot of battery and/or tracks all activities..i've found out that battery manager optimised it and set it to not run in the background, which means it might use some heavy % of battery. i will try to charge phone fully and see report..

if i switch it on, google maps and citymapper is running perfectly with location present..if i switch background google services off, it doesnt work..

so i assume either i need to get over this and accept that this will use extra % of my battery and most likely track stuff to google (unless this is also sandboxed, all activity of google)
OR
get FOSS navigation app which is quite modern and gets updated all the time..
OR
just enable this when i need to use location, which is quite inconvenient..

@de0u

de0u

nervousball i managed to fix it! by enabling google services to run in the background...

Thanks for reporting back! This may help other users who are trying to get Google's location service to work.

nervousball so i assume either i need to get over this and accept that this will use extra % of my battery and most likely track stuff to google (unless this is also sandboxed, all activity of google)

It is important to understand that "sandboxed Google Play" does not mean "Google Play which has been tricked into not tracking users", because that is possible. Running Google Play in the standard Android app sandbox means that Play doesn't have special privileges -- that it would have on a regular vendor Android device -- for accessing app data, reconfiguring the system, etc. But any information shared by a user with Google is still shared with Google. Enabling Google's location service on any Android variant, including GrapheneOS, inherently shares location information with Google.

OR
get FOSS navigation app which is quite modern and gets updated all the time..

There are various mapping and location apps, but at present those apps either use GPS (and thus work best outdoors) or use Google's location service.

GrapheneOS

nervousball

i managed to fix it! by enabling google services to run in the background...

You appear to have changed the settings from the defaults including disabling the default-enabled location rerouting which redirects requests made to Google Play services to the OS and granting the Location permission to Google Play services. Neither of those changes was necessary. Is this what happened? Turn location rerouting back on and take away Location from Google Play services. There should be no reason to make either of those changes if you aren't enabling their network location service that's off by default.

nervousball

GrapheneOS hi, thanks for your reply here.

unfortunately i did not change anything. i was warned not to mess with settings after installing GoS. i did not edit / remove or turn off anything with rerouting or locations at all. everything is set by default

i granted location service access whilst using the app to:

city mapper
and google maps

when i turn location, both apps doesnt show my location..
google play services enabled to run in background and still not working

GrapheneOS

Unrestricted battery mode is required for Google Play services to provide push messaging via Firebase Cloud Messaging to other apps. Your location issue is not caused by that but rather some kind of configuration changes you've made. The default of location rerouting being enabled works well. Marking as solved but you should really fix the location issue properly instead of unnecessarily using the Google Play services location service.

nervousball

GrapheneOS im afraid as mentioned, i havent set anything manually, everything is by default as after fresh GOS install

de0u

nervousball Please report on what happens when you run the GPSTest app (as previously requested).

nervousball

de0u test didnt do much, i got no coordinates. i think something is blocking my end

GrapheneOS

nervousball Are you testing outdoors? Satellite-based location doesn't work well indoors and network-based location requires more setup.

nervousball

GrapheneOS yes it is not working..