GPS on Archos 101G9

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4carlos

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2009
64
8
anybody can use gps on archos 101g9? can't get no sat fix. app gpstest does not show any satellite. is this a further bug in ics?

running rooted ics 4.05 for sde (surdu_petru).
 

DarkhShadow

Senior Member
Sep 25, 2011
1,808
268
Essex
I have a Archos 80(same hardware though) and my GPS works fine on firmware 4.0.5
And if I may say so wow is it good, I get a GPS lock inside my house after about 20-30 seconds

Sent from my ice cream powered Nexus S
 

4carlos

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2009
64
8
I have a Archos 80(same hardware though) and my GPS works fine on firmware 4.0.5
And if I may say so wow is it good, I get a GPS lock inside my house after about 20-30 seconds

Sent from my ice cream powered Nexus S

mmh, where is my mistake? can't get gps lock with google maps, navigation and so on. car navigation is impossible. gps search is endless inhouse and outdoor :confused:

settings location + security:

"use wireless networks = off"
"use gps satellites = on"
"use location for google search = off"


edit:

found this in another forum

http://www.forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272

can anybody confirm?
 
Last edited:

steve adams

Senior Member
Dec 14, 2011
307
13
Mine works great. I'm using 80g9. My archos is now my traveling/adventure teblet. I have two and like the screen size for jps etc in my jeep?

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk
 

scholbert

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2007
1,347
821
It's little bit mystic...

Hey guys,

last week i also thought about open up a thread related to GPS issues on the Gen9 series, because i had some trouble to get a fix as well.
I'm using an Archos 80 G9.

mmh, where is my mistake? can't get gps lock with google maps, navigation and so on. car navigation is impossible. gps search is endless inhouse and outdoor :confused:
The same with my device at first.
I used the rooted ICS 4.0.5 and GPS Status from the market and started some experiments.
There'd been no response from the GPS part at all.
After some time i used a serial port api tool to directly connect to ttyO0.
Though the GPS part uses some hex protocol i had been able to get a response from the chip, but it was not human readable.

So this way i made sure there's no hardware damage on my UART interface or GPS chipset.

Afterwards i did some hard resets and checked settings of the UART by typing:
Code:
stty -F /dev/ttyO0

I started to run GPS Status again and also deleted my AGPS data by using the tools menu. Then i changed GPS Status setup to stay active and prevent device from sleep.

I took a while, but then the first satellite came in sight, still no fix.
Next day i did the same after some time more and more satellite where seen, but still no fix.

I restarted my device again to boot stock firmware.
Same again... more and more satellites became visible... but then... suddenly a fix. In fact it took very very long and i'm not very satisfied with the situation.

After i re-booted to rooted firmware again i was able to get a fix here as well.
The signal reception is still far from being nice though.

Try to get a fix with stock firmware first, then reboot and check again with rooted firmware.

settings location + security:

"use wireless networks = off"
"use gps satellites = on"
"use location for google search = off"
Should be no problem with this setup.
AFAIK, these three settings address different services.
GPS should be set of course.

Nice thread, but people start to mix things up at some point.
Though the GPS and location service on Android OS is quite mystic, i'll try to concentrate on some facts.

Hardware:
- NL5550 chipset used on Archos Gen9 is up to date and not that bad
(merged into WL1283 chipset, see http://www.murata-ws.com/com7.htm)
- Due to hugh shielding areas, GPS reception is not the best with tablets (if compared to handsets).
- GPS antenna and position of the antenna seems to be problematic

Software:
- Firmware setup changed form HC to ICS
- size of the patch file for the chip had grown in ICS
(mabye they wanted to make thinks better, but they got worse)

So what could be done...

Hardware:
- I started searching for a better antenna to be placed in the housing
(e.g. helical/helix antenna)
- Place a HF-connector on the mainboard to use an external antenna

Software:
- Extract the firmware files from HC and try this setup for ICS
- try to find other devices based on the navilink chipset and compare their firmware setup

Basically GPS works on ICS and things in fact are not related to ICS itself.
Some firmware tweaks might be the cause of these issues.
The basic construcion of the hardware could have some side-effects on this as well.

Some people seem to have no trouble at all, so at least GPS reception is of course little bit depended on the weather and the area you live in.

I may post the HC firmware files here, if you like to try the HC setup on your device.

Cheers,

scholbert
 
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superpat999

Member
Feb 5, 2011
5
0
GPS lib loops

Hi,

I can ONLY get my GPS to lock on if the wifi and location services are enabled and working.

This is because, the gpslib tries to speed up the lock and position information by going out on the internet and firstly fetch the time from the main European ntp server.

Looking at the system logs, it appears to get into an infinite loop waiting for a time update.

Therefore my gps WILL NEVER WORK if actuated with NO wifi.

However..... If I start the GPS application, (I am using mmaps) with the wifi on and the locaation services on I get a good lock, with 10-12 satellites with the Archos INSIDE my house, within a few minutes. (There is nothing wrong with the sensitivity of the GPS engine!)

If I then stop the app and turn off the Wifi and location serves and restart the app it will get a lock in a few seconds and stay working until I power down the Archos.

This is OK apart from the problem that I want to use the Archos in my car with no wifi.

cheers


Patrick
 

scholbert

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2007
1,347
821
Hey superpat999!
I can ONLY get my GPS to lock on if the wifi and location services are enabled and working.

This is because, the gpslib tries to speed up the lock and position information by going out on the internet and firstly fetch the time from the main European ntp server.

Looking at the system logs, it appears to get into an infinite loop waiting for a time update.

Therefore my gps WILL NEVER WORK if actuated with NO wifi.
Yes, thanks for pointing at this.
Try to disable automatic time sync in time & date settings menu and check again.
You should definitely get a fix without setting the other location services or having wifi enabled all the time.

However..... If I start the GPS application, (I am using mmaps) with the wifi on and the locaation services on I get a good lock, with 10-12 satellites with the Archos INSIDE my house, within a few minutes. (There is nothing wrong with the sensitivity of the GPS engine!)

If I then stop the app and turn off the Wifi and location serves and restart the app it will get a lock in a few seconds and stay working until I power down the Archos.
O.k. this is also very helpful information. I must admit that sensitivity is not that bad, but could be further improved... that's why i also talked about hardware in my last post.

This is OK apart from the problem that I want to use the Archos in my car with no wifi.
As stated above... getting a fix without wifi should work, i'm pretty sure.

Thanks again for this detailed descriptions!

Regards,

scholbert
 
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4carlos

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2009
64
8
big thanks for descriptions!

seems like a complicated science for a simple functionality ;)

my older external sirf 3 receiver need only 5 minutes for sat fix after cold start (very cloudy!) and 10 up to 15 seconds in warm state. i wonder why the archos is much slower.

ok, i will give a new chance an try it again and again and again...and report later.

regards,

4carlos
 

superpat999

Member
Feb 5, 2011
5
0
Assisted GPS !!!!!

Hi,

Unfortunately The Archos uses assisted GPS

I am not allowed to post links yet so see:- the wikipedia entry for assisted GPS

The Archos "might" use the Qualcomm chipset "GPSONE" , I am not sure but a lot of phone makers use it:-

see the wikipedia entry for GPSONE

Like I said in a previous post in the other place, I wish Android tablets were not still so mobile phone centric.

cheers

P
 

scholbert

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2007
1,347
821
The Archos "might" use the Qualcomm chipset "GPSONE" , I am not sure but a lot of phone makers use it:-
Please refer to my post above:
Hardware:
- NL5550 chipset used on Archos Gen9 is up to date and not that bad
(merged into WL1283 chipset, see http://www.murata-ws.com/com7.htm)
Archos uses TI NaviLink chipset. GPSONE is Qualcomm only and there's no Qualcomm chip inside our units.

TI NaviLink supports AGPS as well but it does not rely on that.
In other words even without assisted data you'll get a fix... sooner or later :p
Assisted GPS is always an option to get faster fix.

Did you try again with disabled automatic network time setting?

Regards,

scholbert
 

superpat999

Member
Feb 5, 2011
5
0
libgps loops!

Hi Scholbert

Thanks for correction re type of gps chip. Why I thought there was a GPSONE chip in the Archos was because the /etc/gps.conf uses the Qualcomm extra server site , see below.

However I still maintain there is an infinite loop in the ICS (or Archos modded) libgps. I have left the machine on for 8 hours and never got a lock without wifi.

I cannot post the /etc/gps.conf and the log here because I am too noob yet.

Instead have a look at my post here:-

forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272#p396064

regards

Patrick
 

scholbert

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2007
1,347
821
Hey superpat999!
Thanks for correction re type of gps chip. Why I thought there was a GPSONE chip in the Archos was because the /etc/gps.conf uses the Qualcomm extra server site , see below.
Yeah no problem, i'm a hardware addict... so if you need some info about the chips of G9 ask me ;)

However I still maintain there is an infinite loop in the ICS (or Archos modded) libgps. I have left the machine on for 8 hours and never got a lock without wifi.
I guess you're right... I made some further tests and must confirm, that i observed the same behaviour. This in fact is really annoying...
The GPS receiver receives satellite information (satellites can be "seen"), but there's no fix without beeing connected to the networks.

This is acceptable. We should contact the Archos developer's, especially user courville who has joined this forum for bug fixing.
He's an employee of Archos and one of the chief developer's, very friendly and helpful as well!

forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272#p396064
Had a view at this thread and read your posting.
If the described behaviour is compiled in the lib, we can't fix it ourselfs.
Archos needs to fix this problem by tweaking the library.
If it is related to a setup option, we might easily fix it at least on a rooted device using a customized image.

Had anyone tried the 4.0.6. firmware test release yet... maybe GPS got fixed as well.

Regards,

scholbert
 
Last edited:

gen_scheisskopf

Senior Member
Feb 22, 2009
1,129
249
Poznań
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 (2021)
If the described behaviour is compiled in the lib, we can't fix it ourselfs.
Archos needs to fix this problem by tweaking the library.
If it is related to a setup option, we might easily fix it at least on a rooted device using a customized image.
Since GPS is integrated into wlan chip it may be necessary to power on wifi to power on also GPS part.

Had anyone tried the 4.0.6. firmware test release yet... maybe GPS got fixed as well.
On 4.0.6 GPS works exactly the same.

Some observations (GPS Test)
-it takes quite a while to aquire lock even with "fresh" aGPS data
-lock is not stable- it likes to dissapear even if I don't move tablet
-catching new sattelites "unlocks" the lock
-accuracy seems poor- GPS Test didn't report anything less than 80 meters (Xperia Arc S in the same spot has <20m)
 

b1lk1

Senior Member
Sep 26, 2011
52
9
Acton, Ontario
I get a lock within 10 seconds with my G9 inside my house. The accuracy has gotten down to under 4 meters. On my particular tablet, it works fantastic. I never had to clear AGPS data. I think this is luck of the draw. Some work great, some not.

My ASUS TF101 has all the issues you guys describe. Unreliable and slow. Most people with the TF101 do not have my issue.

My wife's LG Optimus One GPS works great, locks in under 20 seconds and never unlocks. My Samsung Galaxy Ace struggles to get a lock but can maintain it once lock is achieved.

All these devices are running different Android versions so I agree that it is not a software issue. I tend to believe it is the fact some get better build quality antennas than others making some of the same devices work better than their twins.
 

butterflygirl

Senior Member
May 5, 2011
189
26
i have tested copilot on 3 different archos G9 80s. All have gotten a lock in my house. I have tested one while driving to work and it maintains the lock.
 

4carlos

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2009
64
8
anybody want an archos 101g9 ?????

hi,

i'm back here after testing my 101 and i'm not really lucky :(

thanks to all here first. i pursued the discussion with interest.

my archos did not work with gps at all!. i checked with gpstest and gps status apps indoor and outdoor several hours/days. no satellites found! nothing, zeroooooooooooo. clear sky, no clouds and NO satellites. i'm alone in the universe :confused:

what i did:

- device cold start (many times)
- switching on/off date and time from ntp server
- wifi on/off
- google location service on/off

no idea what happen. this is not my first archos. my older g8 had broken usb ports and was changed 2 times. the g9 freezes very often in cpu state "hotplug", run stable only with half speed and gps don't work. why gps need an internet connection?? i have no 3g stick in my tablet and no wifi in my car. yes, i can connect my phone with wifi tethering but sorry, that's not what i have planned. puuh archos, what do you think what customers tolerate. i love android, but the next tablet should be better an ipad :mad:

seems, there is a defect. how can i check my hardware before i put it in the trash?

thanks,

4carlos

by the way, my htc legend with froyo works great. it beams my to every point i wish!
 
Last edited:

uphall

Senior Member
May 1, 2011
230
54
Sorry to hear all you guys are having such problems with gps lock.

I have an original 8gb 9g classic. I have taken it through Honeycomb and up to the last ICS update. I have rooted it, over-clocked it and it has taken everything that I have thrown at it!

In every case, the gps has been first class. Using gpsstatus from the market, it locks on to 9 sats from inside my house within 30 seconds.

It was originally set to europe.pool in the gps.cfg file and I got a good lock with that. When I changed to rooted custom fw, I downloaded fasterfix from the market and used it to change the gps.cfg to uk.pool. This speeded up the lock and increased the number of sats to 11.

One thing that may help, has anyone tried toggling airplane mode on then off again. Whenever I install a new rom, on phone or tablet, I reboot the system at
least twice after setup and then toggle airplane on/off. This was an instruction in some roms that had wifi issues and I now do it as a matter of course.

It may be worth a try.

I use Co pilot live as satnav and it has never failed to lock on within seconds of being set up.
 
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scholbert

Senior Member
Aug 1, 2007
1,347
821
GPS on G9 still behaves strange...

First of all, thanks for posting your observations.
The GPS issue remains little mystic though :eek:

In every case, the gps has been first class. Using gpsstatus from the market, it locks on to 9 sats from inside my house within 30 seconds.
I just got a fix within a minute, yesterday it was a no go!
The device actually needed a reboot before. What is responsible for this locking???
I got the fix by...
- deleting the AGPS data in the settings menu of GPStool
- setting the data update interval to never
- unchecked set system time from server in the device settings
- Wifi and 3G were disabled as well
So it's possible to get satelite fix without network connection.
But something may lock the interface. Afterwards it seems to be impossible to get a fix again... at least things get worse.

BTW, GPStool and the AGPS "framework" of the G9 use definitely different data bases for the assisted data. Maybe this causes locks as well...
So from what i can tell... disabling the AGPS function in GPStool definitely helped to get a fix.

It was originally set to europe.pool in the gps.cfg file and I got a good lock with that. When I changed to rooted custom fw, I downloaded fasterfix from the market and used it to change the gps.cfg to uk.pool. This speeded up the lock and increased the number of sats to 11.
O.k. might try fasterfix... though it seems to set the timeserver to another domain... What else does it do?
We need more understanding of the mechanism in general.
Did anyone try the Gingerbread setup on ICS yet?
I may post the files here...

One thing that may help, has anyone tried toggling airplane mode on then off again. Whenever I install a new rom, on phone or tablet, I reboot the system at
least twice after setup and then toggle airplane on/off. This was an instruction in some roms that had wifi issues and I now do it as a matter of course.

It may be worth a try.
Maybe it's worth a try but maybe it won't help anything.
As far as i can tell, a reboot certainly fixes some kind of lock on the interface.
But as long as we always guess there will be no improvement, nor we'll find the real reason for the missbehaviour.

I use Co pilot live as satnav and it has never failed to lock on within seconds of being set up.
You lucky guy ;)

Cheers,

scholbert
 

bufflehead

Member
Dec 7, 2010
18
0
Scholbert

I can't find GPStool in the market - is that the correct name?

I would like to try your procedure to find out if my GPS is working at all.

Thx.

Don.
 

4carlos

Senior Member
Jun 28, 2009
64
8
Scholbert

I can't find GPStool in the market - is that the correct name?

I would like to try your procedure to find out if my GPS is working at all.

Thx.

Don.


i guess :

GPS Status & Toolbox (author EclipSim, can delete agps data)

also nice

GPS Test (author Chartcross Limited)

GPS Status (author espresso3389, nice graphical tool but only portrait mode)


btw.
upgrade to firmware 4.06 (fix for increasing gps stability) did not help in my case. only my problem has more stability now. still no satellites in sight. my htc legend shows a minimum of 5 satellites with the tools from above at my location (indoor) but still nothing with my archos. disappointing.

the better way is to check the gps functionality before rooting the tablet (loosing guarantee!). seems a weak point of tablet.

i'm searching for an external bt mouse. any recommendation? the mouse should be bought in germany.
 

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  • 1
    It's little bit mystic...

    Hey guys,

    last week i also thought about open up a thread related to GPS issues on the Gen9 series, because i had some trouble to get a fix as well.
    I'm using an Archos 80 G9.

    mmh, where is my mistake? can't get gps lock with google maps, navigation and so on. car navigation is impossible. gps search is endless inhouse and outdoor :confused:
    The same with my device at first.
    I used the rooted ICS 4.0.5 and GPS Status from the market and started some experiments.
    There'd been no response from the GPS part at all.
    After some time i used a serial port api tool to directly connect to ttyO0.
    Though the GPS part uses some hex protocol i had been able to get a response from the chip, but it was not human readable.

    So this way i made sure there's no hardware damage on my UART interface or GPS chipset.

    Afterwards i did some hard resets and checked settings of the UART by typing:
    Code:
    stty -F /dev/ttyO0

    I started to run GPS Status again and also deleted my AGPS data by using the tools menu. Then i changed GPS Status setup to stay active and prevent device from sleep.

    I took a while, but then the first satellite came in sight, still no fix.
    Next day i did the same after some time more and more satellite where seen, but still no fix.

    I restarted my device again to boot stock firmware.
    Same again... more and more satellites became visible... but then... suddenly a fix. In fact it took very very long and i'm not very satisfied with the situation.

    After i re-booted to rooted firmware again i was able to get a fix here as well.
    The signal reception is still far from being nice though.

    Try to get a fix with stock firmware first, then reboot and check again with rooted firmware.

    settings location + security:

    "use wireless networks = off"
    "use gps satellites = on"
    "use location for google search = off"
    Should be no problem with this setup.
    AFAIK, these three settings address different services.
    GPS should be set of course.

    Nice thread, but people start to mix things up at some point.
    Though the GPS and location service on Android OS is quite mystic, i'll try to concentrate on some facts.

    Hardware:
    - NL5550 chipset used on Archos Gen9 is up to date and not that bad
    (merged into WL1283 chipset, see http://www.murata-ws.com/com7.htm)
    - Due to hugh shielding areas, GPS reception is not the best with tablets (if compared to handsets).
    - GPS antenna and position of the antenna seems to be problematic

    Software:
    - Firmware setup changed form HC to ICS
    - size of the patch file for the chip had grown in ICS
    (mabye they wanted to make thinks better, but they got worse)

    So what could be done...

    Hardware:
    - I started searching for a better antenna to be placed in the housing
    (e.g. helical/helix antenna)
    - Place a HF-connector on the mainboard to use an external antenna

    Software:
    - Extract the firmware files from HC and try this setup for ICS
    - try to find other devices based on the navilink chipset and compare their firmware setup

    Basically GPS works on ICS and things in fact are not related to ICS itself.
    Some firmware tweaks might be the cause of these issues.
    The basic construcion of the hardware could have some side-effects on this as well.

    Some people seem to have no trouble at all, so at least GPS reception is of course little bit depended on the weather and the area you live in.

    I may post the HC firmware files here, if you like to try the HC setup on your device.

    Cheers,

    scholbert
    1
    Hey superpat999!
    I can ONLY get my GPS to lock on if the wifi and location services are enabled and working.

    This is because, the gpslib tries to speed up the lock and position information by going out on the internet and firstly fetch the time from the main European ntp server.

    Looking at the system logs, it appears to get into an infinite loop waiting for a time update.

    Therefore my gps WILL NEVER WORK if actuated with NO wifi.
    Yes, thanks for pointing at this.
    Try to disable automatic time sync in time & date settings menu and check again.
    You should definitely get a fix without setting the other location services or having wifi enabled all the time.

    However..... If I start the GPS application, (I am using mmaps) with the wifi on and the locaation services on I get a good lock, with 10-12 satellites with the Archos INSIDE my house, within a few minutes. (There is nothing wrong with the sensitivity of the GPS engine!)

    If I then stop the app and turn off the Wifi and location serves and restart the app it will get a lock in a few seconds and stay working until I power down the Archos.
    O.k. this is also very helpful information. I must admit that sensitivity is not that bad, but could be further improved... that's why i also talked about hardware in my last post.

    This is OK apart from the problem that I want to use the Archos in my car with no wifi.
    As stated above... getting a fix without wifi should work, i'm pretty sure.

    Thanks again for this detailed descriptions!

    Regards,

    scholbert
    1
    Sorry to hear all you guys are having such problems with gps lock.

    I have an original 8gb 9g classic. I have taken it through Honeycomb and up to the last ICS update. I have rooted it, over-clocked it and it has taken everything that I have thrown at it!

    In every case, the gps has been first class. Using gpsstatus from the market, it locks on to 9 sats from inside my house within 30 seconds.

    It was originally set to europe.pool in the gps.cfg file and I got a good lock with that. When I changed to rooted custom fw, I downloaded fasterfix from the market and used it to change the gps.cfg to uk.pool. This speeded up the lock and increased the number of sats to 11.

    One thing that may help, has anyone tried toggling airplane mode on then off again. Whenever I install a new rom, on phone or tablet, I reboot the system at
    least twice after setup and then toggle airplane on/off. This was an instruction in some roms that had wifi issues and I now do it as a matter of course.

    It may be worth a try.

    I use Co pilot live as satnav and it has never failed to lock on within seconds of being set up.