XDA Stellar Strange Behaviour with Wherigo

[+elcaro]

First thing i should say is that the inbuilt GPS works perfectly in other programs such as TomTom, Google Maps, Nav4All and many others, so there is no question of it being a hardware issue.

 

I have an O2 XDA Stellar (aka HTC Kaiser, MDA Vario III, TyTn II, etc.....) and am experiencing strange behaviour whereby Wherigo Player does not report any GPS reception at all despite the fact that it has successfully turned the internal GPSr on (indicated by a flashing amber light on the device), however, there is an exception. If i use another program first which uses the GPS (e.g. Google Maps) and then run Wherigo Player I do get some reception although even then it seems intermittent, flicking from no signal to 3 bars on the Wherigo Signal meter.

 

I can reproduce the problem endlessly.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Elcaro.

[+elcaro]

I'm pleased to report that Wherigo Player on my XDA Stellar is now able to acquire satellite's without me having to "kick start" it by first using another GPS enabled application.

 

I believe this was either as a result of installing the lastest Wherigo Player release (dated 14th Jan) or as a result of having a cleanup on my device. Specifically I removed Google Maps, Nav4All, GPSTool and Nokia smart2go.

 

I intend to reinstall some of the apps which I removed and will advise whether this affects Wherigo Player.

 

Perhaps one of the Wherigo developers could confim whether the 14th Jan build contained a fix for the problem I was experiencing?

 

I have not yet had a chance to test whether the stability of the reception has improved but will advise in due course.

[+davidloew]

I'm pleased to report that Wherigo Player on my XDA Stellar is now able to acquire satellite's without me having to "kick start" it by first using another GPS enabled application.

 

I believe this was either as a result of installing the lastest Wherigo Player release (dated 14th Jan) or as a result of having a cleanup on my device. Specifically I removed Google Maps, Nav4All, GPSTool and Nokia smart2go.

 

I intend to reinstall some of the apps which I removed and will advise whether this affects Wherigo Player.

 

Perhaps one of the Wherigo developers could confim whether the 14th Jan build contained a fix for the problem I was experiencing?

 

I have not yet had a chance to test whether the stability of the reception has improved but will advise in due course.

The January 14th build for the PPC Player included some code to do a better job at detecting the gps on the device and if none was detected, do a better job at letting the user know (ie: not shutting down the application). I'd be very interested to know if reinstalling some of the other applications have an adverse affect.

 

David.

[+elcaro]

Unfortunately I was wrong in my last post - The Jan 14th Player Update and the removal of other apps from my device has not actually fixed the problem at all.

 

I'm not sure why it seemed to work ok briefly? Perhaps the GPSr was still in some kind of "warm start" state?

 

So I still have the two issues mentioned previously.

 

1) Wherigo starts the GPSr but gets no signal unless you have first run another gPS enabled program

2) When you have followed the above procedure and got a gps signal it is highly erratic and jumps between good/excellent signal and no signal constantly

 

I really hope that an upcoming release might address the issues i'm having as I really can't wait to get stuck into Wherigo! The fact that other apps such as goolge maps work without these problems gives me some hope

Edited January 18, 2008 by elcaro

[+davidloew]

Unfortunately I was wrong in my last post - The Jan 14th Player Update and the removal of other apps from my device has not actually fixed the problem at all.

 

I'm not sure why it seemed to work ok briefly? Perhaps the GPSr was still in some kind of "warm start" state?

 

So I still have the two issues mentioned previously.

 

1) Wherigo starts the GPSr but gets no signal unless you have first run another gPS enabled program

2) When you have followed the above procedure and got a gps signal it is highly erratic and jumps between good/excellent signal and no signal constantly

 

I really hope that an upcoming release might address the issues i'm having as I really can't wait to get stuck into Wherigo! The fact that other apps such as goolge maps work without these problems gives me some hope

Hi, there has been some talk on some other forums dealing with the gps software library we use that the HTC's or maybe WM6 are having this problem. I'm in touch with the developer or our software library to see if he might have some insite into this.

 

Update: I've been doing some testing on my Tilt and it does look like I'm getting a regular timeout on the internal gps device. Bluetooth, no problem. I'm continuing to track this problem down.

 

David.

Edited January 18, 2008 by davidloew

[+elcaro]

Well there's a certain reassurance in knowing i'm not alone

 

I believe the AT&T Tilt is essentially the same device as the XDA Stellar so *fingers crossed* if you can get yours working it'll fix mine too.

 

Out of interest, does the Wherigo Player utilise the Windows Mobile Intermediate GPS Driver, and if so is it using Parsed mode or Raw mode?

[+mikr]

Well there's a certain reassurance in knowing i'm not alone

 

I believe the AT&T Tilt is essentially the same device as the XDA Stellar so *fingers crossed* if you can get yours working it'll fix mine too.

 

Out of interest, does the Wherigo Player utilise the Windows Mobile Intermediate GPS Driver, and if so is it using Parsed mode or Raw mode?

 

No, you are not alone...

 

Trying the Wherigo player on my TytnII, and got a lot of trouble to a) get in contact with the satelits, and B, stay in contact with them...

 

Trying you tips about starting another GPS appliction seams to help to be able to get in contact with the internal GPS, however, the signal indicator flips between red and green all the time.

There are no way to start the tutorial, just telling me to get at better fix, but I have a good fix, once ever theird second....

 

And, yes, I download the software today, so therefor I am using the Wherigo player from end of May...

[+mikr]

Well there's a certain reassurance in knowing i'm not alone

 

I believe the AT&T Tilt is essentially the same device as the XDA Stellar so *fingers crossed* if you can get yours working it'll fix mine too.

 

Out of interest, does the Wherigo Player utilise the Windows Mobile Intermediate GPS Driver, and if so is it using Parsed mode or Raw mode?

 

No, you are not alone...

 

Trying the Wherigo player on my TytnII, and got a lot of trouble to a) get in contact with the satelits, and B, stay in contact with them...

 

Trying you tips about starting another GPS appliction seams to help to be able to get in contact with the internal GPS, however, the signal indicator flips between red and green all the time.

There are no way to start the tutorial, just telling me to get at better fix, but I have a good fix, once ever theird second....

 

And, yes, I download the software today, so therefor I am using the Wherigo player from end of May...

 

Tryed a new application I found on the internet, and my HTC hang...

Well, ok, Hard reset, back to WM6.1 SWE.

just installed Wherigo (well, at least I could try now, no other programs installed...)

And, YES, I could follow the tutorial!!!

The indication still flippers red/green...

 

Tryed the program out in the real world as well...

A Colorado device was much more correct then entering/leaving a zone, somtimes I had to walk 30 meter further before my PPC understand that I was leaving the zone.

Some messages just pop up shortly, and I had no way to read that fast (Had to read on the Colorado).

 

Another question. Map?? What type of map?

[+Teuchters]

On my O2 HTC TyTN II / Kaiser / Stellar XDA (O2 is a UK phone model), I have an XDA developers pack installed (Dutty's Series).

I am not an expert on this - I purchased the unit secondhand with this already installed.

 

I am pleased to say that at the recent UK Mega event, I successfully completed my first cartridge - just as well as I had a large crowd of folk who didn't have any Wherigo compatible machines, who were along for the ride!

 

Back to the original post however....

 

I use a number of GPS related apps on the PPC - TomTom, Memory-Map (plus Wherigo) and I have found that they all work very well if the GPS is fired up in advance. As apps, they don't seem to want to initiate the GPS themselves, although I know that they should really.

 

I use a small (free) app called GPSTest that gets the GPS going first. (There are other freeware apps that do this too I understand)

I then minimise GPSTest and go into the app I require. I haven't experimented with exitting GPSTest to see if the main app I am using continues to work or not.

[j0nnyb1aze]

Hmm, I'm having the same issues on my Tilt/Kaiser as well. "Jump starting" doesn't seem to help at all for me. All of my other GPS apps work just fine(though not the most accurate gps device). I seem to get the same in and out gps signal that everyone else seems to be having. I'm using the ATT Tilt/Kaiser/TytnII with a custom WM6.5 ROM(TPC Elite).