Advanced Privacy turned off and still wrong GPS position on FP4

Hello,

since V1.0 and introduction of Advanced Privacy, I have played around with it a little, until I needed GPS. So: I turned the GPS masquerade off, it didn’t help. I turned Advanced Privacy off completely - no true GPS signal. So, my FP4 is now more or less useless in this matter. Restarting didn’t solve the issue, too.

So: Please advise, if there is anything more I can do!

Thank you in advance!

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online servicesphone

I am using Advanced Privacy w/o gps and it worsk as expected. GPS is easily found by all my apps that needs it (garmin, organic maps, etc.).

I have the same problem with my FP3+. Location privacy is turned off. After a reboot, it gets the correct location, but after a short time I`m located in Manila :wink:
It doesnt matter if I have disabled advanced privacy completley or just the location.
Revo

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The same phenomenon with my FP4.

If by restarting you mean a simple reboot, “more” in this regard would be to turn off the phone completely, wait a few seconds, then turn it on again. This can make a difference in general (although over the years and different phones I personally only observed this with different kinds of network hiccups so far).

Doesn’t help anybody with a Fairphone 4 I guess, but on my Fairphone 3 I briefly activated everything in Advanced Privacy to look for obvious effects, then only left the tracker blocking enabled … GPS works totally fine for me.

It could be helpful if anybody posting here would post exactly what is given in Settings - About phone - Android version (tap on it) - /e/ version (can be long-tapped and copied to clipboard).

This way we could perhaps see whether the issue may be build type related (stable or dev) or not.

1.0-r-20220526188860-stable-FP4

I have taken out the battery now. After restart, I have checked, if Advanced Security was on. It was off. Still, Maps shows my position in Manila.

I also experience this issue.
Have 1.0-q-20220526188859-stable-FP3.

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A few steps you can try, in the exact order as described below:

  1. Turn completely your device off and wait 30 seconds.
  2. Boot it into recovery mode (Press and hold both Power and Vol+)
  3. Format “Cache” (don’t format anything else)
  4. Reboot device
  5. In settings => apps section: Clear cache and user data of all apps that need GPS + “microG Services Core”
  6. Then go in settings again => location. Turn location off, wait 30 seconds, then turn location on again.
  7. Go somewhere outdoor, then try again…

Should work again.

Tip: Deactivate advanced privacy on all apps that are using GPS module.

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Can you please tell me where to find this option? I was not able to find it. Thank you!

In recovery, scroll down with “Vol -” to “Factory reset”, enter with “power bottom”, then scroll down to “Format cache partition”, then “yes”.
Then come back to the main menu with the left arrow and select “Reboot now”

I can’t find this option. Only format data. I don’t want to enter this option if I don’t know what is behind it.

Oh ok… Which /e/ recovery version are you running? (it’s written on the top of the screen)

With the latest 1.0 /e/ recovery, here are 2 screenshots from where to go…

Do NOT format data / factory nor system partition…

If you don’t have this function, skip it and do the rest in the right order…

@stanwood
Formatting cache is a placebo, that partition is not used by the system at all.

Is it hard to make a downgrade? I mean - without setting up all apps and accounts?

I deactivated my working profile. At least Im not in Manila anymore but always right beside the streets or a few meters away, so navigation apps tell me to go back on the street.

1.0-q-20220527189323-dev-FP3

Following operations fixes the problem for me:

  • I went to Advanced privacy > Manage my location and change the setting from “Use a random plausible location” (was near Manilla :)) to “Use my real location”
  • Force stopped and emptied the cache of the apps that were authorized to see my geolocation (in my case SatStat and OsmAnd~)
    Thank you @stanwood :+1:
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Didn’t work for me. :frowning: Did you perhaps perform some additional steps?