Your device is not sending valid NMEA. Using Android location services to determine your location.

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01-30-2017 11:58 AM
AnnVanSlembrouck
Occasional Contributor

We are receiving an error when using the Collector for ArcGIS on Android Galaxy J7.

Our app worked on our older android phones, but since the phone upgrade, we are receiving this error, when trying to find our location on the map. 

Anyone else experience this or have a solution?

Thanks!

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31 Replies
SteveTaylor7
New Contributor III

All our Samsung S7 With Android 7 devices are now getting the NMEA bug and location issue. Even after the two recent Collector app updates.  As I have said before the issue does not occur with other apps using the phone GPS.  It is clearly  a Collector app bug.

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SteveTaylor7
New Contributor III

The bug is intermittent so very hard to get one of Rangers to video when they mostly work one up. It is not just a NMEA warning message. There is a intermittent bug associated with this resulting in Collector not updating the location. This is a significant issue as it is happening on all our Samsung S7 and S7 Edge running the latest Android OS.  Some prompt action is warranted.

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DavidSchaab
New Contributor

Hi Dan, has this issue been resolved?  I have video if you want me to post or send.

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

David, 

I have not heard anything. I can find out though.

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DavidSchaab
New Contributor

Thank you for looking into it Dan.

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

You're welcome! What I have gathered is that development is reviewing this in greater depth for the next release of Collector. I do not have any information as to when this will occur.

DanAllen
Occasional Contributor III

In addition to my S7 I fired up my old Samsung S5, with a 6 month old version of Collector, no error.  I updated it to version 17.0.2, bam, NMEA error message.  I did some troubleshooting and it appeared as though if I opened collector inside, I would get the NMEA error most times.  If I went outside in the open, opened Collector, then immediately tapped  to open a map, I would always get the error.  If I went outside, opened Collector, then let is sit for 15 or 20 seconds before opening a map, I wouldn't get the error, sometimes.  I also found that the very first time I opened a Collector Map after a phone restart, I almost never received NMEA message.  After that first time though it was a crap shoot if I would receive the NMEA error.

Also, it is my understanding that if you tap the GPS status button in the bottom left and only see 4 fields, then you are only using the android location services.  If you see 8 fields, then you are using the NMEA location.  Sometimes I would see 4 fields, even though I did not get the NMEA message.  If mine showed 4 fields, I would get accuracy of about 19 feet, and it would not match my location on the aerial very well.  If I got 8 fields in the gps status, my accuracy would drop down to 10 feet, and my location would by much closer to where I was actually standing on the aerial.

I even went so far as doing a hard reset on my S7 to see if that would fix the issue, but it did not.

Perhaps collector is doing the same thing it always has, but the tolerance for the error message was lowered?

MarkWisniewski
New Contributor III

Yes very frustrating to go out into the field only to find I can't actually use Collector for mapping on my Samsung s5 because of this NMAE error. I also had Collector working before the latest update.

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SteveTaylor7
New Contributor III

Try flicking Collector app out to fully close it. Then reopen. Or another work around is to open another app that uses GPS like Back Country Navigator or similar. Then reopen Collector. This may get you sorted till esri fix the NMEA warning and intermittent location bug. 

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MiaogengZhang
Esri Regular Contributor

Most of other applications uses location service to access the location. The location can be from GPS/Wi-Fi/Cellular.. The approach of Collector Android is different. It is trying to access deeper level of Android system and talk to GPS directly via NMEA. If it fails to use NMEA message, it will show the message and use location service instead. 

Here are two things I notice:

1) in several consumer Android device, it doesn't honor NMEA standard strictly. For example, the maximum characters for one sentence is 82 characters, but we will see much more characters in some sentences from those consumer Android device. 

2) Compared with Android Collector 10.4.2, the message prompts more often in Collector Android 17.0.1 or 17.0.2. We are aware of this issue. 

I have created an issue internally to revisit this message behavior and see if we can improve the tolerance of those NMEA messages.