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Field Maps no location

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02-12-2024 09:12 AM
CarsonMorton
Regular Contributor

One of the guys on our field crew is having issues where field maps will open to the map, but it won't give him a location. Tapping on the 'zoom to me' button doesn't do anything.

Last time we did a bunch of random stuff from turning on/off airplane mode, reloading the map, turning the phone off then back on... etc, until it finally worked.

But it is happening again today and none of that worked. He says it's an old apple phone, and mentioned his icloud storage is full (not sure if that could have anything to do with this)

A) does anyone know what might be happening.

B) is there some documentation on troubleshooting this kind of stuff?

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9 Replies
MErikReedAugusta
Frequent Contributor

Dumb questions first:

  1. Are the location services on his phone turned on?
  2. Does Field Maps have permission to access his location data?

It sounds highly likely that he accidentally turned off the permissions for Field Maps to access his location data.

That, or it'd been so long since he fired up the app that iOS turned those permissions off for him as a security measure.  I know Android will do that, but I can't remember if iOS does.

CarsonMorton
Regular Contributor

yes and yes.

he did just text me saying it was working again... but i'm willing to bet it's going to keep happening on and off.

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MErikReedAugusta
Frequent Contributor

The next thing to check would be to see if it tends to happen with any geolocational consistency.

It could be as simple as insufficient signal strength.  We occasionally have problems with that where I am, especially when our field guys end up out in the woods in the more rural parts of the county.

You could theoretically test this by having him check another map-based app when he sees this issue.  If Field Maps can't find his location, but Google Maps/Apple Maps can, then the problem might be with Field Maps.  If they can't either, then the problem is likely his signal.

CarsonMorton
Regular Contributor

I told him to check apple maps the next time it happened. He said he did that previously, and apple maps worked just fine, so it isn't a signal issue.

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ColinLawrence
Esri Regular Contributor

Are they using just the internal GPS on the iPhone (ie not connected to any external GPS)? Do you know what the GPS banner says when this issue is occurring this, where the accuracy is normally displayed? Tapping the compass/GPS tool should attempt to get your location again or reconnect if you are using an external GPS. If not, try force closing the app by swiping it away and relaunching it which should reload everything. Otherwise it could be an issue with the devices GPS as suggested by others and it would be worth seeing if the behavior is observable in another app. 

Regards,
Colin
CarsonMorton
Regular Contributor

internal gps. tapping the compass wasn't fixing it. will check out what the gps banner says next time this happens.

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mejohnson22
Occasional Contributor

@CarsonMorton Did you ever figure out the cause? I have a field worker reporting a similar issue (Field Maps on iPhone 14 with a Trimble R1). He is able to click the "zoom to me" and it zooms to his location, but does not show the blue location dot and when starts GPS averaging it stays at zero. 

When in the Trimble Mobile Manager app he has good horz/vert accuracy and 25 satellites. 

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CarsonMorton
Regular Contributor

Sorry, no.

Never did figure out the actual cause, but it hasn't happened again.

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ColinLawrence
Esri Regular Contributor

Did you try switching the Location Provider to Integrated and then back to the R1? You can also try removing the R1 as a provider and re-adding it. This should reestablish the connection with the Trimble app. It sounds like Field Maps is not receiving updated locations for some reason. If you tap the GPS details, does it show when the last location you received was? It will either say "Updated now" or tell you when the last location was received. 

Regards,
Colin
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