Navigation / GPS problem

[Jim622]

SO navigation seems to lose location randomly. I went back to Android Auto and that seemed to work for a while. Now it is happening with AA also.
How can this be? AA GPS is in your phone the car has its own GPS how can both lose GPS at the same time? It is really annoying because when this happens you will also lose BC. You can do a sync reset and get it all back. Not while your driving. Is there an update or fix for this? It is happening a lot.

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[Blue highway]

If Android Auto is "losing" location, along with the car Nav "losing" location at the same time, something may be happening to the GPS signal where you are located.

Why? because the GPS receiver in your phone is independent of the GPS receiver in the car.

https://greydynamics.com/gps-spoofing-pioneered-in-russia/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/vladim...-stop-drones-approaching-putin-report-n987376

 

[Jim622]

If Android Auto is "losing" location, along with the car Nav "losing" location at the same time, something may be happening to the GPS signal where you are located.

Why? because the GPS receiver in your phone is independent of the GPS receiver in the car.

https://greydynamics.com/gps-spoofing-pioneered-in-russia/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/vladim...-stop-drones-approaching-putin-report-n987376

I understand what you are saying.
At first, I thought maybe the big solar flare was the cause. If that were the case, then why would a sync reset cure the problem? It might be good for a week or a day or two days. it is unpredictable. I don't think it is a GPS issue since it is with both the car and the phone. I think it is a communication issue with sync.
If one of the guys with an FDRS account would look it up I bet they could find an update that is needed.

 

[Blue highway]

I understand what you are saying.
At first, I thought maybe the big solar flare was the cause. If that were the case, then why would a sync reset cure the problem? It might be good for a week or a day or two days. it is unpredictable. I don't think it is a GPS issue since it is with both the car and the phone. I think it is a communication issue with sync.
If one of the guys with an FDRS account would look it up I bet they could find an update that is needed.

Android Auto is just a "screen paint" from the phone. If the GPS is wrong in both the car nav and the phone at the same time, which is the way I read your post, the only common element related to determining your location is the RF signal.

If your phone is right and the car is wrong, then the RF is fine.

 

[Mach-Lee]

If Android Auto is "losing" location, along with the car Nav "losing" location at the same time, something may be happening to the GPS signal where you are located.

Why? because the GPS receiver in your phone is independent of the GPS receiver in the car.

https://greydynamics.com/gps-spoofing-pioneered-in-russia/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/vladim...-stop-drones-approaching-putin-report-n987376

Android Auto is just a "screen paint" from the phone. If the GPS is wrong in both the car nav and the phone at the same time, which is the way I read your post, the only common element related to determining your location is the RF signal.

If your phone is right and the car is wrong, then the RF is fine.

Not sure how Android Auto works, but with Wireless CarPlay the phone will use the car's GPS signal instead of it's own built in GNSS. So if the car's GPS is messed up it will be on your phone too while it's connected to the car.

 

[Jim622]

Not sure how Android Auto works, but with Wireless CarPlay the phone will use the car's GPS signal instead of it's own built in GNSS. So if the car's GPS is messed up it will be on your phone too while it's connected to the car.

If the phone uses the car GPS that would explain what is happening.
It still looks like a module update for Sync to me. As a sync reset brings it back to life.
My theory is that the GPS is working. It is not communicating with the navigation module.

 

[Jim622]

I understand what you are saying.
At first, I thought maybe the big solar flare was the cause. If that were the case, then why would a sync reset cure the problem? It might be good for a week or a day or two days. it is unpredictable. I don't think it is a GPS issue since it is with both the car and the phone. I think it is a communication issue with sync.
If one of the guys with an FDRS account would look it up I bet they could find an update that is needed.

Reading more into this spoofing thing. If a car or truck has a cheap portable spoofing device driving near you, It could cause this problem. From what I am reading, these are cheap devices that taxi drivers and truck drivers can buy to disrupt their employers from tracking their activity.
This would explain why it happens so randomly.

 

[khbkhb]

Humm. I've experienced the following. Phone (iPhone) is fine. MachE is confused (off by 10 miles?) which was pretty hazardous, as I was on the freeway at 75mph (limit 75mph on that road), when suddenly we decelerated, and I spotted the MachE thought the speed limit had dropped to 25mph!

I took control, brought up the map, to find the MachE thought we were on streets in a different city!

After getting off the freeway, while at a stoplight, I was able to grab some snapshots. After parking, I was able to get some more. Highlights (lowlights) are attached. I see folks referring to some diagnostic mode(s), but I did not see any obvious dialog in the navigation settings to let me at them (so pointers to the FM appreciated).

 

[Jim622]

I was told that there is an update for this. The dealers want the car for 3 days, and no loaner is available. Unacceptable to me.

 

[khbkhb]

SW update for 3 days?

several days ago my wife plugged in and our Xcel/ford charging beta produced an error message and the machE charged to 100% rather than 90. Turned out to be another GPS glitch, the MachE thought it was 10 miles away so it wasn’t charging at “home”. *sigh*

 

[agoldman]

I have the car's basic map off by 30 miles today. Funny thing is that the cursor continues to move in the wrong place as if it was really there. I reboot sync and quickly tunred the car on off, but it still is off. Also off in my Ford pass app last location. So is there a way to get it back on track other than wait and hope?

 

[macchiaz-o]

This has come up a bunch of times on the forum over the last year or so. The consensus as I recall it:

It's not signal spoofing or jamming.

It's a bug in the vehicle's software/firmware.

Ford has fixed it but most of our cars don't have the fix yet (unless 3.5.3 includes this fix -- we don't know what the fixed version is called or when it will be/was pushed).

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay prioritize the vehicle's location and compass input over their own.

 

[khbkhb]

"Android Auto and Apple CarPlay prioritize the vehicle's location and compass input over their own."

That's not what I've observed. When Ford is confused, my Apple Maps (as well as Google and Waze) report the correct location.

It is a weird bug. Back in the 1980's I wrote GPS software, and I'm hard pressed to recall anything similar that ever came up in testing (and we had all sorts of interesting spoofing cases, since it was for missile guidance ;>).

The only similar thing I personally encountered was with the Navy and sonar buoys, if a pod/herd/whatever of appropriate saline was around at the start of tracking, our Kalman filter would follow them, rather than the ship. Since we started each experiment with the ship docked, it was not difficult to exclude the first few wrong data points ... the dock was surveyed in ;>

Hard to imagine this scenario happening with our MachE's (well, unless we're somehow getting the data from another MachE in the 'hood ;>)

 

[agoldman]

So how do you shock it back to normal? Does it just eventually go back to tracking you or is there something you have to do?

 

[macchiaz-o]

That's not what I've observed. When Ford is confused, my Apple Maps (as well as Google and Waze) report the correct location.

I've observed Android Auto to do dead reckoning along the same, wrong roadways as the car's built in nav while the car's location info is messed up.

I don't have an iPhone, but perhaps only wireless CarPlay does this? I don't know but here's a report from earlier in this discussion:

Not sure how Android Auto works, but with Wireless CarPlay the phone will use the car's GPS signal instead of it's own built in GNSS.

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