Odd location behavior on HTC Desire

[Southern Patriot]

My wife's HTC Desire (a CDMA model on Cellular South) has occasionally had a weird problem with location services. Yesterday when she was at work, it started showing her as being in Flintshire, England instead of where she really was (a town just outside Jackson, MS). It would change between that and the correct location depending on what part of the building she was in. I know that the cell signal is often bad in the part of the building where she was having problems, but that seems like a very odd symptom for poor signal. I know that we had something similar when driving through a low signal area before as well, but that time it was showing us somewhere in the Middle East. I could understand if it was simply showing us somewhere else in our area, but not somewhere thousands of miles away. :alien:

Any clues how to avoid or correct this?

[temple_treefrog]

How was the location acquired? Assisted GPS or WIFI?

Personally, I had a HTC Desire (A8181 GSM) and didn't have location issues to the extent your partner is experiencing.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Has she got the "allow mock locations" setting turned on (if so, turn it off perhaps)? How about GPS (turn it on, does the same problem occur)?

I've not heard of this happening before. Due to the way phones work I can't see how it would have such a drastic difference between where you really are and where it then thinks you are.

Like I said, I've not heard of it happening before, and maybe the above options I've offered will do nothing to change the phone's behaviour. But heck, it's worth a shot I guess.

[Southern Patriot]

How was the location acquired? Assisted GPS or WIFI?

Personally, I had a HTC Desire (A8181 GSM) and didn't have location issues to the extent your partner is experiencing.

I'm guessing it is getting the location from A-GPS, since she usually keeps wifi off when at work (no free wifi around there anyway), and she works in a large building, so no line of site to the GPS satellites.

[Southern Patriot]

Has she got the "allow mock locations" setting turned on (if so, turn it off perhaps)? How about GPS (turn it on, does the same problem occur)?

I'm not sure where that setting is. Under "Location" in settings, there are just checkmarks for "Use wireless networks" and "Use GPS satellites", both of which are checked. I guess I could try unchecking the wireless network one.

[Detection]

Maybe with it having the WiFi option checked, when it loses GPS satellite signal it latches onto nearby IP's to determine its location, maybe someone is using a UK proxy at her work causing the phone to think it is in the UK ?

Bit of a long shot...

[Southern Patriot]

Maybe with it having the WiFi option checked, when it loses GPS satellite signal it latches onto nearby IP's to determine its location, maybe someone is using a UK proxy at her work causing the phone to think it is in the UK ?

Bit of a long shot...

Doubtful, since the IT department is very VERY strict about what people can do on the computers there (she works for a major health insurance company). I don't even think there are any open wifi points there, and she usually has wifi turned off anyway unless she is at home.

[htcz]

This happened to me on a ROM. Clearing the EFS partition might help...

[dmb219]

My wife's Inspire 4G has shown her in China more than once and Manitoba Canada when she was in Florida on vacation. My son's Incredible has done similar things a couple times, also China I believe. It was always a brief oddity, but I have no idea what causes it.