This article has been superseded by this new and expanded version.

GPS signal is tricky: it’s affected by the quality of the phone (the Samsung Galaxy S had notoriously bad GPS reception) and by the environment it’s in (indoors, urban canyons or dense forest reduce the quality of the GPS signal).

However, all other parameters being equal, if your GPS suddenly seems much worse (the GPS arrow no longer appears even if you’re moving faster than 5km/h, MyTrails no longer reports the speed, or the GPS signal quality meter remains red), you may need to reset your GPS.

MyTrails doesn’t do this for you, but you can install the GPS Test app, go into its settings and tap the Clear AGPS, then Update AGPS buttons.

One some devices, setting the Temporal resolution to a value greater than 1s (in MyTrails > Preferences > Behavior) causes the device to stop updating the GPS. This is a bug on your device, and you can work around it by setting the temporal resolution back to its default of 1s.

Some devices disable the GPS when the battery is low. Some Kyocera phones for example, disable it below 20% battery, without any visible indications. This may be configurable in the phone’s battery saving settings.

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