Location without wifi?

[Leanna Matthews]

Hi there –

I was just curious if there was a way to record a location when not connected to wifi or cell service?

Thanks so much!

[Brendan]

Hi Leanna,

Tap Forms should be able to record the location, but it also does a reverse address lookup at the same time, so without cell or WiFi access, it won’t be able to do that part. But it will still be able to acquire the GPS signal. I just tested it, however, it could be that my iPhone was just fetching the last location it had acquired and had cached it. I will have to go to a different location with WiFi and cell turned off to see if it gets the right location.

Have you tried it yet?

Thanks,

Brendan

[Leanna Matthews]

Hi Brendan –

Thanks so much for he quick response! I’ve tried to get a location a few times, but I can only get it to work when I’m connected to wifi. Otherwise, it gives me the following error – “Location Error: Unable to determine location. Your internet connection may not be available.” I don’t need an addres, just lat/long points in an area that does not have internet. I know other people who have done this successfully, but for some reason I can’t seem to get it to work.

Thanks!
Leanna

[Brendan]

Ah I see. I’ll have to do some more investigations. In my limited testing, I simply turned off WiFi and turned off Cellular and it gave me the lat/lon but no address.

What happens if you turn off WiFi and Cellular when you’re out of range? Even though there’s no signal, those services would still be actively trying to connect to something. Try turning it off altogether to see if it’s able to acquire a signal from a satellite.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Leanna Matthews]

Hi Brendan –

I get the same error message if I turn off Wifi and cellular when I’m out of range. Any luck in your investigations? It seems to work for others so I’m not sure why I’m having this problem. I have TapForms on two different devices (two iPads) and I get this issue with both.

Thanks,

Leanna

[Leanna Matthews]

Hi Brenden –

Any more info you can give me on troubleshooting my issue? I’m taking both my iPads out into the field to collect some scientific data soon, and would really love to have the GPS aspect of tapforms enabled on my devices.

Thanks so much!

Leanna

[Brendan]

Hi Leanna,

I haven’t had time to investigate or to go to an area in the province where there’s no cell signal and no WiFi to test the GPS. All I know is when I turn off cellular data and WiFi, I am able to find my current location still. No address comes up, but at least the coordinates do. But that could be from caching too.

[Kurtois]

Leanna,

I am curious if you ever found a resolution for your issue?

I assume you are using iPads equipped with a cellular data antenna?

[Author]

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