When my wife and I moved to Denver, I started having problems with my Nexus 5's GPS not maintaining a lock. It would go show a "Searching for GPS" message about every twenty seconds. Now, for those who don't know, Denver's a pretty stressful place to drive under the best of conditions. An unreliable navigation experience was not leading to peace and joy in our town travels. (Fortunately, my wife's Nexus 5x has worked flawlessly.)

Below are two three! general solutions to the problem. I did all of these, but not in this order. The antenna fix seemed like a likely answer, but so far (today) the GPS State solution changing the Location accuracy is the winner. I wish I'd tried it before opening my phone!

I'll update this post in a few days and report how it's going.

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2016-12-27 19:41

While I was able to run GPS Status for an hour with no issues, the message showed up again as soon as I started Google Maps Navigation. My idea was to mute it and leave it running, to see how it behaved.

Further research revealed that some users have reported the GPS message with more recent versions of Maps. So, I've become a Maps beta tester to get the very latest version.

More info as I know it.

2016-12-28 14:15

Last night it seemed like the message had gone away. I ran Maps in Navigation mode for an hour, no problem. (I wasn't driving around, but the message, if it's going to, appears regardless.)

This morning, the message was back. So, today I'm installing other navigation-related apps to see how they behave.

2016-12-29 09:45

So far, inconclusive. The behavior in Maps seems to be that it's cycling turning off the GPS then back on to get a lock. This also seemed to be happening in other apps I tried: Waze, HereWeGo. But not all the time.

Is it possible that, even after closing, Navigation is running for a few minutes in the background and causes the behavior?

I tried something this morning that I've tried before with limited success.

1. Open Settings > Apps > Maps
2. Press Clear Data. This clears both data and cache.
3. In the ... menu, choose Uninstall Updates. This reverts Maps to the factory install.
4. Restart the phone.

I tried Maps after this, and it worked solidly for about ten minutes (usually it takes less time than that for the message to start appearing). Then, I reapplied the Maps update (I'm a beta tester, remember, so it was the latest beta version). Tried it, and it's been running solidly for about ten minutes.

So, what does this mean? Is it a caching problem? Maybe a(nother) factory reset is in my future.

2017-01-01

In the last couple of days, I have:

1. Taken apart my phone and checked for a solid antenna connection.
2. Factory reset my phone--twice.
3. Tried various GPS-related apps. (I don't like HereWeGo maps, by the way. Too little screen devoted to the actual map!).
4. Changed the Location settings from "High Accuracy" to "Device Only"

The antenna connection seems fine. If there's a hardware problem, I have to assume it's a failing GPS radio module, and that can only be fixed by replacing the phone (yuck).

There were times when powering my phone off/on worked for a while. At other times, it seemed the problem only existed when running Google Maps. But more frequently, the problem existed in any app. The "Searching for GPS" message also occurred in Safe Mode.

This is why I finally changed my Location settings.

Settings > Location > Mode = Device only

I tried it this morning when my wife and I drove to and from breakfast. She navigated using Maps and her Nexus 5x, and I used my Nexus 5. It was eerie, like being in a baseball stadium, because the two voices were just out of sync enough to sound like someone announcing who was coming up to bat.

There were zero problems. The next test is drive into a more congested area, like downtown. And I won't really be convinced until I've been message-free for several days. So, where will I navigate to next!?

2017-01-03

Zero problems the last three days. I have one big drive tomorrow. If that goes well, I'll consider the problem licked. I'll also be filing a bug report to Google. After all, if High Accuracy triggers this problem, then I consider that a significant defect.

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Location Accuracy

You'd think that using the most accurate location setting would be the right thing to do. But, at least in my case, it isn't. I don't know why the locking problem only started up in Denver. I've never experienced it anywhere else. But here's the solution that has worked for me.

1. Open Settings > Location
2. Change Mode to "Device Only"
3. Restart. (May make no difference, just a habit.)

GPS State

The second thing to try is to install the excellent GPS Status & Toolbox app and follow the instructions at the blog entry, below. There free version of the app works just fine for this.

https://mobiwia.com/78-gps/76-tip1

Here's a copy of the instructions.

What to do when your GPS does not lock?

Steps to follow if you have a non-locking GPS:

1. Menu / Tools / manage aGPS state.
2. Select 'Reset' to clear the internal state of the GPS.
3. Select 'Download' to re3.download the assistance data. You will need an active internet connection at this step.
4. Close the GPS Status application for 10 seconds.
5. Go outside and find a spot where large part of the sky is visible.
6. Make sure you have the 'Keep the screen on' settings turned on (in Menu / Settings / Display & Tools'.
7. Let the program run and try to acquire your GPS position for at least 15 minutes.

Antenna Connection

Finally, some Nexus 5 phones don't make a good connection from the back of the phone to the GPS antenna. This video explains how to MacGyver the situation. Warning: Requires opening the phone, and delicate operations that might damage the phone. Watch the whole video to see what's entailed.

Nexus 5 GPS Signal Antenna Fix

Starting with Office 2013, there are two changes that some people will like and use, but that I hate and don't.

Startup Screen

I rarely need to open a template other than the blank one. However, the default Office behavior is to show a Van Gogh Starry Night of choices.

Do this to disable the new startup screen and go immediately to a blank document, as it has been for two decades. Instructions are for Word 2016.

1. Open Word
2. Open a blank (or existing) document
3. Choose File > Options
4. In the General > Start up options, uncheck "Show the Start screen when this application starts"
5. Click OK. Word now opens to a blank document.

Backstage View (Save Screen)

Microsoft OneDrive is intended to be deeply integrated into MS Office. Microsoft wants you saving there by default. The Save screen reflects that when you save a new document (or Save As an existing one).

However, many people prefer to save locally, even if that means saving to the local OneDrive folder for later synchronization.

Do this to show the file Save As dialog that you've seen since raptors tried to eat your computer.

1. Open Word
2. Open a blank (or existing) document
3. Choose File > Options
4. In Save > Save documents, check "Don't show the Backstage when opening or saving files"
5. Click OK. Save/Save As shows the good, old dialog.

Hello, old friend.

References

http://www.howtogeek.com/tips/how-to-bypass-the-backstage-view-when-saving-new-files-in-office-2013/

Google appears to be transitioning away from their dedicated Tasks app. This doesn't surprise me, as Tasks always seemed bolted on and only useful in the most minimal way, though some people--such as my wife--have used it effectively.

The general challenges of tasks are that they're more complex than people imagine. Some potential features:

1. Scheduled vs non-scheduled tasks.
2. Scheduled for anytime during the day, or for a time ("due by").
3. Sub-tasks.
4. Categories/tags.
5. Movement (or not) of completed items to the bottom of the list.
6. Clearing (or not) of completed items.

Google provides some reasonable task management apps.

Task Replacements

The two replacements for Tasks are:

1. Keep
2. Reminders

Tasks and Reminders work differently depending on whether you're using a desktop browser or your phone, which I'll detail later.

In Tasks, a task could be assigned a date, or "no due date." These loosely equate to...

• Keep (no due date). Keep lets you create notes of checked lists. While Keep doesn't let you assign dates to a particular note's list item, it does let you set a reminder on a note.
• Reminders (due date), which show on the Google Calendar for a particular date and, optionally, time.

Here's a Keep note with reminder dialog. You can also set location-based reminders, handy for a note like "drop off book to Sam."

And, here are two Reminders, from the desktop Calendar. One is "all day," the other is for 9am.

On the Desktop: Using Tasks OR Reminders

When accessing the Google Calendar from your desktop browser, you can view either Tasks or Reminders, but not both at once. Each is really a (somewhat) hidden calendar. To switch, click the down-arrow next to the Reminders (or Tasks) calendar under My Calendars.

When Reminders is selected, you'll see them as shown above. When Tasks is selected, you'll see a new sidebar, and scheduled tasks appear on the calendar.

There is a way to view Tasks in your browser without using Calendar. You use the same URL that your phone uses (see below). But who knows how long this will be available?

https://mail.google.com/tasks/android

On the Phone: Viewing Tasks--but not Reminders--in the Browser

In Android (and probably iPhone), you can use the phone's web browser to access Gmail, the Calendar and Tasks. To view Tasks, go to:

https://mail.google.com/tasks

When the page loads, you'll see your tasks, regardless of whether you've chosen to view Reminders or Tasks in your desktop calendar. (As shown above, you can get to this same view from the desktop, using a slightly different URL.)

If you dropdown the "More" button, you can also view the Calendar. However, you will not see Tasks or Reminders, and I don't see a way to enable viewing them.

On the Phone Again: Viewing Reminders in the Calendar App

In the Calendar app, you can enable or disable showing Reminders, just as you would any other calendar. However, you cannot switch to the Tasks calendar. As far as I can find, there's no way to view Tasks using the Calendar App.

Here's a look at those Reminders.

Wrap Up

Google's Tasks are heading the way of the dodo, supplanted by Keep notes, and calendar Reminders. To summarize:

Desktop

• In Google Calendar, you can toggle between either Tasks or Reminders.
• If you want to be clever, you can set your Calendar for Reminders, and view Tasks at https://mail.google.com/tasks/android

Phone

• To view Tasks, open the browser to https://mail.google.com/tasks
• To view Reminders, open the Google Calendar app.

Notes

* The difference between a task and an event? A task is something you do, an event is somewhere to be.

References

Google Tasks Help