UNLOCKING CDMA I910 GPS - please help us!

[Guest cgrayjr]

I also can get a location with GPSTest. I compared it with my handheld GPS unit I use for hiking and it's dead on. Awesome find.

Wish I could be of more help with this, but I'm no software developer by any means. Thanks for the work!

[Guest somedude]

i took a look at the gpstest.exe and saw this:

DecryptGPSPosition: Latitude %f, longitude %f.

So all this program is doing is decrypting the gps?

So now we have a program which is capable of decrypting the gps, so i guess the last and final step is to transmit these coordinates to our third party apps somehow?

I think we are getting close!

Edited December 13, 2008 by somedude

[Guest dhoppy]

i took a look at the gpstest.exe and saw this:

DecryptGPSPosition: Latitude %f, longitude %f.

what do you use to analyze the executable?

[Guest somedude]

what do you use to analyze the executable?

lol i just looked at it in notepad++.

Edited December 13, 2008 by somedude

[Guest rapcon]

This gentlemen you will find interesting. I purchase an application call Navio, set the external gps settings to output com3 (I don't think the comm port matters), no hardware port, windows managed. Within navio it allow selection of the comm port, and output format which can be nmea0183 or garmin tripmate. Out curiosity, I selected tripmate and the application went green, showed the number of sats in graphical form, position, all the good stuff. It appears that garmin format is output once the chipset is accessed.

This means that anyone who has Garmin XT running should be able to access the gps data without a problem once gpstest does its thing.

[Guest M Moogle]

i took a look at the gpstest.exe and saw this:

DecryptGPSPosition: Latitude %f, longitude %f.

So all this program is doing is decrypting the gps?

So now we have a program which is capable of decrypting the gps, so i guess the last and final step is to transmit these coordinates to our third party apps somehow?

I think we are getting close!

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what the Vahalla GPSServer proxy does - sits between the encrypted output from the GPS and gives unencrypted info to client applications. The GPSTest program just appears to do it all internally. This means that GPSServer *should* work - but it doesn't. There must be some difference between the way the two access the encrypted input, or interact with the various GPS dll files, or something.

The next thing I think we need try is to replace some of the .dll files related to GPS functionality with ones from the XV6800 - where the GPSServer application definately works. I played around with that a little bit last night but didn't get anywhere - but I didn't try for very long either.

[Guest krelvinaz]

The issue with coordinates being displayed backward is just a coding error IN gpstest. I've done the same with websites that dealt with GPS coordinates so its not that big of a deal. A simple change to the code would fix that. Could even hack the exe file to get that I think.

Most programs that use coordinates from GPS will do their own calculations for speed direction etc as well. Altitude was correct and the quickness at which it acquired a lock was much faster than I would have thought. The GPS chip appears to be better than the one in my big GPS in my truck (just going under a drive thru will give that one a cow) and my wife's BlackJackII.

The next step is to make a similar app to the Vahalla app that has what this app uses to unlock the GPS and allow the data to be used. Then it could be made into a CAB for easy installation.

I can imagine that with GPS activated on this phone it will be a even more popular.

Seems strange that Verizon doesn't seem to get that... Their joke about how they are protecting their customers doesn't make any sense. If that were true wouldn't they lock down the email, browsers etc.. to do the same. Not likely as they wouldn't sell any units.

[Guest somedude]

Seems strange that Verizon doesn't seem to get that... Their joke about how they are protecting their customers doesn't make any sense. If that were true wouldn't they lock down the email, browsers etc.. to do the same. Not likely as they wouldn't sell any units.

Its all b.s. US phone companies are full of it. They are just greedy.

[Guest Jlemon]

This is so stupid. I HATE verizon for doing this.

WHY was it so hard for them to leave the GOTDAMMED phone alone?!?!

I AGREE

[Guest M Moogle]

The next thing I think we need try is to replace some of the .dll files related to GPS functionality with ones from the XV6800 - where the GPSServer application definately works. I played around with that a little bit last night but didn't get anywhere - but I didn't try for very long either.

An update -

I tried copying various dll files from the XV6800 with no effect, other than to break the GPSTest program as well. One item of note: The oemGPSone.dll is at least twice as large on the Omnia than the XV6800. Also, the stdgps.dll (aka gpsapi.dll) files are different as well. I tried replacing the stdgps.dll in the GPSServer package with the gpsapi.dll file from the Omnia but it didn't seem to make any difference.

[Guest ciscokidinsf]

This gentlemen you will find interesting. I purchase an application call Navio, set the external gps settings to output com3 (I don't think the comm port matters), no hardware port, windows managed. Within navio it allow selection of the comm port, and output format which can be nmea0183 or garmin tripmate. Out curiosity, I selected tripmate and the application went green, showed the number of sats in graphical form, position, all the good stuff. It appears that garmin format is output once the chipset is accessed.

This means that anyone who has Garmin XT running should be able to access the gps data without a problem once gpstest does its thing.

So Navio works AFTER activating gpstest? from what I read, doesn't the gpstest shut down/and-or does not let you open another program while it runs?

Also, if gpstest is transmitting latitude and longitude backwards, does Navio fix that? have you gotten an accurate location?

[Guest bwren]

The "failed to initialize GPSSec" error is related to running two instances of gpstest. You'll need to do a soft reset to kill the instances of gpstest. When you run gpstest, just wait. It won't look like it's working, but it will pop up. Sometimes takes about 30 seconds.

I was still having the same problem, so I went ahead and did a hard reset. Apparently, I had made so many tweaks and loaded so many different utilities trying to fix this that something was conflicting. I enabled GPS in the phone settings, started up GPSTest, and had exact coordinates of my location within a few seconds.

Now if I could just get Live Search and Google Maps to do that.

[Guest krelvinaz]

Also, if gpstest is transmitting latitude and longitude backwards, does Navio fix that? have you gotten an accurate location?

I think that GPSTest just has the coordinates backwards when it displays them on the screen. I don't think this is an issue, just a coding error in the program itself.

[Guest krelvinaz]

This gentlemen you will find interesting. I purchase an application call Navio, set the external gps settings to output com3 (I don't think the comm port matters), no hardware port, windows managed...... ...This means that anyone who has Garmin XT running should be able to access the gps data without a problem once gpstest does its thing.

You are saying three different things at the same time. 1) set to com3 2) no hardware port 3) Windows managed. Those all are settings are for the same thing. So which one of the 3 did you actually use. I see no option #3 in the Navio application.

As far as I can see, once GPStest has exited, the ability to access the GPS is gone. There does not appear to be a way to minimize GPStest either without stopping it.

[Guest M Moogle]

You are saying three different things at the same time. 1) set to com3 2) no hardware port 3) Windows managed. Those all are settings are for the same thing. So which one of the 3 did you actually use. I see no option #3 in the Navio application.

As far as I can see, once GPStest has exited, the ability to access the GPS is gone. There does not appear to be a way to minimize GPStest either without stopping it.

Yeah, I've pretty much come to the same conclusion. There isn't an option for Windows Managed, and I don't see how it would access the GPS anyways even if there was.

[Guest dhoppy]

You are saying three different things at the same time. 1) set to com3 2) no hardware port 3) Windows managed. Those all are settings are for the same thing. So which one of the 3 did you actually use. I see no option #3 in the Navio application.

As far as I can see, once GPStest has exited, the ability to access the GPS is gone. There does not appear to be a way to minimize GPStest either without stopping it.

That is because those settings are in "external gps" under settings-->connections. First this has to be enabled in the registry. You can find directions to enable "external gps" in a couple places in this thread.

[Guest natesh]

I'm considering the omnia but I will not get it if the gps cannot be unlocked.  I've read all the forum pages concerning this problem and was wondering if it is possibe to just flash the i900 rom onto the i910.  Besides missing a camera the phones are apparently identical.  A thread on another post, has already posted how to unloch the other radios on the qualcomm chip.  I've checked about receiving an i900 from europe and the few sites i've looked at say it works here in the states.  Would this work and does anyone have a non-u.s. version of the rom they could post?  Also, how could I go about copying the rom from a verizon omnia (for backup and to compare the code)?

[Guest dhoppy]

I've read all the forum pages concerning this problem and was wondering if it is possibe to just flash the i900 rom onto the i910.

I won't say it is impossible (cause I don't know), but the i900 is very different from the i910 because the i900 uses a GSM radio, and the i910 is CDMA. The differences in technology between GSM and CDMA would cause me to believe that the i900 rom will not work on the i910.

[Guest somedude]

you cant flash a i910 omnia with a i900 rom. Someone tried this already and bricked their phone.

[Guest teedty1]

Just installed this on my i910 and I get a lock perfectly... no soft reset required.

Way to go guys!

[Guest usermmg]

ok... i actually got a lock on 8 satellites using google maps... only got it once but this is what i did.... first i ran google maps and set the gps settings to "managed by windows" then selected "use gps" and when it goes through the motions of searching for satellites i ran the "GPS Test" app- onces GPS Test locked on to satellites ( 10 actually ) i switched back to Google maps using "facade task switcher"- once back in google maps the display read "GPS active' then about 10 seconds later locked onto 8 satellites. i'll take pictures the next time i get a lock--- stay tuned

[Guest natesh]

you cant flash a i910 omnia with a i900 rom. Someone tried this already and bricked their phone.

Was their phone unlocked when they did it?  That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.  People in other threads with an i900 are using updates from all over, including cooked roms, on their phones without any problems.  Did they reinstall the orig. rom? As for the chip unlocking, apparently I hadn't read far enough into the other thread.  They haven't created the mod to unlock the chip yet, but are trying to unlock all the radios on the i910 to work with any network. 

[Guest Jlemon]

ok... i actually got a lock on 8 satellites using google maps... only got it once but this is what i did.... first i ran google maps and set the gps settings to "managed by windows" then selected "use gps" and when it goes through the motions of searching for satellites i ran the "GPS Test" app- onces GPS Test locked on to satellites ( 10 actually ) i switched back to Google maps using "facade task switcher"- once back in google maps the display read "GPS active' then about 10 seconds later locked onto 8 satellites. i'll take pictures the next time i get a lock--- stay tuned

I sort of lost you when you said you switched the tasks

can you just have it running ?

how do you exactly do it ?

[Guest usermmg]

i use the facade task switcher... basically when google is searching for satellites minimize google maps and run the GPS fix app... i'm still working on this

[Guest Jlemon]

:rolleyes: it didnt work

but thanks anyways