UNLOCKING CDMA I910 GPS - please help us!

[Guest somedude]

OK, so here's the good news... i've analysed those reg dumps, and there's nothing sneaky going on. A STOCK VERIZON OMNIA'S GPS SHOULD WORK OUT OF THE BOX BY USING COM8 / 4800 IN YOUR APPLICATION! B)

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Ive tried those settings before but it still didnt work.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Ok, so in "external gps" settings I change to com8, and then I go and stand outside and see if it gets a fix?

Or, do I need to change registry settings somewhere?

Also, what about all of the new "trusted" registry settings in the reg dumps? I saw in another thread where someone mentioned the gps stuff might be encrypted.

I'm no expert, so nobody freak out, I'm just askin.

No, don't do anything in External GPS, that probably already says COM8 for COM port! I'm saying on a Vanilla device, without the External GPS icon enabled, setting COM8 in your GPS application should just work (and standing outside of course)...

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[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Ive tried those settings before but it still didnt work.

Did you stand outside long enough? Were you able to confirm it was looking for satellites?

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[Guest somedude]

Did you stand outside long enough? Were you able to confirm it was looking for satellites?

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With the i900 i was able to get satellites in my room by just sitting the phone by the window. I did the same last night with the i910 and COM 8 baud rate 4800 and i got a "No GPS Device Found" error while using google maps.

Edited December 3, 2008 by somedude

[Guest Morgon99]

Did you stand outside long enough? Were you able to confirm it was looking for satellites?

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I set my Google Maps app to use COM8/4800 and it simply said it couldn't find the GPS hardware.

Here's an odd/newbie question (spawned from staring at this 'Seeking GPS satellites (0)' screen). For these GPS-enabled programs, don't they have to have a library of where to look for GPS satellites? Could it be possible that the embedded GPS stack on the device simply has no valid entries for these programs to look for?

Edited December 3, 2008 by Morgon99

[Guest dhoppy]

I set my Google Maps app to use COM8/4800 and it simply said it couldn't find the GPS hardware.

Mine says it can find the gps (using cameraware it "connects," and using iguidance I don't get any errors), but after 10 minutes of standing out in the cold I still have 0 satellites.

[Guest dhoppy]

is there a windows mobile program that can just display the output from the gps chip?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Mine says it can find the gps (using cameraware it "connects," and using iguidance I don't get any errors), but after 10 minutes of standing out in the cold I still have 0 satellites.

OK, so in CamerAware (having set GPS settings manually), does it show 0 of 0 or something else?

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[Guest dhoppy]

OK, so in CamerAware (having set GPS settings manually), does it show 0 of 0 or something else?

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Right, I set the gps settings manually to Com8 and baud rate of 4800. It shows 0 of 0, and then connected to GPS at TIME (the time I pushed "connect").

[Guest Lancez]

OK, so in CamerAware (having set GPS settings manually), does it show 0 of 0 or something else?

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thank for helping these guys out, paul. from what i can see, the GPS must've been turned off for some reasons. is that going to do the trick if i upload the original i900's GPS files for these guys and copy them back to i910's windows directory?

Edited December 3, 2008 by Lancez

[Guest aleis]

thank for helping these guys out, paul. from what i can see, the GPS must've been turned off for some reasons. is that going to do the trick if i upload the original i900's GPS files for these guys and copy them back to i910's windows directory?

per a verizon rep...it was "disable" so that we could use their VZnav program only.

[Guest Lancez]

per a verizon rep...it was "disable" so that we could use their VZnav program only.

damn, i knew it.

have u guys tried my i900's setting? what happened?

Edited December 3, 2008 by Lancez

[Guest pjsockett]

when vznav is open, does google maps or live search get a lock?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

when vznav is open, does google maps or live search get a lock?

Good question...

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[Guest syrguy1969]

when vznav is open, does google maps or live search get a lock?

There have been reports in other forums stating that GoogleMaps and Live can get a GPS lock while VZnav is active.

[Guest dhoppy]

There have been reports in other forums stating that GoogleMaps and Live can get a GPS lock while VZnav is active.

They get locks, but the information is incorrect, like putting people 3500 miles off to the south. That is why I wanted to look at the gps data.

[Guest pjsockett]

dhoppy, check your pm's

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

*wonders how he could get a Verizon Omnia to play with*

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[Guest M Moogle]

They get locks, but the information is incorrect, like putting people 3500 miles off to the south. That is why I wanted to look at the gps data.

After reading this document about how the GPS was unlocked on the Verizon VX6800, I'm fairly certain what we are seeing is this:

1) The GPS firmware in the i910 is set to "Verizon" mode - where it won't accept or acknowledge GPS requests until a secret handshake is done

2) The reason that other GPS apps see the GPS once VZNav is running in the background is that it has unlocked the GPS for its own use

3) The coordinates are off because the data coming back from the GPS is still encrypted/obfuscuated and other programs misinterpret the data as location data

So I'm thinking there are two possible solutions for an unlock:

1) A GPS proxy application, like the one that Skywing wrote for the VX6800, is written/adapted

2) The firmware running the GPS chip is replaced/patched to work in a standard way - by either somehow ripping that ROM part from a i900 (assuming the hardware is compatible), or patching the existing ROM (which might be difficult to do without a ROM dump or upgrade image)

[Guest Ninja4Hire]

maybe this info will also help

Verizon AGPSFiX xv6800

[Guest dhoppy]

maybe this info will also help

Verizon AGPSFiX xv6800

been there, done that, can't get the phone into diag mode, even after loading DMRouter.exe into the windows folder and running it (by issuing the command DMRouter.exe /DIAG).

[Guest rapcon]

For anyone who's working on a fix to unlock the Omnia 910, here what I've discovered. Get the GPSviewer from holux.com, have it scan for the gps hardware, GPS viewer will find the hardware on COM8. Then start the gps, and you will see that the hardware is working, however it is not sending the fix information to the application. What needs to happen in my opinion is to find the switch to turn-on the data. Where you see those commas, should be data from the SAT constellation.

[Guest castle9mm]

Can someone who has an i900 look in their /Windows directory on the phone and post the following info or better yet zip & attach the files? You may need to show hidden and system files to see them.

gpsapi.dll -8/7/08 - 2K

gpsid.dll - 10/28/08 - 136K

LBSDriver.dll - 10/28/08 - 289k

LBSDriver.dll.0409.mui - 10/28/08 - 384K

LBSDriver.dll.0C0A.mui - 10/28/08 - 371K

Edited December 3, 2008 by castle9mm

[Guest pjsockett]

I sent dhoppy a cab to test that made the registry changes that were different when vznav was installed, added all of the i900 ril and xtra registry settings, copied the larger gpr_xtra file to windows, and added the Verizon agps server settings to the ril/gps settings.

We ended up with the same results. Nothing.

Registry settings alone aren't going to help. We need software to unlock the gps similar to the valhalla cab by Skywing on Xda. The problem is that the valhalla cab doesn't unlock gps on the 3 newest vzw devices. We need something new.

Edited December 3, 2008 by pjsockett

[Guest castle9mm]

Yeah, after seeing the reg changes and seeing the LBS driver install, along with the security certificates, I'm starting to believe that Verizon is using another gps driver, a secure connection or both to communicate with the gps chip.

In my windows folder, there's even a file called 'LBSLauncher.exe' but it does nothing on launch. However, when I start VZNavigator, I hear a system ping that sounds like when you turn off the phone and re-enable it. I feel like there's a link with the LBS driver/software that gets installed with VZN.