net location not updating when screen is off

[Stuart Weller]

Hi,
I recently downloaded tasker and it seems great, I seem to be able
to set up the exact scenario I need. However my location scenarios
don't appear to be working, as an example:

I set up a profile to turn on wifi when I get home and turn it off
when I leave, all using the cell tower (and not battery draining
GPS...just what I was looking for). More specifically I set my "home"
location using "net" (within 2km) with an action of "Wifi On" and an
exit action of "Wifi Off" (and a notification so that I can see at
what time the wifi went off).

Now, it all works perfectly with the screen on but as soon as the
screen goes off (standby) nothing seems to update. As soon as I next
turn the screen on (could be hours later), the profile briefly shows
"home", then updates to show the exit notification.

I have checked the background tasks and most of the obvious things
people suggested on this forum and now am officially stuck!

I own an HTC Legend (running Android 2.1).

I am also running Latitude which IS updating it's location whilst the
screen is off...

Thanks for any advice.

[UncleMike]

I know you said that you checked the obvious already, but if you
haven't already checked, I would check your Display Off Timings in the
Preferences Monitor tab.

Also, you could try increasing your radius. I know at one time (and I
think it still is the case) that Tasker would not consider you out of
the area until it gets a location fix where the accuracy is smaller
than the radius.

[youareme7]

I've had a similar problem as well, what I found looking in the
indexed manual that might help our situation (i just enabled it, so
we'll see if it works tonight) is to set up that location context and
in the same profile set up a "wifi near" context with your wifi SSID.
(if you generally have wifi off as i do be sure to enable the wifi
toggle in that context so it turns on when the network location is
active) This version should allow a more refined location without
hogging much more battery. As I understand it in the manual, higher
power location contexts only activate when the lower power location
contexts in the same profile are already active. (ie. when you're in
the cellular location area, then the wifi near will start looking)

Hope that helps.

[Baz 8755]

I also have been struggling with this problem on my Desire for almost
a month however today I developed a theory which I will test over the
coming days.

I have 2 net location based profiles:-
One for home which triggers when I am within 2km of home
One for the office which triggers Mon-Fri 9:00-5:30 when I am within
2km of the office.

I have been noticing that the office profile hardly ever triggers
until I unlock the phone.

However today I noticed that the phone is set not to have always on
internet enabled which means that 15 minutes after the screen goes off
the 3g connection is dropped. This connection is then re-established
once the phone is unlocked.

I am guessing the Net location requires a 3g connection and thus
cannot update its location.

I have now enabled always on 3g and will see what happens, however if
this turns out to be the case then I would suggest that Tasker somehow
re-enable 3g whenever it requires a location. My mail app manages to
send/receive mail when the screen is off (it checks once an hour) so I
am guessing there must be some way to do it.

Baz

[Stuart Weller]

Hey everyone! Thanks for the replies!

I think Baz may be onto something here! I had checked the frequency of
updates, background monitoring etc and all seems fne. However I have
also previously turned off "always on" mobile data.

I have updated my settings and from the journey into work it looks
promising! I'll keep you posted after the weekend but at the moment it
looks good!

Hope you get the same results Baz!

[Baz 8755]

So far so good, it appears to be working :)

[Pent]

Good find, Baz.

Will add it to the docs somewhere. Where is the setting that you
referred to ?
Maybe it's HTC only ?

Pent

[Baz 8755]

Pent,

Settings>Wireless & Networks>Mobile networks>Enable always-on mobile
data

However as I have said in one of my previous posts it would be good if
somehow Tasker could be configured to run on devices with this setting
turned off as this is supposed to reduce battery drain in areas of bad
3g reception. I have my mail app set up to check for mail once an hour
and it appears that it will establish 3g connection every hour and
then drop again, I don't know if tasker could do something similiar in
these circumstances (or what effect it would have on battery life :
( ), so definitely would need to have some kind of config setting.

Baz

[Pent]

> Settings>Wireless & Networks>Mobile networks>Enable always-on mobile
> data

Right, no, I don't have that one.

> However as I have said in one of my previous posts it would be good if
> somehow Tasker could be configured to run on devices with this setting
> turned off as this is supposed to reduce battery drain in areas of bad
> 3g reception. I have my mail app set up to check for mail once an hour
> and it appears that it will establish 3g connection every hour and
> then drop again, I don't know if tasker could do something similiar in
> these circumstances (or what effect it would have on battery life :
> ( ), so definitely would need to have some kind of config setting.

So a mobile data toggle in other words. Might work with the code
behind
the (upandcoming) Mobile Data action but it's tricky work this
display-off stuff. Will stick it on todo though.

Pent

[Peter]

Is mobile data necessary to get location fix?
If I turn off mobile data in settings i still get a fix.
If i connect to a wifi ap i loose mobile data and still be able to get
location fix.
Are you sure you have found the problem?