Tag Archives: vodafone

Samsung Galaxy S2 with vodafone firmware 2.3.5 and no gps…

I had recently updated my Samsung Galaxy S2 via Kies to Android 2.3.6 with vodafone branding. So far seems to be all working but GPS based Apps fails because of missing satellite fix. Looking around at twitter i found one tweet and with this several forums:

Vodafone UK

Android Hilfe (german)

Vodafone Germany (german): 1 / 2

The short term solution is to install the “GPS Test” app from the market and do the following steps:

  1. Hold the power button  (optional)
  2. Disable data transfer (optional)
  3. Enable GPS
  4. Start GPS Test
  5. Go to settings
  6. Push “Clear AGPS” button
  7. Push “Update AGPS” button
  8. Press home button
  9. Start GPS based app like Google Maps…
Vodafone UK had a seperate topic to notify customers with updates to the problem.
Other solution for vodafone customers is to root their phone, make an debranding and update to latest official firmware without any guarantee. SGS2 without branding seems to be not affected by that bug.
Update 03.12.2011:
Vodafone fixed the bug on server/provider side. Seems to be now working.

 

 

 

 

Get rid of annoying SHIFT-R and SHIFT-A hints on images

Either Vodafone and T-Mobile use hidden picture compressions and remove alt text inside web pages when you surf with a UMTS stick. The traffic goes through a transparent proxy with that “feature”. Pictures inside browsers have less quality. Most annoying for me is that if you browse on geocaching.com for Geocaches on a map. You see normally the name of the cache if your mouse goes over the cache icon on the map. With a mobile internet connection you see a hint that “Shift-R improves quality of that picture and SHIFT-A improves the quality of all picture on that page”. A solution for this is a firefox plugin called: “Modify Headers“. Go to the extras menu and open “Modify Headers” entry. Enter a new rule and in the first field (Name) “Cache-Control” and in the second field “no-cache” (Value). Save the rule and enable them. Restart the browser. Now reopen with firefox a page with pictures. Quality as with normal internet connections and no more annoying hints to improve quality. In geocaching.com maps will now the name of the cache presented as expected.