GPS Issues with EM7355 On Win10 Panasonic FZ-G1

Trying to utilize windows Geolocation services with this chip and the drivers that came on the device results in inconsistent operation and I’m trying to figure out how to diagnose the problems. Its difficult to know if the device is even being initialized during the periods where I’m having the problems since location services is just one giant black hole as far as the developer is concerned.

Are there any log files and/or diagnostics that can be turned on/examined that might reveal the state of the GPS tracking or any way that I can interrogate the chip itself using the “AT” commands to ensure the driver is setting it up correctly? Windows tells me that it initializes properly but when I’m having problems I get a state of “no data” instead of actual error conditions (that indication supposedly means that it is still waiting for data from enough satellites for a meaningful calculation). Any help would be appreciated such as: 1) List of prerequisites for this all to work properly, 2) Where to find any meaningful logs/registry info, state, diagnostics, etc, and/or 3) Point to any articles discussing how to work with this chip in a Win10 .NET environment., and/or 4) Places to find information on what issues have been resolved in which versions of firmware/drivers so I know if perhaps one or more need to be upgraded.

I experienced a failure of the GPS on a fleet of Fujitsu tablets with the 7355. I’m only offering this because the problem and solution were in an unexpected direction.

After troubleshooting and logs and sending the unit in to Fujitsu, it turned out that a small anti-spyware app (part of our standard software) had turned off all location services in Windows 10. Once I corrected the setting, the GPS fired right up. Before that, I couldn’t even get the GPS panel to display. There was no way of manually correcting the problem beyond using the spyware program itself to “fix” it. (Anti-Beacon by SpybotS&D).

That is interesting but the only thing we have running on ours is Windows Defender. In your situation was it that it simply never worked until it was disabled? Or did it work for a bit and then become disabled. This is what I’m seeing. Strangely when I updated the driver and then rolled it back (coupled with disabling anti-virus) it started behaving normally so its hard to say if that was due to the driver or anti-virus but more testing today will tell me if I just ran into a fluke period where everything was running ok.

I was working off of a base image. I’m sure it would have worked OOTB, but I never got to see it at that point.

We were using Kaspersky Endpoint. But our problem had nothing to do with AV, it was a specific anti-beacon (anti MS tracking) spyware app from Spybot S&D. My coworkers said it couldn’t be affecting it but as soon as I removed it, the GPS sprang into action. All the usual settings looked normal, but there were a few registry entries that just blocked any kind of location based sensors.

I only mention it to suggest that the solution sometimes lies outside the avenues we normally pursue.

LOL. Everything is running OK, must be a fluke… :wink:

@ifrisbie Hi Ian, did you ever found a solution? As we are experiencing simular problems with the Panasonic devices

I’ve been on a different project for about a year now so its a bit of ancient history for me but from what I recall the solution came from 1) Using an older version of the driver (definitely don’t use the latest versions, they won’t work - find one that is older and matches up with the distribution date of the tablet). 2) Make sure that every service is enabled (GPS on, cellular ON, position services ON), 3) Restart after you configure things properly, and 4) Use the SkyLight utility at least once to “prime” the GPS tracking (it gives you better info on what is going on with the device and some feedback if things aren’t configured properly). 5) Once all that is done, if you have multiple devices that need to be configured make sure you build an image AFTER this point where one device has been setup properly. This is the method we used to ensure things worked. Unfortunately we did find that you simply could not use newer drivers with this model. This is something sierra needs to resolve at some point since you can’t go on using ancient drivers forever on communication devices (e.g. security concerns). Hope that helps. Ian