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No GPS icon displayed

Post number 17 has been selected as best answered.

themishmosh

Elite Explorer
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City, State
NE Ohio
Year, Model & Trim Level
2020 Explorer ST
Navigation previously working but this morning with "no gps" icon displayed and car's position reported incorrectly. Oddly, carplay uses the car's GPS and NOT my iphone's GPS so the stock navigation, google maps and WAZE were all reading position incorrectly. This is a new discovery so will have to see if it happens with restart or if I will have reboot the Sync or disconnect the negative battery terminal. Appears this is a common problem with SYNC 3 judging by the google hits.
 



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Do you have diagnostics turned on and the vehicle set up to connect to WiFi? This likely would've created a diag log to send in. Just FYI.
 






Yes, I believe the car is set up that way. I will double check next time I'm out there.

Just took a break off work and and went to start the car. GPS back to working normally. Wierd.
 






Yes, I believe the car is set up that way. I will double check next time I'm out there.

Just took a break off work and and went to start the car. GPS back to working normally. Wierd.

I checked for grins. There is a GPS fault event as I thought, so next time it hooks to WiFi it'll send it in, if it hasn't already.
 






So this has happened about 10 times now. On one occasion the "no gps" symbol went away but the other times it wouldn't and I'd have to unplug my phone and just use my phone for navigation. Yet another issue i need to have the dealer address.

In the meantime, did a soft reset of the Sync to see if that does anything (audio power button + FFwd, for 5 sec).
 






Update: since the soft reset almost two weeks ago, the "no gps" symbol has not reappeared. So if this happens to anyone, try a soft reset of the Sync 3 system.
 






Hope it stays solid for you now. Might be something that improves as well with the next build if it was a temporary software issue. You know how to access the GPS info (satellites, signal strength, etc.) in case it happens again?
 






Hope it stays solid for you now. Might be something that improves as well with the next build if it was a temporary software issue. You know how to access the GPS info (satellites, signal strength, etc.) in case it happens again?


Please tell, not sure I've seen that screen.
 






Hope it stays solid for you now. Might be something that improves as well with the next build if it was a temporary software issue. You know how to access the GPS info (satellites, signal strength, etc.) in case it happens again?
I don't think anyone has posted that (how to get to the diagnostics). It was pretty easy on the MFT to do it.
 






So, for all vehicle reference...Turn on the radio / any audio. Press and hold seek forward on the EFP and Steering Wheel (No CD), or Seek Forward and Eject (w/CD) on EFP for ~10 seconds. That'll kick off the speaker walk around. End that and you'll be at top level diag. In Testing Settings, scroll down and you'll find the GPS info. At the top, there's a toggle for test settings. This enables a tile in the main Settings screen so you can skip to it quick. Nice for testing out different themes in case you want to change them, though most other stuff besides GPS info isn't really useful from a customer PoV.
 






So, for all vehicle reference...Turn on the radio / any audio. Press and hold seek forward on the EFP and Steering Wheel (No CD), or Seek Forward and Eject (w/CD) on EFP for ~10 seconds. That'll kick off the speaker walk around. End that and you'll be at top level diag. In Testing Settings, scroll down and you'll find the GPS info. At the top, there's a toggle for test settings. This enables a tile in the main Settings screen so you can skip to it quick. Nice for testing out different themes in case you want to change them, though most other stuff besides GPS info isn't really useful from a customer PoV.

Can I ask what the "EFP" is? Sorry if this is obvious to others; I'm not getting it.
 






I get this same thing on my 2019 Edge ST. About once a week, my phone will disconnect/reconnect bluetooth every minute, and the screen will show the No GPS icon. But it still shows my car in the right position on the nav. Soft reset will fix it about 50% of the time. Other times just leaving the car sit and the next day it will work fine again. This is after my APIM was replaced after I took delivery because bluetooth didn't function at all.
 






Can I ask what the "EFP" is? Sorry if this is obvious to others; I'm not getting it.

Electronic Finish Panel. So, the hard keys/buttons on the IP in other words.
 






I get this same thing on my 2019 Edge ST. About once a week, my phone will disconnect/reconnect bluetooth every minute, and the screen will show the No GPS icon. But it still shows my car in the right position on the nav. Soft reset will fix it about 50% of the time. Other times just leaving the car sit and the next day it will work fine again. This is after my APIM was replaced after I took delivery because bluetooth didn't function at all.
My wife's MkC was doing that to me the other day. I had to shut off bluetooth on my phone, turn it back on, then re-pair with Sync to get it to quit dropping.
 






Just to follow up, during the first 3 months of ownership, the NO GPS situation popped up randomly about a dozen times. Reboot of sync got GPS working again immediately. The past 5 months, it has not appeared at all. As if the problem corrected itself. I did go to the diagnostic screen and did not see anything abnormal in the GPS subsection.
 






Im having the same issues. I don't have a navigation icon on my XLT. I saw it once and never saw it again...
 






Quick note on this topic that may be helpful to others.

I finally had my 2019 Explorer Sport in for service late last week for a number of items, bad map sensor on intake manifold, that put car into limp mode - yikes! As well as recall/TSB for ABS brake computer update, fixing the roof rack rails from popping up, and the NO GPS Sync3 issue in this thread.

Given the intermittent nature of the NO GPS icon, they had a hard time replicating it - but did get lucky and saw it. Some notes from what my local dealer did:

1. They kept tying to replicate it and got lucky and saw it - checked my APIM it was good. Checked the cables from the APIM to antenna, and the splitter and they were all good.
2. They went into the debug mode in Sync 3 and checked the satellite signals - I had done this before too - one thing of note, it was only connecting to/picking up signals from a handful of satellites, and it should have been picking up way more. (As of August 2019, 74 Global Positioning System navigation satellites have been launched, 31 of which are operational, 9 in reserve, 2 being tested, 30 have been retired and 2 were lost at launch. The constellation requires a minimum of 24 operational and the official target count is 33.)
3. The called Ford techs directly and talked about the issue and found some commonality to it, it should definitely pick up more than 8 - which is what I was seeing when it was working, more than 8, less than 8m and it would drop out show NO GPS icon - they gave some guidance but not much.
4. Tech went to back of car, and banged on/tapped the antenna during usage, and sure enough it would cause the signal to get worse or drop entirely.

So, it looks like its bad antennas - either they are faulty, getting damaged somehow (maybe water/car washes, etc). And this is the shark fin style with the added antenna coming out. I know different models have had different antennas over the years.

Ford overnighted a new antenna to dealer with paint job to match, popped it in - and fingers crossed it's fixed it so far - and it feels like its much more responsive in course-correcting if I go to areas where the map coverage has changed - before sometimes it would take quite a bit of time, or merging back onto a nearby road or highway for glitches to get you back on track/tracking properly - now it feels quicker, likely from the broader amount of and more stable pickup of the signals from more satellites. If it happens again, I'll be sure and share. Looking good at the moment.

Also - its worth noting that although the government hasn't used/triggered SA - (Selective Availability) since 2000 when Clinton eliminated that for more localized techniques to degrade the civilian GPS signals in times of need (military actions, presedential traveling, etc) - there are still things that actively are triggered by the goverment that can effect GPS from time to time - a really handy page, especially if you are doing diagnoses to see the satellite strength during testing and what's responding, is to use the governments GPS status page here, which has current status on all the satellites and any operations or programming that might be occurring or planned that can cause a variety of issues - take a peek here: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=constellationStatus

Hope this is helpful!
 






Do you have diagnostics turned on and the vehicle set up to connect to WiFi? This likely would've created a diag log to send in. Just FYI.

2018 Explorer. How do I do this?
 






2018 Explorer. How do I do this?
I know that the 2020 Explorer and Aviator can be set up to do this but I'm not sure about the 5th gen Explorer. I haven't seen anything in the Owner's Manual about it nor do I recall seeing that option on my previous 5th gen. Explorers. Keep in mind that this is the 6th gen forum and the post he is replying to concerns a 2020 Explorer.

Peter
 



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Update: since the soft reset almost two weeks ago, the "no gps" symbol has not reappeared. So if this happens to anyone, try a soft reset of the Sync 3 system.
Thank you i will try this - mine is doing same thing
 






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