GPS unusable after One UI 5 Watch update

[The Lonely Loner]

After I installed the new update on my Galaxy Watch 5 the GPS has gone "cuckoo ballistic" -a term I can never forget ever since I heard it on one of my favorite Eminem songs- anyway we're here for my problem not the best rapper of all time.

When I try to track my walking and running workouts using the GPS to track the route, the watch tells me it can't connect to the GPS

, and it takes about 20/30 minutes for the GPS to finally connect, by that time most I've already finished most of my workout. 

Also it doesn't work on Google Maps either. Same problem.

I've seen a few other people complaining about this, with very generic "solutions" being thrown around like "turn the watch off and on again" or "re-new the connection to the phone" etc. none of it works, so can someone please help with some idea on how to work through this problem.

 

[AndrewL]

@The Lonely Loner: I'm sorry to hear that you have encountered this issue with the GPS feature on your Galaxy Watch5. Have you tried activating GPS while the watch is both connected and disconnected from your phone and, if so, is the issue persistent? Furthermore, does GPS fail to connect in all locations, or just certain ones? When connected to the phone, please make sure that the Location feature is activated on both the watch and phone itself.

[The Lonely Loner]

Hey Andrew!

Thank you for your reply.

I have tried both indoors and outdoors, and also with and without a connection to a phone.

I have not had this issue before. 

I am thinking of resetting the watch and seeing if that works, but I really don't wanna go through the whole set-up again.

[AndrewL]

@The Lonely Loner: That's perfectly understandable, and thank you for checking those options for me. If you have tried restarting the Watch, then please try heading to Settings > Location > Permissions, and make sure that all relevant permissions are enabled. Tap the Back button > Location services, and check the location services that the watch is using from here. 

[Blessed4life]

Have you tried clearing the cache partition, or worst case scenario, doing a factory reset?

[The Lonely Loner]

Hey Andrew, thanks for the reply again, I've checked all those settings and nothing has changed.

Maps can't detect the location and Samsung Health still shows "GPS can't connect"

I'll now delete the Galaxy Wearable app, the watch plug-ins and reset the watch. Maybe this will help.

 

 

 

[Dantilted]

I have exactly the same issue, drives me nuts. I go walking almost every day, same thing every time, I leave the phone home and take off with the watch and Buds Pro connected, down the stairs and initiate the workout with clear view of the sky. GPS can't connect. Nothing has changed except for the recent update.

I have the Wifi only Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. Toggled Location, restarted the watch, checked permissions. Not that I should have to do any of that, it's so basic, it should just work.

[The Lonely Loner]

@Dantilted 

It's so frustrating. I have just reset the whole watch. Gone through the set-up  yet again and NOTHING changed, GPS doesn't connect no matter what.

All my walks and jogging sessions are now lost and I can't follow pre-set routes. It's killing me.

I didn't have this problem before updating the software. 

[Dantilted]

The past 3 days it has been connecting fine, I am not sure if I did something to fix it. I did do a few things, if anyone is still experiencing this issue, tell me and I will write up what I did.

Also I found no threads on Reddit about it, maybe it was a fluke and we were unlucky.

[The Lonely Loner]

I went on a walk yesterday and surprisingly it connected about 4 minutes after I started the workout. A bit better. Used to take over 25 minutes. I'll have to test it more frequently. You're right maybe we caught this glitch by chance somehow