Verizon VX6900, GPS won't work with Live Search or Google

[chunnel]

I have activated the Locations settings to be "On" instead of 911 only. I have talked to Verizon who told me that they disabled locations services except for VZNavigator (which isn't available on this phone yet). Is there a hack to re-enable the locations settings so that maps from Live Search or Google will work.

Please keep your answers as simple as possible... I'll need specific instructions, as I have read some of these posts and am pretty confused about Radios, and upgrading your ROM (similiar to Bios?).

[criccarr]

Quick, the radio version that is shipped with the 6900 is the culprit, it disables the location setting the only way to get GPS to work is to upgrade to the radio that is located in the Sprint, Altel,or Bell OEM ROM and then flash a custom or stock VZW rom on top of that radio.. Mine works like a charm and has been since June!!! Hope this helps.

[Steve St.Laurent]

See post #3 - http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=38061

[chunnel]

I'm having trouble understanding a lot of this. Firstly, what is a Radio as it pertains to a cell phone? This is the first time, I have ever heard this term in this regard.

[Steve St.Laurent]

The radio is what transmits and receives to your carrier. You need to upgrade the radio software as well as the operating system.

[chunnel]

Does upgrading the Operating system refer to the Custom ROM's that I'm hearing about?

[TizOnly1]

Dude, just follow the tutorials. Things are explained step by step. You don't really even need to understand what's happening (not that it's that hard to understand. You can pick up all of it in just a few minutes of reading). Just follow the tutorials, and you'll be OK.

That's how I learned.

[chunnel]

Dude,
I've built a server with Raid 0+1 from scratch. I've never worked as an IT guy, but all my friends and family call me to fix their computers and I've never come across a problem I couldn't fix. That being said, Dude, I've read all this stuff and there are plenty of holes in the descriptions, links and the units that the descriptions are refering to. So Dude, I don't think that the links you are referring to are all that informative. Allow me to give you some examples:

I have found a link to doing this regarding an HTC "Vogue", but after much searching, I seem to have determined, but cannot confirm that this is not my unit. I have not been able to confirm the label, that is my unit, with any complete accuracy. So if this is a close unit but not exact, what exactly must be changed? Especially if he insists the instructions must be followed to the letter.

I find downloads for Cab files that should install, yet don't and the instructions seem to contradict themselves.

I find links to the Verizon ROM, which I guess is my operating system, I still have not gotten affirmative confirmation on that, yet those links are bad. There are many links to ROM's that people have made on their own, yet no one seems to be able to tell me which work and which don't, or what all those programs added to those ROM's accomplish other than taking up space.

Sounds pretty easy to figure out? Huh, Dude?

[Steve St.Laurent]

Did you look at the link I posted above? It sends you to pretty basic instructions specifically for the Verizon XV6900. The XV6900 is an HTC Vogue, btw. Follow my link above and you should find it pretty easy if you've built your own server.

[chunnel]

Link number one on that page you sent me, doesn't lead to anything but a page asking for donations.

Link number two, says at the bottom that if you are installing a factory ROM that you need to go to another link, which is the link that I said before that contradicted itself in the instructions. Here is the contradiction;

To (optionally) copy the new gpsapi.dll to your \Windows directory, you may use these steps:

1. Rename gpsapi.dll to something else (e.g. "gpsapix.dll").
2. Copy the renamed gpsapi.dll to \Windows
3. Rename the renamed gpsapi.dll in \Windows back to gpsapi.dll.
[RIGHT HERE IS THE PROBLEM. YOU CAN'T RENAME A FILE TO A SAME-NAMED FILE. YOU HAVE TO DELETE THE ORIGINAL, YET BELOW HE STATES TO DELETE IT AFTER DOING THESE STEPS. AND IF HE MEANS TO DELETE IT PRIOR TO RENAMING IT, THEN WHY RENAME IT? WHY NOT JUST DELETE IT AND REPLACE IT WITH THE NEW FILE? HE IS TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING HERE THAT IS UNCERTAIN]
The renaming juggling is necessary as File Explorer will otherwise refuse to supersede an XIP ROM file. You can simply delete \Windows\gpsapi.dll after doing these steps to revert back to the standard Windows gpsapi.dll, without having to hard reset your device, although this will again break GPS for you.