navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition sometimes works sometimes doesn t

Question

So I have a pretty simple bit of JS using the navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition jammy     document  ready function          business-locate   people-locate   click function         navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition foundLocation  noLocation            navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition foundLocation  noLocation      function foundLocation position        var lat   position coords latitude      var lon   position coords longitude      var userLocation   lat          lon          business-current-location   people-current-location   remove            Near-Me          watermark  Current Location          after   lt input type  hidden  name  business-current-location  id  business-current-location  value    userLocation      gt             people-Near-Me          watermark  Current Location          after   lt input type  hidden  name  people-current-location  id  people-current-location  value    userLocation      gt           function noLocation             Near-Me   watermark  Could not find location            people-Near-Me   watermark  Could not find location            end DocReady   Basically what s happening here is we get the current position  if it s obtained  two  watermarks  are placed in two fields that say  Current Position  and two hidden fields are created with the lat-long data as their value  they re removed in the beginning so they don t get duplicated every time   There are also two buttons that have a click function tied to them that do the same thing  Unfortunately  every third time or so  it works  What s the problem here

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Thanks to everyone for their input  this helped me    In addition to having to use watchPosition   instead of getCurrentPosition    I also found that I needed to move the call from within document ready   to the head

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This library adds a desiredAccuracy and maxWait option to geolocation calls  which means it will keep trying to get a position until the accuracy is within a specified range

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This happened to me when using Firefox s responsive design mode  There has been a bug report filed  For now  just don t use responsive design mode while using the Geolocation API

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You don t get an error message because it has no timeout by default  At least i think   I have had the same problem with firefox only for me firefox always gives an timeout  You can set a timeout yourself like this   My function works great in chrome but i get a timeout everytime in firefox       navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition          function position                  do succes handling                    function errorCallback error                  do error handling                                  timeout 5000                    I recommend to watch your errors carefully  Be expected for everything  Have a backup plan for everything  I use some default values or values from my database myself in case both google geolocations and navigator geolocations fails

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It might be a good idea to use an IP address geo location service as a fallback method when getCurrentPosition fails  For example with our api https   ip-api io    getJSON  http   ip-api io json        function result            console log result

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I found  that this way doesn t work  navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function          function err                But  this way works perfect  function storeCoordinates position        console log position coords latitude  position coords longitude          function errorHandler          navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition storeCoordinates  errorHandler    enableHighAccuracy  true  timeout  20000  maximumAge  0

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For anyone working on an iPhone app     If your code is running in a UIWebView on iOS 9   then you must set NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription within your app s plist   If you don t set it then getCurrentPosition will never call back and the user will never be prompted

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As of mid 2020  none of the answers here provides any explanation  just hacking or guessing  As  Coderer points out before me  secure context  https  is required today  so on more and more devices geolocation doesn t work at all with plain http   Secure context This feature is available only in secure contexts  HTTPS   in some or all supporting browsers   The third parameter of getCurrentPosition    and watchPosition   which is more suitable here  is PositionOptions object consisting of these properties   enableHighAccurancy  default false   if set to true  response is slower and more accurate  If you got timeout errors  keep this to false  If the accurancy is low  set it to true  In my tests 1s delay with 1-2 meters precision and there was no difference between true and false on UMAX tablet  I tested also on older iPhone with 5 meters oscilation if set to false  You can also measure accurancy in GeolocationCoordinates accurancy property and decide dynamically  timeout  default infinity   milliseconds before the API gives up and calls the error handler  the second parameter   Today  5s  5000  is reasonable and in some cases 10s can make sense  Useful if you want to have plan B when geolocation sensor data is not available  maximumAge  default 0   milliseconds when cached value is valid  the device may decide to use valid cached data instead of sensor measure  Set this to Infinity on static locations  keep at 0 otherwise   As  YoLoCo points out before me  getCurrentPosition   and watchPosition   interferes and I confirm his results in 2020  Generally  use watchPosition instead of getCurrentPosition periodical calls

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I finally found a working version for firefox  chrome  amp  default navigator in android  4 2 tested only    function getGeoLocation             var options   null          if  navigator geolocation                if  browserChrome    set this var looking for Chrome un user-agent header                 options  enableHighAccuracy  false  maximumAge  15000  timeout  30000               else                 options  maximumAge Infinity  timeout 0               navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition getGeoLocationCallback                      getGeoLocationErrorCallback                     options

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This is already an old question  but all answers didn t solve my problem  so let s add the one I finally found  It smells like a hack  and it is one   but works always in my situation  Hope in your situation too     Dummy one  which will result in a working next statement  navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function        function               The working next statement  navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function  position          Your code here    function  e          Your error handling here          enableHighAccuracy  true

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I have been having exactly the same problem  and finding almost no information online about it  Nothing at all in the books  Finally I found this sober query on stackoverflow and  ha   it was the final impetus I needed to set up an account here   And I have a partial answer  but alas not a complete one   First of all  realise that the default timeout for getCurrentPosition is infinite     That means that your error handler will never be called if getCurrentPosition hangs somewhere on the back end   To ensure that you get a timeout  add the optional third parameter to your call to getCurrentPosition  for example  if you want the user to wait no more than 10 seconds before giving them a clue what is happening  use   navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition successCallback errorCallback  timeout 10000      Secondly  I have experienced quite different reliability in different contexts  Here at home  I get a callback within a second or two  although the accuracy is poor   At work however  I experience quite bizarre variations in behavior  Geolocation works on some computers all the time  IE excepted  of course   others only work in chrome and safari but not firefox  gecko issue    others work once  then subsequently fail - and the pattern changes from hour to hour  from day to day  Sometimes you have a  lucky  computer  sometimes not  Perhaps slaughtering goats at full moon would help   I have not been able to fathom this  but I suspect that the back end infrastructure is more uneven than advertised in the various gung-ho books and websites that are pushing this feature  I really wish that they would be a bit more straight about how flakey this feature is  and how important that timeout setting is  if you want your error handler to work properly   I have been trying to teach this stuff to students today  and had the embarassing situation where my own computer  on the projector and several large screens  was failing silently  whereas about 80  of the students were getting a result almost instantly  using the exact same wireless network   It s very difficult to resolve these issues when my students are also making typos and other gaffes  and when my own pc is also failing   Anyway  I hope this helps some of you guys  Thanks for the sanity check

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May be it helps some one  On Android i had same issue but i figured it out by using  setTimeout  inside  document ready  so it worked for me secondly you have to increase the timeout just incase if user allow his location after few seconds  so i kept it to 60000 mili seconds  1 minute  allowing my success function to call if user click on allow button within 1 minute

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This is the hacky way that I am getting around this  at least it works in all current browsers  on Windows  I don t own a Mac    if  navigator geolocation        var location timeout   setTimeout  geolocFail     10000        navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function position            clearTimeout location timeout            var lat   position coords latitude          var lng   position coords longitude           geocodeLatLng lat  lng          function error            clearTimeout location timeout           geolocFail              else          Fallback for no geolocation     geolocFail        This will also work if someone clicks the close or chooses no or chooses the Never Share option on Firefox   Clunky  but it works

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brennanyoung s answer is great  but if you re wondering what to do in the failure case you could use an IP geolocation API such as https   ipinfo io  which is my service   Here s an example   function do something coords           Do something with the coords here        eg  show the user on a map  or customize        the site contents somehow    navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function position         do something position coords              function failure              getJSON  https   ipinfo io geo   function response             var loc   response loc split               var coords                 latitude  loc 0               longitude  loc 1                     do something coords                              See https   ipinfo io developers replacing-getcurrentposition for more details

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So I was running into the same thing  I tried the timeout solution which worked but not reliably  I found that if you just call it twice the location is refreshed properly  function getLocation callback           if navigator geolocation                navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition function position                        navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition callback  function      maximumAge 0  timeout 10000              function       maximumAge 0  timeout 10000              return true      this of course is a little slower but I have not had it give me the wrong position once  I have had it hit the timeout a few times and not return anything but other then that it works great  I know this is still a little hacky and I am looking forward to someone finding the real solution   Or if you want to make sure it is going to keep trying until you want to give up you could try something like this     example   document  ready function        getLocation function position             do something cool with position         console log position                 var GPSTimeout   10    init global var NOTE  I noticed that 10 gives me the quickest result but play around with this number to your own liking     function to be called where you want the location with the callback position  function getLocation callback           if navigator geolocation                var clickedTime    new Date    getTime      get the current time         GPSTimeout   10    reset the timeout just in case you call it more then once         ensurePosition callback  clickedTime     call recursive function to get position           return true       recursive position function function ensurePosition callback  timestamp        if GPSTimeout  lt  6000   set at what point you want to just give up                 call the geolocation function         navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition              function position    on success                             if the timestamp that is returned minus the time that was set when called is greater then 0 the position is up to date             if position timestamp - timestamp  gt   0                                        GPSTimeout   10    reset timeout just in case                     callback position     call the callback function you created                                   else   the gps that was returned is not current and needs to be refreshed                                       GPSTimeout    GPSTimeout    increase the timeout by itself n 2                     ensurePosition callback  timestamp     call itself to refresh                                              function     error  gps failed so we will try again                               GPSTimeout    GPSTimeout    increase the timeout by itself n 2                 ensurePosition callback  timestamp    call itself to try again                             maximumAge 0  timeout GPSTimeout                             I probably have some typeos and some spelling errors in here but I hope you get the idea  Let me know if anyone has questions or if someone finds something better

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I have been having similar issues  and have been looking into the possibility that browsers have limits on how often getCurrentPosition can be called   It seems I can often get a location  but if i refresh the page right away it will time out   If I wait for a bit  I can usually get a location again   This usually happens with FF   In Chrome and Safari  I have not yet noticed getCurrentPosition timing out   Just a thought     Although I cannot find any documentation to support this  it was a conclusion I came to after much testing   Perhaps someone else has has some info about that

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I have this problem in Mozilla  All time  Error  Unknown error acquiring position   Now i m using 47 Mozilla  I have tried everything  but all time this problem  BUT then i open about config in my addsress bar  go geo wifi ui and changed it value to  https   location services mozilla com v1 geolocate key test   works   If u have Position acquisition timed out error  try to increase timeout value   var options       enableHighAccuracy  true    timeout  5000    maximumAge  0           navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition success  error  options

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Same here people  this works perfect btw in Chrome  stable  dev and canary  just not in FF and Safari   It also works perfect on my iPhone and iPad  Safari     This might be due to the relative newness of this feature  i e  it is a bug    I spend almost a week on this now and I just cannot get it to work on those browsers  Here s what I found   The first time you call getCurrentPosition it works perfect   Any subsequent call never returns  i e  it does not fire the successCallback or the errorCallback functions   I added a few position options to my call to prove my point    navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition successCallback  errorCallback    timeout  10000      and it times out every time  after the first successful call    I thought I could fix it with maximumAge  but that doesn t seem to be working as it is suppose to work either   navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition successCallback  errorCallback    maximumAge 60000  timeout  2000      this should prevent actually calling the getCurrentPosition function if you call it within 60 seconds  but it ignores this  however  this could be due because I actually refresh my page to trigger the second call  not sure if this is persistent accross calls   btw  even google s examples fail on these browsers which leads me to believe that this are indeed browser bugs  try it  load it twice in Safari and it won t work the second time   If anybody finds a solution for this  PLEASE let me know  -   Cheers

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The second parameter passed to Geolocation getCurrentPosition   is the function you want to handle any geolocation errors  The error handler function itself receives a PositionError object with details about why the geolocation attempt failed  I recommend outputting the error to the console if you have any issues   var positionOptions     timeout  10000    navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition updateLocation  errorHandler  positionOptions   function updateLocation position         The geolocation succeeded  and the position is available   function errorHandler positionError      if  window console        console log positionError           Doing this in my code revealed the message  Network location provider at  https   www googleapis com     Returned error code 400   Turns out Google Chrome uses the Google APIs to get a location on devices that don t have GPS built in  for example  most desktop computers   Google returns an approximate latitude longitude based on the user s IP address  However  in developer builds of Chrome  such as Chromium on Ubuntu  there is no API access key included in the browser build  This causes the API request to fail silently  See Chromium Issue 179686  Geolocation giving 403 error for details

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I noticed this problem recently myself  and I m not sure how it comes about but it would appear sometimes firefox gets stuck on something loaded in cache  After clearing cache and restarting firefox it appears to function again

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I ll post this here in case it s useful to anyone     On iOS Safari  calls to navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition would timeout if I had an active navigator geolocation watchPosition function running    Starting and stopping the watchPosition properly using clearWatch    as described here  worked  https   developer mozilla org en-US docs Web API Geolocation watchPosition

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I m still getting spotty results in 2017  and I have a theory  the API documentation says that the call is now only available  in a secure context   i e  over HTTPS   I m having trouble getting a result in my development environment  http on localhost  and I believe this is why

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This works for me every time   navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition getCoor  errorCoor   maximumAge 60000  timeout 5000  enableHighAccuracy true      Though it isn t very accurate  The funny thing is that on the same device if I run this it puts me off about 100 meters  every time   but if I go to google s maps it finds my location exactly  So although I think the enableHighAccuracy  true helps it to work consistently  it doesn t seem to make it any more accurate

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In our case it always works the first time but rerunning the function more than 3-4 times  it fails   Simple workaround  Store it s value in LocalStorage   Before   navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition  position    gt      let val   results 0  address components 2  long name    doSthWithVal val             error    gt          After   if localStorage getItem  getCurrentPosition       null      doSthWithVal localStorage getItem  getCurrentPosition       else     navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition  position    gt          let val   results 0  address components 2  long name        localStorage setItem  getCurrentPosition  val         doSthWithVal val               error    gt

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here is my solution thanks to a closure      function geoloc success  fail       var is echo   false      if navigator  amp  amp  navigator geolocation          navigator geolocation getCurrentPosition          function pos              if  is echo   return              is echo   true            success pos coords latitude pos coords longitude                       function               if  is echo   return              is echo   true            fail                             else         fail                 function success lat  lng       alert lat           lng         function fail        alert  failed           geoloc success  fail

[javascript] navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition sometimes works sometimes doesn't

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