onLocationChanged not called on some devices

Question

This is a question which has been asked numerous times but I could not find a solution that always works.

I am developing an application using the Fused location pro

Answer 1

I observed same behavior on Galaxy Nexus and recognized two things causing onLocationChanged() to not being called. There are

1. Corresponding location source is not enabled in System Settings. For PRIORITY_HIGH_ACCURACY the GPS satellites must be enabled, for PRIORITY_BALANCED_POWER_ACCURACY Wi-Fi & mobile network location must be enabled.

2. Even for the enabled location sources there can be no valid location information available. For instance, PRIORITY_HIGH_ACCURACY source is enabled, but there is no (or not good) GPS reception (e.g. device is inside a building). Or PRIORITY_BALANCED_POWER_ACCURACY source is enabled, but both Wi-Fi and mobile data are switched off. In those cases location cannot be detected and onLocationChanged() will not be called.

To fix #1 I had to check whether required location sources are enabled even before connecting to Google Services API and if they are switched off, then I notified a user asked him/her to allow location access.

To solve #2 I decided to use LocationRequest.setExpirationDuration(). I set timeout at about 10 seconds, and immediately after calling requestLocationUpdates() I post a callback delayed by same 10 seconds. If delayed callback is called before requestLocationUpdates(), this means location cannot be detected due to reason #2. I do three retries and then show user an error message.

Android documentation is not great at this place, that's why I hope this helps.