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Thomas Bellembois

My Galaxy S4 GPS issue

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 (jflte) phone.

I have flashed it many times with different custom roms that led to a global GPS failure.
Google-ing the question, I have discovered that I am not the only one to be affected by this issue.

I have tried the following procedures:

…with no luck until I decided to reinstall the official Samsung firmware with Odin (actually its Linux clone Heimall) followed by a new custom rom installation. And that worked !

step 1: Heimdall/Odin

Install Heimdall on Linux (Odin procedure not covered here).

# debian/ubuntu
aptitude install heimdall-flash

For other Linux look at the developer page.

step 2: Download the firmware

Search/download/unzip your firmware on the site. I have downloaded the file I9505XXUHOD7_I9505YBTHOD7_DBT.zip.

unzip I9505XXUHOD7_I9505YBTHOD7_DBT.zip
tar -xvf I9505XXUHOD7_I9505BTUHOD2_I9505XXUHOD7_HOME.tar

You file then have 12 files:

aboot.mbn
NON-HLOS.bin
rpm.mbn
sbl2.mbn
sbl3.mbn
tz.mbn
boot.img
recovery.img
system.img.ext4
modem.bin
cache.img.ext4
hidden.img.ext4

step 3: Flash the firmware

Turn on your phone in download mode (vol. UP + home + power) and flash it.

heimdall flash --APNHLOS NON-HLOS.bin --ABOOT aboot.mbn --BOOT boot.img --HIDDEN hidden.img.ext4 --MDM modem.bin --RECOVERY recovery.img --RPM rpm.mbn --SBL2 sbl2.mbn --SBL3 sbl3.mbn --SYSTEM system.img.ext4 --TZ tz.mbn --CACHE cache.img.ext4

The phone will automatically reboot once the process is finished. I have not finished the full rom installation process.

step 4: Install TWRP

Download/untar the last version of TWRP.

tar -xvf twrp-2.8.6.0-jfltexx.tar

Turn on your phone in download mode again and flash the recovery.img file.

heimdall flash --RECOVERY recovery.img

step 5: Install the custom rom with TWRP

I have choosen SlimLP alpha that needs to be rooted.

references