In order for Geo Tracker to record tracks in background correctly without interruptions on Xiaomi devices, you need to make several additional settings in the system:
1. Open System Preferences > Apps > Manage Apps > Geo Tracker and set “Autostart” to “Enabled” and “Activity Control” to “Unlimited”.

2. Make sure the power saver is turned off globally in the system: go to System Preferences > Power & Performance, and make sure “Battery saver” and “Ultra battery saver” options are turned off.

3. It is also recommended to “lock” Geo Tracker while recording a track, especially if you want to turn on the recording for a long period of time (for example when you just put your phone backpack for the whole day). To do this, you need to open the list of recent applications (a small square at the bottom panel), find Geo Tracker and long tap it. A menu will appear with a list of actions, in this menu there is a “lock” icon – tap it. You can unlock Geo Tracker when you finish the recording in the same way.

If you see the label “Waiting GPS” while recording of a track at the bottom status bar (or in the notification) – it means there is no satellite signal for some reason, and this interferes with the recording of the track. Below you will find some tips to help you solve this problem.

1. First, it’s worth checking the basic things:

• Geolocation is enabled in device settings.
• The app has permission to access geolocation.
• Just in case, it is worth checking you have the correct date, time and time zone set in the system – this can also affect communication with satellites.

2. Expand the lower status bar by tapping on it. When expanded, the number of visible satellites is displayed there. When there is no signal, something like 0/10 is displayed – this means that the sensor sees 10 satellites, but cannot connect to any of them. In order to determine the location by satellites (“get the fix”), you need to connect to at least 4-5 satellites (that is, something like 4/10 will be displayed in the status). Poor gps signal reception usually happens due to the fact that the device does not see satellites well, for example, when you are inside a building. Weather conditions might also affect the quality of gps reception. Turning the device on and off can help to get the fix.

3. If you cannot catch the fix for a long time – try to reset the A-GPS data: to do this, open Geo Tracker > Main Menu > Settings > Record Settings and select “Reload A-GPS Data”. After this, it may take several minutes for the device to initially determine the location, especially if you are in an area without network coverage. A-GPS data is actually an indication to the device of the approximate locations of satellites, updated from the network. If there is no network, the gps sensor searches for satellites locations on its own, so it may take longer.

4. If none of the above helps, try installing the GPS Test or GPS Status & Toolbox app and get the fix using them. After this, open Geo Tracker again – it should see the satellites now. Also please note, Geo Tracker uses only data from satellites to record tracks, as this is the most accurate source of coordinates. Other applications may use less accurate data to get coordinates, such as cell towers and wi-fi networks – therefore, there may be a situation when Geo Tracker cannot record a track, while in Google Maps, for example, the location is displayed. For this reason, I recommend checking the data with the gps diagnostic apps mentioned above.

5. If you started recording a track, saw “Recording” in the status, minimized the application and after a while you see “Waiting for GPS” in the notification – most likely, the matter is in the power consumption settings of your device. Almost all modern devices (especially Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, Oppo) optimize the use of the battery by applications in the background, which may interfere with the correct operation of Geo Tracker. To prevent this, you need to disable battery optimization and power saving mode in system settings. Different manufacturers have a different set of settings for this, instructions for different manufacturers can be found here.
Also, in Geo Tracker itself, it is recommended to open settings > record settings and turn on the toggle “Ignore battery optimisations”. For example on Samsung, it is enough to turn on this toggle and disable the power saving mode in the system-wide settings.

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I will post news and updates there as well. No ads as usual, only valuable information.

• Now you can find a point on the map by its coordinates. The function is available in the main menu. Both decimal coordinates and degrees can be used as input. Also, now app can open coordinates from third-party applications (e.g. from Google Photo) – you can mark waypoints on your track, where certain photos were taken.
• Added new measurement units – nautical miles. The option is available in the display settings.
• Added support for closed paths from KML files (LinearRing). Polygons are imported as closed line paths in the application.
• Improved algorithms for calculating statistics: maximum speed, elevations, vertical distances, slopes. Many of you sent reports, where maximum speed was higher or lower than expected. Vertical distances were often overestimated, because the application reacted to any minor changes in elevation – now the algorithm takes into account only those segments where the vertical distance begins to change direction. I tried to take into account all of your reports. Thanks to everyone who sent in their tracks and helped with debugging!
• The maximum amount of cached data for OSM maps and Mapbox’s satellite images has been increased (from 50 to 256 mb).
• When copying coordinates, you can now choose the format (decimal or degrees). To do this, you need to long tap the copy button.
• When saving screenshots, you can take a screenshot of statistics only, without a map. To do this, you need to long tap the save or share screenshot button.
• Added new options in custom record profile settings for recording rate and minimum distance.
• Added a setting to completely hide the bottom status bar. This option is available in the display settings.
• Fixed rare issue, where tracks could not export correctly.
• Fixed rare issue, which caused abnormally large values in statistics. To correct statistics for already recorded track, you can export in any format (GPX/KML/KMZ) and then import back into the application. The easiest way to do this is through the “Share” option below the track name in the list. This “life hack” also works on previous versions, by the way.
• During stops, the speed on the charts did not drop to zero. This issue has also been fixed.
• Sometimes, when adding a marker, it was added to the wrong track (In the “add marker” dialog, by default, the last opened track was selected in the list, and this is where the marker was added. If you opened another track after starting the recording – marker was added there). Now, if a marker is automatically attached to a track (when a marker is added with a long tap on the map), it is added to this track by default. In other cases, the current recording track is selected by default, and only if the recording is not in progress – the last selected one. You can always select the desired track in the list, in the “add marker” dialog (if several tracks are opened).
• The selected folder for export/import was often reset – this was fixed.
• Sometimes, when editing tracks in third-party programs, they “got corrupted” and failed to open back in Geo Tracker. Also fixed with the new version.
• After removing the marker, focusing on the track might not work quite correctly. This was also fixed in the new version.
• When recording a track, its display on the map sometimes lagged. In the new version, the lag should be less or absent.
• Several typos in the settings descriptions have been fixed.

You can get the new version as usual, from Google Play. And here you can download APK files directly, if you still didn’t receive the update through Google Play:

• ARMv7
• ARM64
• X86
• X86-64

• Added the ability to switch to satellite layer when using OSM maps. Satellite data is provided by Mapbox.
• Speeds up to 30 km/h (or 30 mph) are now displayed with more precision.
• Added an option to hide track endpoints on the map.
• Memory consumption has been significantly optimized, especially with a large number of opened tracks.
• Fixed a bug due to which Geo Tracker sometimes stopped while taking a screenshot.
• Added forgotten translations to other languages.

• Fixed an issue that previously prevented opening GPX/KML/KMZ files from Whatsapp and some other applications.
• Added instructions on how to configure the system’s power consumption settings so that track recording works correctly in background.
• Google’s payments processing library has been updated. The same donate can now be bought several times now. 🙂
• Scale bar didn’t always updated immediately while zooming map – this is issue was fixed.
• Added an option, which allows you to handle GPS week number rollover (applied on Apr 6, 2019). If you’re running Geo Tracker on some old device, which doesn’t handle it automatically, set this value to 619315200. Option is available in the record settings.
• Fixed various bugs you reported. Thank you!

• Improved compatibility with Android 10 and above. If you experienced issues with background recording before – this update should help! For recording in background correctly, please allow Geo Tracker to access geolocation in “Allow all the time” mode. Also, many vendors (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme and others) have extra battery management settings, and it is required to disable battery optimisations for Geo Tracker in system settings. Here you can find instructions how to do it, for some most popular device manufacturers.
• You can now switch to Open Street Maps (OSM) in Geo Tracker. OSM maps are much more detailed in many regions, than Google or Yandex, which are also available to use in Geo Tracker. For example, sometimes you can find trails in the mountains on which a person has almost never set a foot 🙂 In many mountain areas you can find the elevation levels information right on the map. OSM maps in Geo Tracker are provided via Mapbox platform. The platform provides a very high-quality cartographic service – rendering is fast, detailed, maps are perfectly cached. Unfortunately, the use of Mapbox services is not free, so the maps are available only to users with an active subscription.
• The map configuration screen has also been redesigned. Now you can quickly switch both the source of maps (Yandex, Google, OSM) and map layers (scheme, satellite, relief), where they are available.
• You can now open up to 100 tracks. Please keep in mind that displaying a large number of tracks lead to a huge RAM and battery consumption.
• Some more information added to the bottom status panel, like momental azimuth, precision of measurements, etc.
• You can now switch elevation measurement baseline to Sea level. Default baseline is WGS84 ellipsoid, it is not so precise at every point of our planet. Also you can add a manual correction of the baseline. These options can be found in the record settings.
• In case of issues with GPS, you can reset A-GPS data in your device – sometimes this helps. This option is available from record settings as well.

Hi all!

New update is coming after quite a while, and it brings a lot of cool stuff! New version is rolling out, and here is the complete changelog:

• Added option for whitelisting app for background battery usage (you can find it in Record Settings);
• Improved compatibility with Android 8+: recording should work smoother with less gaps (however, battery consumption whitelisting is highly recommended for qualified background recording);
• Tracks storage is completely rewritten to perform faster and smoother (please give it some time to do migration on the first launch);
• Yandex Maps SDK updated to the most recent version! Now it works much smoother, looks much better; Unfortunately Yandex doesn’t allow apps to use Satellite layer anymore. For satellite view please use Google Maps;
• Redesigned work with markers, made it mode simple;
• Now you can observe and quick copy marker coordinates;
• Now you can observe distance and direction to the selected point on map (in realtime!);
• Introduced new panel, which shows current coordinates, number of satellites visible, elevation, speed, recording and gps status;
• Added Night mode support for Google Maps;
• UI icons changed, including new location marker on the map;
• Tracks color mode (speed/elevation gradient or solid) is now persisted between launches;
• Fixed opening track files from other apps like Google Drive, WhatsApp, etc.
• Also you can now open track files directly from Chrome browser;
• Fixed opening track files with quotes in their names;
• A lot of small other improvements and bugfixes;

You can get the new version as usual, from Google Play. And here you can download APK files directly, if you still didn’t receive the update through Google Play:

• ARMv7
• ARM64
• X86
• X86-64

Feel free to ask question and provide your feedback!

What’s new in this version:

1. Many people asked and I finally added an ability to share trip statistics screenshot via Facebook, Twitter, etc.
2. Also one of the top requests: added an ability to build statistics charts based on duration; you can easily switch between length and duration right from the statistics screen!
3. And the most interesting new feature: charts can now be viewed fullscreen (available by tap on chart) with an ability to zoom it!

Hope you enjoy the new version!

Download it from Google Play or via direct link