I've got a variety of devices between myself and the family....iPhone 12 pro / iPad pro 2020 / iPhone 12 mini / iPhone 11 / iPhone XR to name a few and they all work interchangeably with live tracking. My point is that it isn't device specific (well from the variety of devices we've all linked each other up with). The thing that is common across all devices is that it needs to be iOS 15 and above for live tracking to work (WatchOS 8 for the Apple Watch).
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Find My live tracking
- Thread starter warrior30
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Sure, it's understood that Live tracking needs iOS 15. Since I have an iPhone 13 PM, it's not like I can run anything other than 15. Even on the latest 0.2 update my Live tracking is busted.
Hmmmmmm that doesnt sound right. Did you do a fresh install of iOS 15 rather than restore from backup? Looking at the forum so people say doing a fresh install is the best way to get a clean build. I've always restored from backup myself and never had any issues. Thought I would throw that in for you to think about if it's still bust.
I did a setup as a new phone when I first got it. - Live tracking was broken.
Then I restored from my iPhone 11 backup - Live tracking was still broken.
Then I restored via Apple Configurator. - Live tracking is still busted.
Then I did another factory reset on device to find it's still busted and I gave up..
All my family members can see each other Live, I can see all of them Live, they hardly can see me Live. It's worked about 3 times for about 1-5 minutes before it reverts back to the old iOS behaviour.
If I unpair my Apple Watch, it makes no difference.
If I set my location to be my iPad Pro running iOS 15, all family members can see my live location.
That must be annoying (I would be). Only thing I can think of is hardware related, ask them to replace the phone? Sounds drastic, but can't see anything else you could do.
I'd say it's a software bug. Location services appear to be fine for everything else.
I also forget to mention I deleted everyone and had them delete me, then invited me back etc. Still no jam.
If I'm bored I'll try my luck with Apple Support. Though I find they normally never know what's going on and have figured out how to fix everything myself. I'm a senior systems engineer though so usually pretty good with this stuff.
I'm thinking it could be crap in my keychain with the end to end encryption keys. But I really CBF in purging that anytime soon.
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Be patient, it needs a bit more time in the oven.
I found its spotty when your inside. I imagine thats just because its hard to track something that has a 100 ft margin for error. It should be obvious that if your device can't pinpoint itself it won't be able to provide "Live Location".
I have about 10 friends on Find My and only one of them is "Live" and he was out of the house, driving. This leads me back to the position resolution being a factor. Movement can also play a roll, if you are stationary why would the iPhone allow someone else to kill your battery? Also when I tried to screen record his movement to send to him the "Live" icon went away and it went back to its "Now" and "X minutes ago" as soon as I ended the screen recording it went Live again.
So then I took my iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone SE 2nd Gen around the block for a walk (don't worry it was more pathetic than it sounds). Within no time the SE was "Live" as reported by Find My from the iPhone 11 Pro Max. However I couldn't get the iPhone 11 Pro Max to ever go live. Does the iPhone 11 Pro Max have a less efficient GPS than the SE? The tech specs list them the same...
Finally, Apple doesn't have too much information out there on this. They don't have a white paper for it either and they are pretty good about putting out white papers for security and privacy features...this is both. Just expecting to see how its encryption works and what the prerequisites are to start it. But last white paper I can find for Location Security is from Nov 2019.
Anyway, I think this is something that will still get some more refinement and more information of how and when it will be active.
I understand your point about being indoors and resolving your GPS location, however that is completely irrelevant in my testing.
My testing confirmed that 9 devices in exactly the same location (in the same room in our house) will all report their location Live without a hitch. Just not my iPhone 13 Pro Max. Hell even my iPad Pro would report its Live location (without the spinning wheel) when it was in my desk draw.
My brother as another example. He owns an iPhone 12 Pro Max and lives in a 3 story home. His live location always reports as live after about 3 seconds. It even does so when his phone is on the ground floor. His location dances around the property as if his running around outside with it, but that's clearly due to the GPS resolution not being able to pinpoint him accurately. Point is, they still present as "Live" without the spinning (loading) icon.
Meh the 'be patient' was just a suggest, you do you. What is the urgency to share your Live location anyway? Or is it just one of those things?
I just find it interesting that it’s busted for me but everyone else in the family has no issues. I can’t really find any other posts complaining about it. So not sure if it’s a keychain issue which is normally the case these kind of things. My wife like to be able to see me drive in real time. I can see all of them so I guess no urgency for me 😂
I also am having trouble with live tracking on my new iPhone 13 Pro. It was working fine on my iPhone 11 with the iOS 15.1 Public Beta on my iPhone and the iOS 15 release version on my family’s iPhone 11”s. I did all the normal things when trading in my iPhone 11 (turned off Find My, signed out of iCloud, etc.). Setup the new iPhone 13 Pro as a new phone. Everything seems to be setup correctly for Find My live tracking to work. My family can see me and each other live, but I can only see them with the old location updates. I also deleted and re-added them with the same results. Beta feedback has been sent. Hope there is a Beta update that fixes this or someone figures out the problem and solution.
If u swipe up to close the find my app and then open it up again it says "no location found" for my contacts
I have to actually click on a contact to get the location showing with the "live' symbol
If the app is in the background and I open it it automatically shows me the persons location
But swipe up to to close the app and open it again and it says "no location" perpetually until I click on the name.
No issues prior to iOS 15 or even on Big Sur now
I have to actually click on a contact to get the location showing with the "live' symbol
If the app is in the background and I open it it automatically shows me the persons location
But swipe up to to close the app and open it again and it says "no location" perpetually until I click on the name.
No issues prior to iOS 15 or even on Big Sur now
It’s still not working for me or family members. iOS 15, all up to date, iPhone 12 Pro… updates static locations but no live. Arghhhh!
It seems to work on and off, but I can't figure out what makes the difference. I'm on a 12Pro w/15.1 beta, the others are on 15.02 iPhone 8. Perhaps signal levels? In general, though, it's pretty cool – almost creepy. (If they weren't family, it would be creepy.)
It works, and always has done, on WhatsApp. So it can’t be the device, or coverage area. So I really can’t figure out what else I could do.
Every now and then on my M1 12.9 iPad Pro I have to force quit the Find app to get the person’s location to come up. Until then it just says no location found with the spinner going. I don’t have to do this every time, sometime just exiting the app and re-launching brings up the location. Not a smooth function. Both my ipad and phone are on 15.1.
