Question Google says I'm in South Africa but I'm not

[pierre5463]

Hi all, we have a problem with a Galaxy Tab A7 tablet, looking for ideas.

I opened it up this morning and the time was out, and when I looked at the region it was showing South Africa. We are in Australia. I've never seen this before, it's always been fine.

I opened google maps and it is showing I am in South Africa. I opened another mapping program I have that runs off GPS and it was also showing South Africa. I left it outside the house for some time to pick up a satellite, still South Africa.

I have location turned on and accuracy turned on. I can set the correct time and date manually, but when I turn automatic time and date and time zone on it immediately goes back to South Africa. And even with the correct time and date set manually google maps etc still show me in South Africa.

I have restarted over and over, with location and time and date variously turned off or on, but cannot get anything different. I cannot get google maps to show anything except South Africa.

Any ideas? cheers

 

[spARTacus]

Check it later when you're away from the initial location where it shows you as in South Africa, and see if it's any different. Also, check if turning location accuracy off and leaving it off for a while makes a difference.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are you using a VPN? If so, turn it off and see if it locates you correctly. VPNs might cause a device to think it's in the country where the VPN server is located.

If you're not using a VPN, then does this happen with all wi-fi networks you try, or only certain ones? Some wi-fi networks can also locate a device incorrectly. I recall this happening when I would use the wi-fi at a local restaurant in Cupertino, CA, which would locate my device in Kansas.

 

[pierre5463]

Thanks both, yes it happened over 2 wifi networks, our home one and hotspotting off the phone. However Spartacus' suggestion worked. Cheers

 

[spARTacus]

I think as Diddy basically suggested, in Samsung, Google, Cell Carrier or ISP server databases, they've probably got a certain piece of network equipment (WiFi, ISP, Cell) mixed up tagged associated to South Africa, and that tag is being used by location "accuracy" services as a belief related to location of your device. There have been a few reports of weird things like this happening as specifically associated to WiFi networks and "WiFi assist location services", when devices don't use GPS to determine where they are located but instead rely on geolocation network identifier assistance (and sometimes it doesn't work out). I've literally been sitting before in an airplane at a gate at a certain airport, connected to the terminal's WiFi, and my phone's maps and geolocation has indicated me at a completely different city's airport. Go figure how that happens? It's kinda scary, and that at least a handful of companies seem to basically be geolocation tracking identifiers of WiFi networks (and almost certainly also of home WiFi networks).