navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition sometimes works sometimes doesn't

So I have a pretty simple bit of JS using the navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition jammy.

$(document).ready(function(){
  $("#business-locate, #people-locate").click(function() {
    navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(foundLocation, noLocation);
  });
    
  navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(foundLocation, noLocation);
  
  function foundLocation(position) {
    var lat = position.coords.latitude;
    var lon = position.coords.longitude;
    var userLocation = lat + ', ' + lon;
    $("#business-current-location, #people-current-location").remove();
    $("#Near-Me")
      .watermark("Current Location")
      .after("<input type='hidden' name='business-current-location' id='business-current-location' value='"+userLocation+"' />");
    $("#people-Near-Me")
      .watermark("Current Location")
      .after("<input type='hidden' name='people-current-location' id='people-current-location' value='"+userLocation+"' />");
  }
  function noLocation()	{
    $("#Near-Me").watermark("Could not find location");
    $("#people-Near-Me").watermark("Could not find location");
  }
})//end DocReady

Basically what's happening here is we get the current position, if it's obtained, two "watermarks" are placed in two fields that say "Current Position" and two hidden fields are created with the lat-long data as their value (they're removed in the beginning so they don't get duplicated every time). There are also two buttons that have a click function tied to them that do the same thing. Unfortunately, every third time or so, it works. What's the problem here???

I have been having exactly the same problem, and finding almost no information online about it. Nothing at all in the books. Finally I found this sober query on stackoverflow and (ha!) it was the final impetus I needed to set up an account here.

And I have a partial answer, but alas not a complete one.

First of all, realise that the default timeout for getCurrentPosition is infinite(!). That means that your error handler will never be called if getCurrentPosition hangs somewhere on the back end.

To ensure that you get a timeout, add the optional third parameter to your call to getCurrentPosition, for example, if you want the user to wait no more than 10 seconds before giving them a clue what is happening, use:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(successCallback,errorCallback,{timeout:10000});

Secondly, I have experienced quite different reliability in different contexts. Here at home, I get a callback within a second or two, although the accuracy is poor.

At work however, I experience quite bizarre variations in behavior: Geolocation works on some computers all the time (IE excepted, of course), others only work in chrome and safari but not firefox (gecko issue?), others work once, then subsequently fail - and the pattern changes from hour to hour, from day to day. Sometimes you have a 'lucky' computer, sometimes not. Perhaps slaughtering goats at full moon would help?

I have not been able to fathom this, but I suspect that the back end infrastructure is more uneven than advertised in the various gung-ho books and websites that are pushing this feature. I really wish that they would be a bit more straight about how flakey this feature is, and how important that timeout setting is, if you want your error handler to work properly.

I have been trying to teach this stuff to students today, and had the embarassing situation where my own computer (on the projector and several large screens) was failing silently, whereas about 80% of the students were getting a result almost instantly (using the exact same wireless network). It's very difficult to resolve these issues when my students are also making typos and other gaffes, and when my own pc is also failing.

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you guys. Thanks for the sanity check!

This is the hacky way that I am getting around this, at least it works in all current browsers (on Windows, I don't own a Mac):

if (navigator.geolocation) {
	var location_timeout = setTimeout("geolocFail()", 10000);
	
	navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
		clearTimeout(location_timeout);
		
		var lat = position.coords.latitude;
		var lng = position.coords.longitude;
		
		geocodeLatLng(lat, lng);
	}, function(error) {
		clearTimeout(location_timeout);
		geolocFail();
	});
} else {
	// Fallback for no geolocation
	geolocFail();
}

This will also work if someone clicks the close or chooses no or chooses the Never Share option on Firefox.

Clunky, but it works.

This works for me every time:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(getCoor, errorCoor, {maximumAge:60000, timeout:5000, enableHighAccuracy:true});

Though it isn't very accurate. The funny thing is that on the same device if I run this it puts me off about 100 meters (every time), but if I go to google's maps it finds my location exactly. So although I think the enableHighAccuracy: true helps it to work consistently, it doesn't seem to make it any more accurate...

This is already an old question, but all answers didn't solve my problem, so let's add the one I finally found. It smells like a hack (and it is one), but works always in my situation. Hope in your situation too.

//Dummy one, which will result in a working next statement.
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function () {}, function () {}, {});
//The working next statement.
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function (position) {
    //Your code here
}, function (e) {
    //Your error handling here
}, {
    enableHighAccuracy: true
});

Same here people, this works perfect btw in Chrome (stable, dev and canary) just not in FF and Safari. It also works perfect on my iPhone and iPad (Safari!). This might be due to the relative newness of this feature (i.e. it is a bug). I spend almost a week on this now and I just cannot get it to work on those browsers

Here's what I found:

The first time you call getCurrentPosition it works perfect. Any subsequent call never returns, i.e. it does not fire the successCallback or the errorCallback functions. I added a few position options to my call to prove my point:

 navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(successCallback, errorCallback,  {timeout: 10000});

and it times out every time (after the first successful call). I thought I could fix it with maximumAge, but that doesn't seem to be working as it is suppose to work either:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(successCallback, errorCallback,  {maximumAge:60000, timeout: 2000});

this should prevent actually calling the getCurrentPosition function if you call it within 60 seconds, but it ignores this (however, this could be due because I actually refresh my page to trigger the second call, not sure if this is persistent accross calls)

btw, even google's examples fail on these browsers which leads me to believe that this are indeed browser bugs, try it, load it twice in Safari and it won't work the second time.

If anybody finds a solution for this, PLEASE let me know :-)

Cheers.

You don't get an error message because it has no timeout by default (At least i think). I have had the same problem with firefox only for me firefox always gives an timeout. You can set a timeout yourself like this.

My function works great in chrome but i get a timeout everytime in firefox.

	navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(
		function(position) {
			//do succes handling
		},
		function errorCallback(error) {
			//do error handling
		},
		{
			timeout:5000
		}
	);

I recommend to watch your errors carefully. Be expected for everything. Have a backup plan for everything. I use some default values or values from my database myself in case both google geolocations and navigator geolocations fails.

I'm still getting spotty results in 2017, and I have a theory: the API documentation says that the call is now only available "in a secure context", i.e. over HTTPS. I'm having trouble getting a result in my development environment (http on localhost) and I believe this is why.

I'll post this here in case it's useful to anyone…

On iOS Safari, calls to navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition would timeout if I had an active navigator.geolocation.watchPosition function running.

Starting and stopping the watchPosition properly using clearWatch() as described here, worked: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Geolocation/watchPosition

here is my solution thanks to a closure :

  function geoloc(success, fail){
    var is_echo = false;
    if(navigator && navigator.geolocation) {
      navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(
        function(pos) {
          if (is_echo){ return; }
          is_echo = true;
          success(pos.coords.latitude,pos.coords.longitude);
        }, 
        function() {
          if (is_echo){ return; }
          is_echo = true;
          fail();
        }
      );
    } else {
      fail();
    }
  }
  
  function success(lat, lng){
    alert(lat + " , " + lng);
  }
  function fail(){
    alert("failed");
  }
  
  geoloc(success, fail);

So I was running into the same thing. I tried the timeout solution which worked but not reliably. I found that if you just call it twice the location is refreshed properly

function getLocation(callback)
{	
    if(navigator.geolocation)
    {
    	navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position)
        {
	     	navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(callback, function(){},{maximumAge:0, timeout:10000});
	    },function(){}, {maximumAge:0, timeout:10000});
    }
    return true;
}

this of course is a little slower but I have not had it give me the wrong position once. I have had it hit the timeout a few times and not return anything but other then that it works great. I know this is still a little hacky and I am looking forward to someone finding the real solution.

Or if you want to make sure it is going to keep trying until you want to give up you could try something like this.

//example
$(document).ready(function(){
    getLocation(function(position){
        //do something cool with position
        console.log(position);
    });
});


var GPSTimeout = 10; //init global var NOTE: I noticed that 10 gives me the quickest result but play around with this number to your own liking


//function to be called where you want the location with the callback(position)
function getLocation(callback)
{	
    if(navigator.geolocation)
    {
        var clickedTime = (new Date()).getTime(); //get the current time
        GPSTimeout = 10; //reset the timeout just in case you call it more then once
        ensurePosition(callback, clickedTime); //call recursive function to get position
    }
    return true;
}

//recursive position function
function ensurePosition(callback, timestamp)
{
    if(GPSTimeout < 6000)//set at what point you want to just give up
    {
        //call the geolocation function
        navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(
            function(position) //on success
        {
                //if the timestamp that is returned minus the time that was set when called is greater then 0 the position is up to date
            if(position.timestamp - timestamp >= 0)
                {
                    GPSTimeout = 10; //reset timeout just in case
                    callback(position); //call the callback function you created
                }
                else //the gps that was returned is not current and needs to be refreshed
                {
                    GPSTimeout += GPSTimeout; //increase the timeout by itself n*2
                    ensurePosition(callback, timestamp); //call itself to refresh
                }
            },
            function() //error: gps failed so we will try again
            {
                GPSTimeout += GPSTimeout; //increase the timeout by itself n*2
                ensurePosition(callback, timestamp);//call itself to try again
            },
            {maximumAge:0, timeout:GPSTimeout}
        )
    }		
}

I probably have some typeos and some spelling errors in here but I hope you get the idea. Let me know if anyone has questions or if someone finds something better.

As of mid 2020, none of the answers here provides any explanation, just hacking or guessing.

As @Coderer points out before me, secure context (https) is required today, so on more and more devices geolocation doesn't work at all with plain http:

> Secure context This feature is available only in secure contexts (HTTPS), in some or all supporting browsers.

The third parameter of getCurrentPosition() (and watchPosition() which is more suitable here) is PositionOptions object consisting of these properties:

• enableHighAccurancy (default false): if set to true, response is slower and more accurate. If you got timeout errors, keep this to false. If the accurancy is low, set it to true. In my tests 1s delay with 1-2 meters precision and there was no difference between true and false on UMAX tablet. I tested also on older iPhone with 5 meters oscilation if set to false. You can also measure accurancy in GeolocationCoordinates.accurancy property and decide dynamically.
• timeout (default infinity): milliseconds before the API gives up and calls the error handler (the second parameter). Today, 5s (5000) is reasonable and in some cases 10s can make sense. Useful if you want to have plan B when geolocation sensor data is not available.
• maximumAge (default 0): milliseconds when cached value is valid, the device may decide to use valid cached data instead of sensor measure. Set this to Infinity on static locations, keep at 0 otherwise.

As @YoLoCo points out before me, getCurrentPosition() and watchPosition() interferes and I confirm his results in 2020. Generally, use watchPosition instead of getCurrentPosition periodical calls.

For anyone working on an iPhone app...

If your code is running in a UIWebView on iOS 9+, then you must set NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription within your app's plist.

If you don't set it then getCurrentPosition will never call back and the user will never be prompted.

The second parameter passed to Geolocation.getCurrentPosition() is the function you want to handle any geolocation errors. The error handler function itself receives a PositionError object with details about why the geolocation attempt failed. I recommend outputting the error to the console if you have any issues:

var positionOptions = { timeout: 10000 };
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(updateLocation, errorHandler, positionOptions);
function updateLocation(position) {
  // The geolocation succeeded, and the position is available
}
function errorHandler(positionError) {
  if (window.console) {
    console.log(positionError);
  }
}

Doing this in my code revealed the message "Network location provider at 'https://www.googleapis.com/'; : Returned error code 400". Turns out Google Chrome uses the Google APIs to get a location on devices that don't have GPS built in (for example, most desktop computers). Google returns an approximate latitude/longitude based on the user's IP address. However, in developer builds of Chrome (such as Chromium on Ubuntu) there is no API access key included in the browser build. This causes the API request to fail silently. See Chromium Issue 179686: Geolocation giving 403 error for details.

I found, that this way doesn't work

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function() {...}, function(err) {...}, {});

But

this way works perfect

function storeCoordinates(position) {
    console.log(position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude);
}    

function errorHandler() {...}

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(storeCoordinates, errorHandler, { enableHighAccuracy: true, timeout: 20000, maximumAge: 0 });

I have been having similar issues, and have been looking into the possibility that browsers have limits on how often getCurrentPosition can be called. It seems I can often get a location, but if i refresh the page right away it will time out. If I wait for a bit, I can usually get a location again. This usually happens with FF. In Chrome and Safari, I have not yet noticed getCurrentPosition timing out. Just a thought...

Although I cannot find any documentation to support this, it was a conclusion I came to after much testing. Perhaps someone else has has some info about that?

I finally found a working version for firefox, chrome & default navigator in android (4.2 tested only):

function getGeoLocation() {
        var options = null;
        if (navigator.geolocation) {
            if (browserChrome) //set this var looking for Chrome un user-agent header
                options={enableHighAccuracy: false, maximumAge: 15000, timeout: 30000};
            else
                options={maximumAge:Infinity, timeout:0};
            navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(getGeoLocationCallback,
                    getGeoLocationErrorCallback,
                   options);
        }
    }

I have this problem in Mozilla. All time: Error: Unknown error acquiring position.

Now i'm using 47 Mozilla. I have tried everything, but all time this problem. BUT then i open about:config in my addsress bar, go geo.wifi.ui and changed it value to "https://location.services.mozilla.com/v1/geolocate?key=test";. works!

If u have Position acquisition timed out error, try to increase timeout value:

var options = {
  enableHighAccuracy: true,
  timeout: 5000,
  maximumAge: 0       
};
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(success, error, options);

@brennanyoung's answer is great, but if you're wondering what to do in the failure case you could use an IP geolocation API such as https://ipinfo.io (which is my service). Here's an example:

function do_something(coords) {
    // Do something with the coords here
    // eg. show the user on a map, or customize
    // the site contents somehow
}

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) { 
    do_something(position.coords);
    },
    function(failure) {
        $.getJSON('https://ipinfo.io/geo', function(response) { 
        var loc = response.loc.split(',');
        var coords = {
            latitude: loc[0],
            longitude: loc[1]
        };
        do_something(coords);
        });  
    };
});

See https://ipinfo.io/developers/replacing-getcurrentposition for more details.

In our case it always works the first time but rerunning the function more than 3-4 times, it fails.

Simple workaround: Store it's value in LocalStorage.

Before:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition((position) => {
  let val = results[0].address_components[2].long_name;
  doSthWithVal(val);      
}, (error) => { });

After:

if(localStorage.getItem('getCurrentPosition') !== null) {
  doSthWithVal(localStorage.getItem('getCurrentPosition'));
}
else {
  navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition((position) => {
      let val = results[0].address_components[2].long_name;
      localStorage.setItem('getCurrentPosition',val);
      doSthWithVal(val);      
  }, (error) => { });
}

I noticed this problem recently myself, and I'm not sure how it comes about but it would appear sometimes firefox gets stuck on something loaded in cache. After clearing cache and restarting firefox it appears to function again.

Thanks to everyone for their input, this helped me.

In addition to having to use watchPosition() instead of getCurrentPosition(), I also found that I needed to move the call from within document.ready() to the head.

It might be a good idea to use an IP address geo location service as a fallback method when getCurrentPosition fails. For example with our api https://ip-api.io

$.getJSON("http://ip-api.io/json/",
    function(result) {
        console.log(result);
    });

This happened to me when using Firefox's responsive design mode. There has been a bug report filed. For now, just don't use responsive design mode while using the Geolocation API.

May be it helps some one, On Android i had same issue but i figured it out by using setTimeout inside document.ready so it worked for me secondly you have to increase the timeout just incase if user allow his location after few seconds, so i kept it to 60000 mili seconds (1 minute) allowing my success function to call if user click on allow button within 1 minute.

This library adds a desiredAccuracy and maxWait option to geolocation calls, which means it will keep trying to get a position until the accuracy is within a specified range.