Troubleshooting

Save is grayed out and the summary says no positions were recorded. Location is off for Geo Tracker. Open Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Geo Tracker ▸ Location and choose While Using the App, with Precise Location on. The recording screen also shows a red banner with a Settings button while this is the case.

The route is a few points kilometers apart. Precise Location is off; the orange banner says so. Turn it on in the same place.

The badge at the top reads “Waiting for GPS” or stays gray. The iPhone has no position: indoors, in a tunnel, under a thick roof. Nothing is recorded until it does; the recording goes on by itself when the signal returns. Outdoors it takes a few seconds after Start.

There is a gap in the line. Either you paused (each pause is a break in the file, on purpose), or the iPhone had no trustworthy position for that stretch, among tall buildings or indoors, and Geo Tracker did not draw a guess. See Accuracy. To draw the missing stretch by hand, send the track to GPX Explore.

The distance differs from my watch. A few percent is normal between any two devices, more among tall buildings. Since 3.1, positions the iPhone guessed without satellites no longer add to the distance, so a city walk reads closer to the watch than it used to. See Comparing with a watch.

Climb shows a dash. There is no height to trust yet: GPS heights are kept only within 8 m, which among buildings can take minutes. With a barometer in the iPhone, allow Motion & Fitness (Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Geo Tracker) and keep Climb from the Barometer on in Settings; the climb then starts as soon as you go up or down.

The recording paused by itself. Auto-Pause is on for that activity in Settings. It resumes when you move again; turn it off for walks with many stops.

The reminder never came. Notifications are off for Geo Tracker, or Remind Me is Off. The first Start asks for notifications only when the reminder is on; allow them later in Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Geo Tracker ▸ Notifications.

The card on the Lock Screen is gone. The recording was finished (from the card, the Watch or the reminder), or Live Activities are off in Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Geo Tracker. A finished recording is in Tracks.

I tapped Finish on the Lock Screen and there was no summary. That is how Finish works there: the track is saved at once under its default name, and the app opens on it. Rename it in Tracks, and add notes or photos from its menu.

The buttons on my Apple Watch do nothing, or show an old state. The Watch shows the iPhone’s recording and needs the iPhone within reach. Bring the two together and try again; the card refreshes itself.

The app was closed during a recording. It comes back by itself with the next position and the recording carries on, with a banner saying so; the time it was away is a gap, not a straight line. If you quit it on purpose, open it again and the recording is still there.

Photos were “taken outside this track’s time”. Add Photos from This Walk places photos by the time they were taken: during the recording, within two minutes of its start or end, or, failing that, where their own location data says. A photo from another day is not on this track. Photos taken during a pause land where the pause began or ended.

A photo from the Lock Screen camera went to my photo library. No recording was running at that moment and no saved track covers its time, so it was kept there rather than lost. The camera says Not recording: photos go to your photo library while that is the case.

“Saved, but not to Apple Health.” The file is safe; the workout was refused. The message says why: permission (Health app ▸ your picture ▸ Apps ▸ Geo Tracker), a track without times, or one already saved. A save from a locked phone waits for the next time the app is open. See Apple Health.

Rename or Delete is refused. Photos are still being added to that track; try again when the import finishes.

A GPX file I put in the Geo Tracker folder is not in the list. Pull the list down to rescan, or open the file with Geo Tracker from Files. A file whose content is already in the library is skipped and the list says so.

There is no iCloud Drive section in Settings. iCloud Drive is off for Geo Tracker, or you are not signed in to iCloud. Turn it on in Settings ▸ your name ▸ iCloud ▸ Saved to iCloud ▸ iCloud Drive ▸ Geo Tracker, and the section appears.

The Settings button in a track opens settings, but the app’s Settings are elsewhere. They are the same settings: the gear on the Record tab and Settings in a track’s toolbar open one screen.

Something else? Write to us.