Bug Report

Problem

When comparing the timestamps of the object returned by the geolocation plugin, we found that the timestamps are from before the call to the getCurrentPosition function. We log

• the time when we make the request to getCurrentPosition

• the timestamp returned by the geolocation.

What is expected to happen?

The timestamp of the geolocation-object should be newer than the timestamp that we log before the call to the plugin is made.

What does actually happen?

The timestamp of the geolocation-object is most of the times (not consistently) older than the timestamp that we log before the call to the plugin is made. Example: Timestamp_Call - Timestamp_GPS 15:45:28.475 - 15:45:28.466

The question is: Is the timestamp wrong or does the plugin return a value coming from an older call to getCurrentPosition?

Information

Our options are: timeout: Infinity, maximumAge: 0, enableHighAccuracy: true

I checked this on a trivial app containing no other plugins. In the browser we observe the expected behaviour with the timestamp of the GPS position being slightly newer than the timestamp of the call. Example: Timestamp_Call - Timestamp_GPS 15:45:0.241 - 15:45:0.276

I deployed it via Xcode and ran it directly on the device.

Command or Code

App component:

import { Component, ViewChild } from '@angular/core';
import { Nav } from 'ionic-angular';

@Component({
  templateUrl: 'app.html'
})
export class MyApp {

  @ViewChild(Nav) nav: Nav;

  private _timer;
  private readStartTimestamp;
  private log = [];

  ngOnInit() {
    this._startWatchingPosition();
}

  _getCurrentPosition() {
      this.readStartTimestamp = new Date();
      navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition((position) => {
        (<any>position).gpsStartTimestamp = this.formatDate(this.readStartTimestamp);
        (<any>position).gpsTimestamp = this.formatDate(new Date(position.timestamp));
        this.log.push(position);
      }, (err) => {
        console.log("Error getting current location: " + err.message);
      }, {
          timeout: Infinity,
          maximumAge: 0,
          enableHighAccuracy: true
      });
  }

  _startWatchingPosition() {
      clearInterval(this._timer);
      this._getCurrentPosition();
      this._timer = setInterval(() => {
        this._getCurrentPosition();
      }, 5000);
      console.log("Watching position started");
  };

  private formatDate(date: Date) {
    return date.getHours() + ':' + date.getMinutes() + ':' + date.getSeconds() + '.' + date.getMilliseconds();
  }
}

App template:

<ion-content>

  <h1>TESTAPP Geolocation Plugin</h1>
  <div style="padding: 10px;overflow: scroll; -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; user-select: text; -webkit-user-select: text" id="text">
      <ion-item *ngFor="let position of log.slice().reverse()">
          {{position.gpsStartTimestamp}} - {{position.gpsTimestamp}} - {{position.coords.longitude}} / {{position.coords.latitude}}
      </ion-item>
  </div>
</ion-content>

If necessary, I can provide a sample project, but it really only consists of these two files + bootstrapping.

cordova add platform ios cordova prepare ios Run with Xcode on iOS Device

Environment, Platform, Device

I tested it on iOS 12.1 (iPhone) and 12.3 (iPad), both showing the mentioned behaviour. I didn’t test it on Android. The browser does not show the mentioned behaviour, but behaves as expected.

Version information

cordova platform ls Installed platforms: ios 5.0.1

cordova plugin ls cordova-plugin-geolocation 4.0.1 “Geolocation”

cordova --version 9.0.0 (cordova-lib@9.0.1)

from package.json:

"cordova-ios": "5.0.1",
"cordova-plugin-geolocation": "4.0.1",
"ionic-angular": "3.9.6"

ionic --version 4.10.2

OSX 10.14.5 Xcode 10.2.1

Checklist

• I searched for existing GitHub issues
• I updated all Cordova tooling to most recent version
• I included all the necessary information above