Find my friends no longer accurate

I have been using find my friends for almost a year and it's been great. However, over the last few days the accuracy has suddenly significantly decreased. The location dot jumps around to various places and the program can't refine the location properly and so shows the probable location circle as covering the entire city in which I live. I haven't changed any settings but the usefulness of the program has really changed almost from one day to the next. Any help on this would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Hi there django202,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
iCloud: Troubleshooting Find My Friends
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4008
-Griff W.

Similar Messages

Find My Friends no longer accepts invites

Hello,
All of a sudden my wife and I can't send/receive invitations with Find My Friends App. Worked forever till recently. If I send the request from my phone her name will show up in the list as invited for 20 seconds then disappear. If I send the invite from her phone, I can only type in my email address that is my iCloud, but it stays grey and doesn't turn orange as valid. I have verified iCloud is working on her phone, I can manually do an iCloud backup, her Find my iPhone app works... but also on her phone...in her Contacts for her contact...I've added a photo...and when I log into Find My Friends, at the bottom of the screen where it shows "Me" it doesn't show the photo. Odd.... it's an iPhone 5, and on 7.1 Oh and location services are working on the phone too.
Any suggestions appreciated and thank you in advance. Hopefully I'm just missing something easy.
Regards,
Bob

Hey there doylebob,
It sounds like your Find my Friends invitations are not working correctly. I would use the troubleshooting from the following article to help resolve this issue:
iCloud: Troubleshooting Find My Friends
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4008
Make sure that you have the latest version of the Find My Friends app installed on your iOS device. If the app is up to date, try the steps for troubleshooting apps purchased from the App Store.
Make sure there aren't any current issues listed in System Status affecting Find My Friends.
Make sure the issue you're seeing isn't already covered in the Help menu. Find My Friends Help is available within the Find My Friends app.
Find My Friends 3.0 or later:
On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap Me, then tap Help.
On an iPad, tap the List button, tap Me, tap Info, then tap Help.
Find My Friends 2.1.1 or earlier: Tap the Me tab, tap Account, then tap Find My Friends Help.
Quit and restart the Find My Friends app on your iOS device. Wait a minute before reopening the Find My Friends app.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
All the very best,
Sterling

Alternative to Find My Friends for Emergency Location Service?

I'd like to find a way for family members to be able to view my GPS location in case of an emergency. There are two Apple iOS apps that immediately come to mind -- Find My iPhone and Find My Friends -- but they both have limitations.
Find My iPhone
This is a great app, and I've used it several times. I love the way that it integrates with icloud.com. However, in order to use this app to share my location with family members, I would have to give them my iCloud username and password. They would not only be able to track my location 24/7, but would also have access to other iCloud assets such as email, calendar, and photos. I'm an adult with nothing to hide, but I still have reservations about giving my parents and siblings full access to my iCloud account.
Find My Friends
This app comes very close to what I'm looking for. I could add family members as "friends" in the app and then share my location with them. I like that the app allows you to hide your location. You can choose when you want to make your location available and when you'd rather it remain private.
So, for example, let's say that I'm going on a long trip by myself. I could unhide my location so that my family would know that I made it to my destination safely. Another example would be if I were going hiking by myself in a remote area. In that case I might want to unhide my location so that family could locate me if I fell and got hurt or became incapacitated.
The problem with the hide/unhide setting is that it's completely manual. You have to remember to open the app and toggle the setting. This introduces human error into the equation. What if I forget to unhide my location before going on that hiking trip? Or what if I foget to hide my location after the trip is over? I'd rather there be a better, automated approach to location sharing.
Ideally, I'd like for there to be a way that I could keep my location hidden until requested by family. Family members could use the app to request my location at any time. When a request was made, I would receive a push notification asking me to accept or decline that request. If I didn't respond within a certain amount of time (preferabbly a customizeable amount of time), my location would be automatically unhidden and shared with family.
Here's an example scenario:
Let's say I'm by myself and I'm involved in an accident which leaves me unable to call for help or use my phone. My sister wonders why I didn't show up for our scheduled lunch together. She can't reach me by phone or text message, so she sends a request for my location. The app notifies me that she has requested my location and that I have 10 minutes to respond or my location will be made available to her. I'm hurt and can't use the phone, so after 10 minutes, she sees my location and can try to find me or call for help.
I'd love to see this feature added to Find My Friends. I've looked for other apps that might have this functionality, but can't seem to find any. Most location-sharing apps either make location data available 24/7 or require the user to periodically check in. If anyone has any suggestions for an app that might do what I'm looking for, please let me know. Likewise, if anyone can think of a way that I could use Find My Friends or Find My iPhone to achieve these results, please share that as well.

I discovered an app a couple days ago that works pretty well. It's called Road ID, and it's made by the company that sells the bracelets by the same name. The app is free and has 2 main features: eCrumb and Stationary Alert.
Before going on a run, hike, or ride, you specify how long you think the activity will take. You also specify up to 5 contacts to notify. When you begin your activity, the app sends a text message or email to your chosen contacts with a brief message and a URL. By clicking on the URL, friends can track your current and past GPS location on a map. This is the "eCrumb" feature. Your friends don't have to have the app installed, and they don't need anything other than the provided URL to access your location on the map. When your activity is finished (either because the allotted time expires or you manually end the activity), visitors to the URL can still see your past GPS activity (your movements or "bread crumbs" during your activity) but not your current location. They instead receive a message telling them that you have ended your activity (or something similar).
The "Stationary Alert" feature is pretty neat. Basically it works like this: if you're out for a run, hike, or ride and you remain stationary for longer than 5 minutes, the app's Stationary Alert is triggered. You then have 60 seconds to disable the alert, otherwise the app sends a pre-defined text message or email to your chosen contacts with a link to view your location.
You can enable eCrumbs or Stationary Alert or both. From my testing, if you only enable Stationary Alert, your chosen contacts are not notified of your activity unless the Stationary Alert is triggered. With eCrumbs enabled, they get an alert as soon as you start the activity. I like that I can choose whether my friends/family get to view my real time GPS data or whether they are just alerted if there's an emergency.
I think this app will work well for me when I go running. I'm still testing it out, but it looks promising so far.
Like many third-party app that use location services, this app needs to be running in the background (and most likely needs access to your phone's background app refresh capabilities). That means the app is constantly using your phone's GPS and probably draining your battery more quickly. For that reason, I wouldn't use it for anything other than going out for a run or a hike. I already use GPS apps when I go running, so I'm accustomed to charging my phone before and after a run.
When it comes to something longer, say a solo road trip, I think I'll stick with Jay-Ray's suggestion and just use Find My Friends. I can always set a reminder to hide my location once I get to my destination, or, as Jay-Ray suggested, just leave it on until I need to be sneaky. Find My Friends only uses location data when one of your friends opens the app to request your location. It's similar to Find My iPhone in that it's not constantly using GPS. This definitely saves on battery life.
So, for now, I'm using Road ID for short activities and Find My Friends for longer activities. I don't like having to use 2 different apps, but it's a reasonably easy solution at this time.
P.S. - Don't know if I need one of these, but just in case.......DISCLAIMER: I'm not affiliated with Road ID, Inc., or Apple, Inc., in any way. All app names and feature names are the property of their respective copyright holders/owners and may also be registered trademarks. My recommendations and observations are purely based on my own experiences. Your results may vary. I also don't really go hiking anymore; I'm not a very good runner; and, although I'm often driving by myself, it's certainly not because I'm going on vacation or traveling to fun and exotic locations.

Find my Friends can no longer be installed after iOS8

I Have had Find my Friends on my iPhone with iOS 6 and then 7 and used to work fine, but since I upgraded to iOS8 I can no longer install the App, it will start to install and then delete itself from the home screen. It will have all the entries in the Settings menus until the iPhone is restarted, this is as if it's forbidden to be installed on my iPhone. It's iPhone 5 model ND662KH/A.
i tried different Apple IDs but no change on this phone. The same can be installed on my iPad and there it works properly, just why it will not install on my iPhone 5?!!

Both the Yahoo! Toolbar extension and the Babylon extension have been reported to cause an issue like that. Disable or uninstall those add-ons.
* https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

HT201412 My i Pad 3 shows "cannot Access Find My Friends open the app and review your sign in information to continue sharing your location. And I have two buttons : Later and Open but they don't work, As long as I have this situation I can do nothing on

My i Pad 3 shows "cannot Access Find My Friends open the app and review your sign in information to continue sharing your location. And I have two buttons : Later and Open but they don't work. As long as I have this screen situation, I cann't do anything on my I Pad. Please help !!

I have the same problem on my iPhone4. It is obviously a bug in the software. Once it pops out I am locked out of my phone. I can't even begin to describe the frustration this causes. All that stuff about holding down the buttons is useless. the phone won't even shut off. I can take a screen shot like that or go to voice control. Even when I got to a wifi connection, I can't get on. This app blocks everything else. This is a serious bug and can have serious consequences. The only thing my phone would do is go to voice control and let me play iTunes or phone people. Some smart phone hey?
I have finally got to a place with a wide enough wifi to connect my computer and restore the phone. This has lasted over a day!
I don't even know why Find My Friends is on my phone. Is it part of the package and how do I turn it off?

Can't use Find My Friends on iPhone due to Apple ID not being verified. Can't do this as I can't access my .mac email any longer and I can not change the primary e-mail address for my Apple ID!

Can't use Find My Friends on iPhone due to Apple ID not being verified.
Can't do this as I can't access my .mac email any longer and I can not change the primary e-mail address for my Apple ID!
So my options are:
Create a new Apple ID, use that and lose all the apps I've purhcased with it (a fairly substantial amount)
Somehow Migrate these purchases over to a new Apple ID
Apple let me change the primary ID for the account
Anyone else ran into this before?
I've tried accessing the mail through a mail application using the correct server information, and trying both the old 6 character password and the one I had to change it too after they updated the security guidelines - neither work.
Help would be greatly appreciated as I can see more services down the line not working without the address being verified!

To change the iCloud ID you have to go to Settings>iCloud, tap Delete Account, provide the password for the old ID when prompted to turn off Find My iDevice, then sign back in with the ID you wish to use. When you do this you may find that the password for your old ID isn't accepted. If this should happen, and if your old ID is an earlier version of your current ID, you need to temporarily recreate your old ID by going to https://appleid.apple.com, click Manage my Apple ID and sign in with your current iCloud ID. Click edit next to the primary email account, change it back to your old email address and save the change. Then edit the name of the account to change it back to your old email address. You should not need to verify the old email address. You can now use your current password to turn off Find My iDevice on your device, even though it prompts you for the password for your old account ID. Then save any photo stream photos that you wish to keep to your camera roll. When finished go to Settings>iCloud, tap Delete Account and choose Delete from My iDevice when prompted (your iCloud data will still be in iCloud). Next, go back to https://appleid.apple.com and change your primary email address and iCloud ID name back to the way it was. Now you can go to Settings>iCloud and sign in with your current iCloud ID and password.

Find my friends app no longer works

The find my friend app was working. But now it no longer works. it doesn't work on my iPhone or my iPad. I've looked in settings to see what I can do, and I did read something where it says you can only use one device at a time. So I set it for iphone and it doesn't work. Any help?

i am having problen with find my friend app.
i Am currently running ios 8 on my iphone 5 while my friend is running ios 8 on iphone 6.
however, on my find my friend app, it displays location not found for this friend. I am certain she has accepted my invitation And has shared her location. Are there any known compatible issues and is there any fix for this?

After upgrading my iPhone 4S to iOS6, my Find My Friends app no longer links to my Contacts and does not show contact names. It only shows e-mail addresses and does not link up to the corresponding email address in my Contacts. How can I fix this?

After upgrading my iPhone 4S to iOS6, my Find My Friends app no longer links to my Contacts and does not show contact names. It only shows e-mail addresses and does not link up to the corresponding email address in my Contacts. How can I fix this?

I am also having problems with a site I am building. No matter what websafe font I use it displays as New Times Roman in FireFox. The correct fonts show in both IE9 and Chrome.
In addition, text shifts in FireFox. I have to position other text objects farther and farther apart as I go down the page or they start to overlap. Nav buttons and other images also have to be positioned in the wrong place for them to be in the correct place when the page is opened in FireFox. FireFox should display pages correctly by default. I can't expect th average user to have to tweek his/her settings to display my site.
I have been recommending FireFox on my website as the best browser. I might have to change that and abandon FireFox myself.

HT1338 After recent update I can no longer see some my friends in my "find my friends" app?

Since I updated my iPhone 4 I can no longer see some my friends on the "find my friends" app. I used to be able to follow my husband and son but now it just says "location not available". It's strange because they can still see me and follow me?

Regarding device visibility in iTunes try Andrei Cerbu's post here, JF Fourie's post here, or see TS1538: iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows, in particular section 5, forcing a driver update.
Once the device shows in iTunes you should be able to access the file sharing area from the apps tab of the device when connected.
You may find the apps in question are able to transfer files into Dropbox which might provide an alternate transfer mechanism.
tt2

HT204407 Find My Friends shows all of south Brooklyn as Long Island.

Is there anyway to report Find My Friends bugs?
All of south Brooklyn shows as Long Island.

I found this post after losing secondary iCloud account support for multiple device "Find my iPhone." We used a secondary iCloud account to locate the entire family's iDevices in one place, and Apple removed that functionality in iOS7. Someone suggested using Find my Friends, which seems like a reasonable alternative, but I'm having hte same problem you describe. Before iOS7, were you able to locate devices that were not open to the app? If so, I hope Apple decides to fix this.

Can no longer see my second iPhone in Find my Friends

Hi
I used to be able to see the location of my second iPhone using Find My Friends.
It was listed under the user of my wife's .me account email, and I was able to see the phone under my .mac account.
How can I correct the settings in Find My Friends so I can see my other iphone?

Hi
I used to be able to see the location of my second iPhone using Find My Friends.
It was listed under the user of my wife's .me account email, and I was able to see the phone under my .mac account.
How can I correct the settings in Find My Friends so I can see my other iphone?

Find My Friends and iMessage no longer shows names?

I imagine it did some auto-update and now when I get a text it shows the phone number and not the name, when I look at my Find My Friends app it shows there email instead of a name and photo. I am pretty sure it just needs access to the contact indo but outside of deleting the apps and reinstalling them I do not know how to do this.

Suggest you try signing out of your ID for both services, then force close both apps, reset your phone, then sign back in.

Can't download Find My Friends on devices running iOS 6 or 7

I can no longer download Find My Friends on my kids iPhone 4(iOS 7) and 3gs(iOS 6) as the app store now says it is only for iOS 8 and up.
I used to have one main iCloud account that I used on all my families devices to easily track them. We have had 3 iPhones stolen so it was an issue to be able to locate them quickly and easily. Now that I have set up a family, the main iCloud account on each device is now the individual family members iCloud account. I figured Find My Friends would do for tracking lost and stolen devices, but I can not download the app onto the iPhone 4 and 3gs.
Am I missing something? I have Find My iPhone turned on both devices. The family member shows up in my list of family members on my iPhone 4s running iOS 8 in Find My Friends, but their location is not available. So I am assuming I have to share their location from Find My Friends on their device. I have not tried logging in as them from my device and sharing their location then logging back into my account, but quite frankly I don't have the time to mess with it. Which is why I have an iPhone in the first place...
Thanks for your help in advance.

I have the same issue. I restored an iPhone 4 for my 16 year old niece. Only stipulation was she use Find My Friends. While I was getting the apps for the phone I was unable to download one of the most important features. It would be great if they allowed 2 versions or incorporated support for iOS 7.1.2. I'm sure I'm not the only one who decided to give up the $200 trade in offers to keep a perfectly good phone (looks new still from case use) in the family.

Does Find My Friends need to be installed to work?

Hey all,
I have a problem with something that happened Monday. My fiancee was in the hospital sunday night but went to work monday anyways, and her sister picked her up from our house and dropped her off from work. So she didnt have a car all day. She works at a main campus but there is another smaller campus about 15 minutes drive away. We were texting all morning and then at 10:45am she stopped texting. No problem. After 45 minutes I got conerned because she was in the hospital a few hours before. I texted her "are you OK?". Nothing. I called her. Nothing. Another 30 minutes go by and being so concerned, I login to Find My Friends and she pops up as being at this smallar campus. Let me make it clear, she has nothing to do with this other campus and has no need to be there.
After a total of 2 hours of no responses, she texts me back and tells me she was in a meeting at her boses office (which is in the same biulding and floor as her own building). Confused, I login to Find My Friends again and now I see her at the shuttle stop at the smaller location. I watch it as she appears to have gotten onto the company shuttle that takes workers from the main campus to the smaller campus. So it appears FMF was 100% accurate as it was stationary at the smaller campus for 45 minutes, then jumped to the shuttle stop and then I watched the shuttle drive to the main campus through the city.
Now, the only saving grace is that her mom also has an iPhone. However, sometimes her mom would be logged into her Apple ID account (but never her iCloud account). Her mom updated her iPhone about 6 days ago to iOS 5. She created an iCloud account and verified it, but never setup the iCloud section in her settings and never installed Find my Friends on her iPhone. Her mom does work at this smaller campus. So, my question is could her moms deivce have replaced my fiancees device for Find My Friends? Even though she never setup the iCloud settings on her phone and Find My Friends was not installed??
Thanks all for your help. This was an caring and innocent discovery that I cannot stop worrying about.

No, Find my friends would need to be installed, you change the device being followed from the find my friends settings. It could be either device being followed depending on the settings, not which was last logged in, you can choose any device to follow from any device, the chanes are then synced across all devices.

Apple, get rid of find my friends!!!

MY fiancé talked me into installing this app and keeping the location services on all the time. We thought it was a great app at first because we could both see each others locations all the time. Big mistake. Very often is the app wrong (off by 300ft very often and sometimes shows me in another city of which I am not). THIS IS A STALKING APP!!! I am soooooo tired of trying to defend myself when he calls me up in a panic wanting to know why find my friends shows me across the street or somewhere I'm not! This app is breaking up our relationship. It's accurate most of the time , but when it isn't I feel like I'm going insane trying to explain myself all the time. What a horrible, horrible idea for an app! It is about to break us up and I haven't done anything wrong!! GET RID OF IT before it breaks up anymore good relationships with its incorrect location id's!!

roaminggnome wrote:
"This app is breaking up our relationship"
Odd place to place the blame.
You relationship is not strong enough to overcome an app that is sometimes off?
I agree mate. That's messed up!!!!

Find my friends no longer accurate

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for