Google Maps may be the world’s most popular mobile navigation app, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is always working exactly as expected.
And the location sharing feature, for example, has been acting up recently, proving that some features could just break down for no clear reason without users doing anything.
More specifically, users who attempted to share their location for more than 24 hours in Google Maps ended up unable to do so, most often because the “Until you turn this off” setting was no longer there.
Oddly enough, this problem is only affecting certain users, and it’s not exactly clear what’s causing the whole thing in the first place.
Google, however, has recently acknowledged the problems, explaining that it’s aware of all the reports and is now investigating to see precisely what’s causing this weird behavior.
In the meantime, the company says, users can turn to a workaround that could help bring back the feature in Google Maps.
First and foremost, they need to verify their age using this page, as for some reason, this information is no longer available for some Google accounts. In other words, even if you’ve verified your age before, you need to do it again, as the info has been reset.
Google says the location sharing recipient must also use a Gmail account when trying to use the “Until you turn this off” setting.
If the age verification trick didn’t make any difference, there’s something else you could try. Google tells users to go to the location sharing settings, select the “Until you turn this off” entry, scroll to the right on the people suggestions, tap the more option, and select a recipient that has a Gmail account.
Once you do this, the location sharing should be working properly, with the data to continue to be available for your contact until you manually disable it.
More specifically, users who attempted to share their location for more than 24 hours in Google Maps ended up unable to do so, most often because the “Until you turn this off” setting was no longer there.
Oddly enough, this problem is only affecting certain users, and it’s not exactly clear what’s causing the whole thing in the first place.
Google, however, has recently acknowledged the problems, explaining that it’s aware of all the reports and is now investigating to see precisely what’s causing this weird behavior.
In the meantime, the company says, users can turn to a workaround that could help bring back the feature in Google Maps.
First and foremost, they need to verify their age using this page, as for some reason, this information is no longer available for some Google accounts. In other words, even if you’ve verified your age before, you need to do it again, as the info has been reset.
Google says the location sharing recipient must also use a Gmail account when trying to use the “Until you turn this off” setting.
If the age verification trick didn’t make any difference, there’s something else you could try. Google tells users to go to the location sharing settings, select the “Until you turn this off” entry, scroll to the right on the people suggestions, tap the more option, and select a recipient that has a Gmail account.
Once you do this, the location sharing should be working properly, with the data to continue to be available for your contact until you manually disable it.