You shared your location, someone's waiting on you, and your dot just… froze. It's stuck on a street you left ten minutes ago, or it says "location unavailable" and won't budge. This is the most common frustration in location sharing, and the good news is that almost every case comes down to a handful of phone settings quietly throttling your GPS. Below is a practical, do-this-in-order checklist for both iPhone and Android — plus the moment when a clean, browser-based live location share simply beats fighting a flaky app.
Why live location stops updating in the first place
"Live" location is just your phone taking a fresh GPS reading every few seconds and republishing it. Anything that interrupts that loop makes your dot freeze — and from the other side it looks identical whether you ran out of battery, lost signal, or a setting silently switched your GPS to low-power mode. The usual suspects are short and predictable:
- Location permission is off, set to "only while using," or limited to an approximate area.
- Battery saver / low power mode has throttled background GPS to save juice.
- Background activity for the app (or browser tab) is suspended, so it can't post updates when you're not looking at it.
- No data signal — the phone has a fresh fix but no way to send it.
- Screen Time / parental restrictions have location switched off and greyed out.
Work through the list below top to bottom. Most frozen shares come back to life within the first two or three steps.
Fix live location not updating on iPhone
If your share is stuck — or "share my location" is greyed out entirely — these are the iOS settings to check, in order.
- Turn Location Services on. Open Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services and confirm the master switch is on. If the whole option is greyed out, jump to the Screen Time step below — that's almost always the cause.
- Allow the right app the right access. In that same Location Services list, find the app (or your browser, e.g. Safari). Set it to While Using the App at minimum, and turn on Precise Location. With Precise off, you broadcast a fuzzy neighbourhood instead of a moving dot.
- Drop Low Power Mode. Settings › Battery — if Low Power Mode is on (the battery icon is yellow), it pauses background refresh and slows location updates. Turn it off while you're sharing, or plug in.
- Enable Background App Refresh. Settings › General › Background App Refresh. If it's off globally or for that app, the share can only update while it's open on screen. For a browser-based share, the simplest fix is to keep the tab in the foreground.
- Check the network. A fresh GPS fix is useless if it can't upload. Confirm Wi-Fi or cellular data is on for the app, toggle Airplane Mode on and off to re-grab a signal, and try again.
- Restart the share. Stop the share, close the tab or app, reopen, and start fresh. This re-requests permission and forces a brand-new GPS fix.
If the toggle is greyed out: Screen Time
When Location Services or a sharing toggle is dimmed and won't respond, it's usually locked by restrictions. Go to Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Location Services and make sure changes are Allowed. On a child's device this may be controlled by a parent's passcode — you'll need that to unlock it.
Fix location sharing on Android
Android wording shifts a little by manufacturer (Samsung, Pixel, Xiaomi), but the settings map cleanly onto the same checklist.
- Turn on Location and High accuracy. Swipe down and confirm the Location tile is on, then open Settings › Location. Make sure Use location is enabled and, under Location services, that Google Location Accuracy (high accuracy) is on — this is the single most common cause of a vague, stuck dot.
- Grant precise location to the app. Settings › Apps › [your app or browser] › Permissions › Location. Choose Allow while using the app and turn on Use precise location. "Approximate" location produces a frozen-looking, low-resolution position.
- Remove battery restrictions. This is the big one on Android. In Apps › [app] › Battery, set it to Unrestricted (or "Don't optimize"). Aggressive battery saving silently kills background location, which is exactly what makes a share freeze the moment you pocket the phone.
- Turn off Battery Saver. The system-wide Battery Saver mode throttles background data and location. Switch it off while sharing, or keep the phone charging.
- Allow background data. In Apps › [app] › Mobile data & Wi-Fi, enable Background data so updates can upload even when the screen is off.
- Refresh the connection. Toggle Airplane Mode on and off, or switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, to force a new network handshake — then reopen the share.
When it's the network, not your phone
Sometimes every setting is correct and the dot still lags. That usually means the GPS chip is fine but updates can't get out. Quick ways to tell the difference, and what to do:
| What you see | Likely cause | Try this |
|---|---|---|
| Dot frozen at one spot, "last seen X min ago" | No data signal to upload the fix | Toggle Airplane Mode; move to better coverage |
| "Location unavailable" right away | Permission off or GPS disabled | Re-check the permission steps above |
| Dot jumps in big, blocky hops | Approximate / low-accuracy location | Turn on Precise / High accuracy |
| Updates fine on screen, freeze when pocketed | Background refresh / battery throttling | Allow background activity; disable battery saver |
| Whole share dies after a while | Phone slept the tab or app to save power | Keep the tab in front, or plug in for long trips |
Indoors, in tunnels, on trains, and in dense city canyons, GPS naturally degrades — your dot may stall until you're back under open sky. That's physics, not a broken app, and it clears up on its own once you have a clearer view of the horizon.
When a clean browser share beats a flaky app
Here's the honest part: a lot of "live location not working" stories aren't really your fault. Heavy apps run background services that the operating system is increasingly determined to put to sleep, they pile up cached state, and a single denied permission can break the whole chain quietly. If you've worked the checklist and it's still stuck, the fastest fix is often to stop debugging the app and switch to something with fewer moving parts.
A browser-based share sidesteps most of these failure modes. There's nothing to install or update, no separate account to misconfigure, and the permission prompt appears right when you tap Start — so there's no hidden setting to forget. To get going:
- Open the live location tool and tap Start. Allow the browser's location prompt and it grabs a fresh fix immediately.
- Send the private link to one person. They open it in any browser and watch your dot move on the view live location page — no app, no sign-up on their end.
- Keep the tab in the foreground on long trips, and keep the phone charged. Foregrounded, a browser tab isn't subject to the same aggressive background-killing that freezes native apps.
And if the other person doesn't actually need to follow you — they just need to know where you are right now — skip live sharing entirely and send a single static pin with share my location. A one-time snapshot can't freeze mid-trip, because there's no continuous loop to break. For a deeper walkthrough of starting and stopping a share cleanly, see how to share your live location safely.
A quick recovery checklist
Stuck right now? Run this in order and your dot usually wakes up:
- Location Services / Use location on.
- App permission set to allow, with Precise / High accuracy enabled.
- Low Power / Battery Saver off (or plug in).
- Background refresh / background data allowed — or keep the share tab open.
- Toggle Airplane Mode to refresh the network.
- Stop and restart the share to force a new fix.
- Still stuck? Switch to a browser-based live share, or send a static location snapshot instead.
Most frozen shares are one toggle away from working — usually precise location, battery saver, or background refresh. Work the list, refresh the network, and if an app keeps fighting you, don't. Open the live location tool, send a fresh link, and let the other person watch you arrive — no install, no settings maze, just a dot that actually moves.