Background App Refresh unavailable & no alerts

Onedrew · Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:52 am Post subject:

Don't know about Car Play, but we are just buying a new Ford with latest version of Sync 3 and hoping to make Waze work on that. Will report back once we have tried it.

steveJ · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:41 pm Post subject:

Before I start with this post I’d like to say this is only my take on it.
Here goes...
I’m not sure that having Background App Refresh (BAR) with CamerAlert would have any great benefit.
BAR let’s apps that are running in the background fetch up to date information, however CamerAlert is a database held on the users device that the users update manually, usually weekly.

It would seem that the only thing that CamerAlert needs to know whilst running in the background is ‘location’, which you can set to ‘always’ in Location Services. Your approximate location is determined using available information from cellular network data, local Wi-fi networks (if Wi-fi is on), and gps (if available).

As I understand it, there are apps that would, and do, benefit from BAR, such as Twitter of Facebook, where a constant update would be beneficial, but this wouldn’t appear to be of benefit to CamerAlert.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but if anyone else has a better theory then please share it.

Steve

Onedrew · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:29 am Post subject:

Thanks, Steve. It may well be coincidence that my problems with CamerAlert running in background have started since it disappeared from the BAR list. I only feel safe now running a Garmin with the database installed to let me know when it has dropped out. It would be interesting to see if the problem went away by restoring BAR for CA.

PaulB2005 · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:06 am Post subject:

Steve - I'm afraid you are wrong. Background refresh has nothing to do with updating the app.

Background refresh allows apps in the background to run as if they are in the foreground.

For example run the TomTom app in the foreground on an iPhone. When a phone call comes through (or you bring another app to the foreground) with background refresh off you don't get any more instructions until TomTom is the visible app again. With background refresh on it continues to pop up notifications with your next turn etc.

As Onedrew states when background refresh was lost this problem started. In fact when CA was first released there was an issue that UNTIL background refresh was enabled the app wouldn't work in the background.

Onedrew · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:11 am Post subject:

Paul
Are you certain about this? If so, it explains everything.
I have emailed Darren who has passed it on, but so far no news. It is disappointing that there's no response: just a 'We're looking at it' would be enough.
Andrew

steveJ · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:43 am Post subject:

Paul, thanks for the reply. As I said, it was only my take on it, and as I’m not in any way an Apple app programmer, more of a theory!

If what you are saying re. an app running in the foreground stopping CamerAlert from giving notifications without Background refresh, then is there a plausible explanation as to why would this only happens occasionally and not all the time, and, as I always run Google maps in the foreground why have I not experienced this problem at all?

Steve

PaulB2005 · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:45 pm Post subject:

Onedrew · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:58 pm Post subject:

It certainly used to be in the BAR list. There must have been a reason.

nhalliday · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 05, 2006 Posts: 15

Did this issue ever get resolved? I'm thinking of moving to iOS, but I need CA to operate correctly whilst I'm using another app for navigation.

Onedrew · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:38 pm Post subject:

Still unreliable, sadly. Not seen a response from tech team although Darren did pass message on. It’s a shame. Still using separate SatNav for CamerAlert. It is very frustrating thst we cannot get any useful feedback, even just an acknledgment that the team are looking at it. Reading this stuff must put off a significant number of potential subscribers.

nhalliday · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 05, 2006 Posts: 15

Thanks for that. I need to move from Android to iOS for other reasons, and I'd prefer to be able to continue subscribing to the database. However it seems that it's time to look for a speed camera app with better functionality.

Onedrew · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:19 pm Post subject:

Trouble is, you won't find a better database. If there was another app to which one could load the pgpsw data, that would be magic. Would be grateful if you could report back on any progress.

Onedrew · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 3:26 pm Post subject:

For me, it would great if it could just return to the format before BAR was dropped. It worked brilliantly up to then.

I would happily make more donations if we could get any response from pgpsw here, which is the only route we have to raise these fundamental issues.

There should be a direct line for basic functionality complaints.

steveJ · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 4:00 pm Post subject:

Well I have to say I’ve been using CamerAlert as a background app on my iPhone XR with both Google maps and Waze, and had it running in the background for both of these whilst running them in Apple Carplay, and CameraAlert has never failed to give me alerts whilst running any of the above apps.
All the alerts are set up to come across my car’s Infotainment system as Bluetooth calls and work fine.

I hope you get an answer as to why you cannot get it to work, but as I say, for me it works fine.

Steve

Onedrew · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 4:08 pm Post subject:

That's interesting. Does CA apear in you Background Apps Refresh list in General Settings? For me CA does work for a while using Bluetooth speaker in one car, Bluetooth entertainment system in another, but drops out in the next 5 to 30 minutes. It's inconsistent and used not to be.

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