Location Services not working in iOS 8

Question

My app that worked fine on iOS 7 doesn\'t work with the iOS 8 SDK.

CLLocationManager doesn\'t return a location, and I don\'t see my app under

Answer 1

This is issue with ios 8 Add this to your code

if (IS_OS_8_OR_LATER)
{
    [locationmanager requestWhenInUseAuthorization];

    [locationmanager requestAlwaysAuthorization];
}

and to info.plist:

 <key>NSLocationUsageDescription</key>
 <string>I need location</string>
 <key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
 <string>I need location</string>
 <key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
 <string>I need location</string>

Answer 2

A little helper for all of you that have more than one Info.plist file...

find . -name Info.plist | xargs -I {} /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription string' {} 

It will add the needed tag to all of the Info.plist files in the current directory (and subfolders).

Another is:

find . -name Info.plist | xargs -I {} /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Set NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription $YOURDESCRIPTION' {} 

It will add your description to all files.

Answer 3

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.locationManager = [[CLLocationManager alloc] init];
    
    self.locationManager.delegate = self;
    if([self.locationManager respondsToSelector:@selector(requestAlwaysAuthorization)]){
        NSUInteger code = [CLLocationManager authorizationStatus];
        if (code == kCLAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined && ([self.locationManager respondsToSelector:@selector(requestAlwaysAuthorization)] || [self.locationManager respondsToSelector:@selector(requestWhenInUseAuthorization)])) {
            // choose one request according to your business.
            if([[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:@"NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription"]){
                [self.locationManager requestAlwaysAuthorization];
            } else if([[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:@"NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription"]) {
                [self.locationManager  requestWhenInUseAuthorization];
            } else {
                NSLog(@"Info.plist does not contain NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription or NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription");
            }
        }
    }
    [self.locationManager startUpdatingLocation];
}

>  #pragma mark - CLLocationManagerDelegate

    - (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
    {
        NSLog(@"didFailWithError: %@", error);
        UIAlertView *errorAlert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
                                   initWithTitle:@"Error" message:@"Failed to Get Your Location" delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil];
        [errorAlert show];
    }
    
    - (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation
    {
        NSLog(@"didUpdateToLocation: %@", newLocation);
        CLLocation *currentLocation = newLocation;
        
        if (currentLocation != nil) {
            longitudeLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.8f", currentLocation.coordinate.longitude];
            latitudeLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.8f", currentLocation.coordinate.latitude];
        }
    }

In iOS 8 you need to do two extra things to get location working: Add a key to your Info.plist and request authorization from the location manager asking it to start. There are two Info.plist keys for the new location authorization. One or both of these keys is required. If neither of the keys are there, you can call startUpdatingLocation but the location manager won’t actually start. It won’t send a failure message to the delegate either (since it never started, it can’t fail). It will also fail if you add one or both of the keys but forget to explicitly request authorization. So the first thing you need to do is to add one or both of the following keys to your Info.plist file:

• NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription
• NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription

Both of these keys take a string

which is a description of why you need location services. You can enter a string like “Location is required to find out where you are” which, as in iOS 7, can be localized in the InfoPlist.strings file.

Answer 4

For those using Xamarin, I had to add the key NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription to the info.plist manually since it was not available in the dropdowns in either Xamarin 5.5.3 Build 6 or XCode 6.1 - only NSLocationUsageDescription was in the list, and that caused the CLLocationManager to continue to fail silently.

Answer 5

I get a similar error in iOS9 (working with Xcode 7 and Swift 2): Trying to start MapKit location updates without prompting for location authorization. Must call -[CLLocationManager requestWhenInUseAuthorization] or -[CLLocationManager requestAlwaysAuthorization] first. I was following a tutorial but the tutor was using iOS8 and Swift 1.2. There are some changes in Xcode 7 and Swift 2, I found this code and it works fine for me (if somebody needs help):

import UIKit
import MapKit
import CoreLocation

class MapViewController: UIViewController, MKMapViewDelegate, CLLocationManagerDelegate {

    // MARK: Properties
    @IBOutlet weak var mapView: MKMapView!

    let locationManager = CLLocationManager()

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        self.locationManager.delegate = self
        self.locationManager.desiredAccuracy = kCLLocationAccuracyBest
        self.locationManager.requestWhenInUseAuthorization()
        self.locationManager.startUpdatingLocation()
        self.mapView.showsUserLocation = true

    }

    // MARK: - Location Delegate Methods

    func locationManager(manager: CLLocationManager, didUpdateLocations locations: [CLLocation]) {
        let location = locations.last
        let center = CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: location!.coordinate.latitude, longitude: location!.coordinate.longitude)
        let region = MKCoordinateRegion(center: center, span: MKCoordinateSpan(latitudeDelta: 1, longitudeDelta: 1))
        self.mapView.setRegion(region, animated: true)
    }

    func locationManager(manager: CLLocationManager, didFailWithError error: NSError) {
        print("Errors: " + error.localizedDescription)
    }
}

Finally, I put that in info.plist: Information Property List: NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription Value: App needs location servers for staff

Answer 6

I ended up solving my own problem.

Apparently in iOS 8 SDK, requestAlwaysAuthorization (for background location) or requestWhenInUseAuthorization (location only when foreground) call on CLLocationManager is needed before starting location updates.

There also needs to be NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription or NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription key in Info.plist with a message to be displayed in the prompt. Adding these solved my problem.

For more extensive information, have a look at: Core-Location-Manager-Changes-in-ios-8