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Chromecast weather display seems to be using wrong location data..

Nikorasu
Community Member

The last couple days, I've noticed my Chromecasts are showing the wrong temperature/weather on their little Weather indicator. I've got my Home location setup in the Google Home app, properly as far as I can tell.. However the Chromecast seems to be entirely ignoring that location, showing it 20 degrees hotter outside than it really, sunny on a cloudy day..

After some troubleshooting and talking to my ISP, I discovered my IP address had recently been updated.. And even tho I live in IL, when looking up my IP address, it's registered to a location in MO.. And my ISP can't seem to do anything about it..

So this leads me to believe the Chromecast is ignoring the user-set Home location for weather, and is instead using that always incorrect IP location data.. My whole life, I've never had my IP location ever point to my real town, it's always been just a rough estimate, and sometimes way off.. So this data should NEVER be used to forecast weather. (Semi-related, this IP location problem also makes my PBS Streaming App on Google TV stop working, cause it thinks I'm not within the WTTW broadcasting area..)

Can someone please contact the Google Engineers about this?

1 Recommended Answer

Well, this is an issue affecting my entire home network, not just the data on my phone.. And does persist with my phone entirely powered off. However my phone is reporting the correct GPS location, and so does Google Maps. I've looked all over my Google account management pages, and all seems correct in there, location or privacy setting wise.. Keep in mind, this was all working perfectly fine last week, and I didn't change anything since then, the only thing that changed was my IP address. And if the weather location was wrong before then, the IP location was near enough for us not to notice.

Another family member on my network, with their own phone and chromecast, is experiencing the same issue, entirely separate from my google account.

Also frankly, none of those other factors should play any part in what location my Chromecast displays. The only factor it should listen to is my user-configured home address, within the Google Home App, or set within the chromecast's menus. Fallbacks, like IP location, should only be used when a user has not set their location. They aren't accurate enough, and could cause someone to miss an extreme weather alert.

Thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot with me, at least.

 

EDIT:

Thankfully, after updating a few IP-location services the other day, now my Chromecasts are showing a temp/condition that actually aligns with my area.. So while I've worked-around the problem, by making my IP-location more accurate.. The problem still may exist, that Chromecasts are using IP for location, rather than user-input. And sadly streaming services are still acting weird on other devices, tho I think I just have to wait longer for those to update.

I think my next Troubleshooting step is to manually set my Home to a very different location, to see if that impacts the weather display or not. I'll update later on that.

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9 REPLIES 9

GothamNY
Bronze
Bronze

Hey @Nikorasu no expert in networking here, but perhaps you might want to take a look at your router setup and see if there's a place to change location settings. Sounds to me that it's pulling location from your IP address which you already know is the case. The TV has no GPS nor does the CCwGTV. I'd also see where your zip code is set up if you're using YouTubeTV that determines your broadcast area within 100 miles or so. I live 85 miles from New York City and 96 miles from Albany, NY and I have PBS in Schenectady, Long Island, NYC and CT.

Do you have anything that deliberately hides your precise location set up on your network? I don't believe this is something Google needs looking into, it's situational and isolated based on how your ISP assigns IPs or doesn't to the proper locations or geographic area.

I'd also check your settings under manage google account. If you've turned off various options there to avoid advertising etc, that too comes into play.

Actually.. I've already tried all of those. My router settings are all correct, and so are all my Google account location settings. Nothing is setup to hide my location, no VPNs or anything like that.

I've spent several days troubleshooting this with my ISP, they've basically confirmed what I'm saying. I was automatically given a new IP address. That address is currently registered by every IP location service, as being in several different states, none of them have the correct location, they all have different ones. And it's very obvious that the weather Chromecast is giving me, is from one of those locations, rather than using my Home Location.

Not sure why my ISP didn't automatically handle updating it.. but apparently they also can't intentionally change my IP to a more local one, for some reason.. So my ONLY option seems to be manually contacting each of the IP location services I can find, and request that they update their records with my new information.. Which can take anywhere from a week to a month, for them to update their records and propagate to other services. Meanwhile my weather display will be wrong, and I can't use several local streaming services, like WTTW.

At least concerning the weather display.. Updating all those location-services doesn't seem like something I should have to do, because the Chromecast is NOT SUPPOSED to use the rarely-accurate IP location for weather. It should use our user-configured Home Address, which is right in the Google Home App. I honestly don't understand how this was overlooked, but that's the only conclusion I can draw from what I'm seeing..

Out of curiosity, what happens when you turn the data on your phone off? What location is reporting? Did you look in the manage Google account? Have you looked in Google Maps? That too plays a part in your Google Account's location and information dissemination.

Well, this is an issue affecting my entire home network, not just the data on my phone.. And does persist with my phone entirely powered off. However my phone is reporting the correct GPS location, and so does Google Maps. I've looked all over my Google account management pages, and all seems correct in there, location or privacy setting wise.. Keep in mind, this was all working perfectly fine last week, and I didn't change anything since then, the only thing that changed was my IP address. And if the weather location was wrong before then, the IP location was near enough for us not to notice.

Another family member on my network, with their own phone and chromecast, is experiencing the same issue, entirely separate from my google account.

Also frankly, none of those other factors should play any part in what location my Chromecast displays. The only factor it should listen to is my user-configured home address, within the Google Home App, or set within the chromecast's menus. Fallbacks, like IP location, should only be used when a user has not set their location. They aren't accurate enough, and could cause someone to miss an extreme weather alert.

Thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot with me, at least.

 

EDIT:

Thankfully, after updating a few IP-location services the other day, now my Chromecasts are showing a temp/condition that actually aligns with my area.. So while I've worked-around the problem, by making my IP-location more accurate.. The problem still may exist, that Chromecasts are using IP for location, rather than user-input. And sadly streaming services are still acting weird on other devices, tho I think I just have to wait longer for those to update.

I think my next Troubleshooting step is to manually set my Home to a very different location, to see if that impacts the weather display or not. I'll update later on that.

Well, that's a good thing. So there were settings somewhere as I suggested masking or preventing the precise location that you were able to change.

Ya, seems good enough for now, at least on the Chromecast side of things, tho I'm still seeing problems with other services. heh Hopefully that just needs time to resolve itself, at this point.

Also, this isn't really something an average consumer can easily change, or would even know was a problem.. All I can do is request those (multiple) companies update their outdated IP location databases, and wait to see if they do, sometimes this month.. A less technical customer would just assume the weather feature is broken, or uses some bad weather service that's never right.

It's likely a rare problem to come up.. but it could easily be a non-issue for Chromecast, if it actually respected the user-configured Home location. 😕

Jeran
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,

Did you have any more questions or need any additional help? If not, I'll go ahead and lock up this thread in 24 hours.

Just checking up,
Jeran
 

Nikorasu
Community Member

I suppose not. It seems to be drawing from the correct location now.. Tho I still find it odd it used the IP address to begin with, rather than just trust the user-input.

Since It's no longer a problem for me, I suppose you can lock the thread..

Jeran
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

I'm glad to hear that it's working again! If it gives you any more issues, or if you have any questions in the future, feel free to create a new thread.

 

Thank you for helping out, GothamNY!

 

Best regards,

Jeran