Sharing · not sending

The capsule at the top of your map says Sharing · not sending. Two things are true at once, and they are both worth stating.

The session is running. Your Group still holds you as sharing, the Sharing Duration is still counting down on the server, and you have not been dropped. Nothing needs restarting to keep the session alive.

This phone is not broadcasting into it. Whatever normally sends your Position (what other apps call your location) is not attached, so nothing new is going out. Your friends see the last place you were, with its age climbing beside it.

Why the countdown is withheld

A countdown is a promise that the thing being counted down is happening. While nothing is being sent, the app takes the countdown away rather than letting it run on and imply otherwise. It comes back on its own the moment sending resumes.

This is the same rule as Sharing · no position, one step further out: that one is there is no Position to send, this one is there is no sending. Your GPS may be working perfectly.

What to do

In order, stopping as soon as it clears:

1. Bring FriendTrack to the front and leave it there for a few seconds, on the map screen. Most of the time that is enough — reopening the app is what re-attaches the sending.
2. Check you have a connection. A phone with no data cannot deliver a Position however good its GPS is. If the app is also telling you it is offline and showing a cached map, that is the cause, and it clears when the signal does.
3. Stop sharing and start again. This is the reliable reset, and it costs you the length of time you had picked — so it is third rather than first. See Stop Sharing and Start Sharing with a Group.

If you were sent a notification about it

On iPhone, a session this phone has stopped feeding usually arrives as a notification reading Sharing was interrupted — open FriendTrack to resume. Opening the app is exactly step 1, and it is the whole fix. The notification goes away by itself once sending resumes, so if it is still there, sending has not resumed yet.

What this is not

• It is not you having stopped sharing. If you had, there would be no capsule at all.
• It is not your Group having removed you, and it is not the session having expired.
• It is not a permission problem. A location permission that has been withdrawn produces Sharing · no position and a line offering Open Settings instead — see My own Position is not updating.