Sharing · no position

Somebody in your Group started sharing, and you cannot see them. Either they are not drawn on the map at all, or their dot is sitting somewhere they clearly are not.

Their line says Sharing · no position, or where they should be it says Not yet on the map. This page is about that state on their phone. If it is your own Position (what other apps call your location) that has stopped, the page for that is My own Position is not updating.

What the label means

Three facts, and the third is the useful one.

1. Their session is real. They tapped a length of time, the server holds them as sharing, and they have not been dropped. Nothing about the Group needs fixing.
2. Their phone has not given the app a Position to send. So there is nothing to draw. This is not a delay in delivery; there is nothing in the pipe.
3. Nobody can tell you why from here. Not you, not them from inside the app, and not anybody reading a server log. A phone indoors, a phone with location switched off, and a phone in a bag are the same thing seen from outside: silence.

That third point is the honest shape of this page, and it is why the rest of it is short.

First, work out which of the two states you are looking at

They read almost the same and they mean different things.

Their line says	What has happened
Sharing · no position	Their phone has produced no Position for this session at all
Sharing · 3 min ago	It produced one three minutes ago, and nothing since
Last seen 12 min ago	It produced one twelve minutes ago, and nothing since. Past five minutes the app stops calling it live
Not sharing	They are not sharing. There is nothing to see and nothing is broken

If the line reads Not sharing, stop here — they have not started a session, or theirs ran out. Only they can start another.

What you can do

Only one thing on your side is worth checking, and then it is over to them.

1. Check you are both on the same Map. A friend looking at a different Map is not drawn on yours, and this is the one cause that looks identical and is entirely fixable from your phone. See which map a friend is on.
2. Check they are not simply outside the picture. A venue Map stops at the venue’s edge, and somebody in the overflow car park may be off it.
3. Message them. This is not a cop-out; it is the only remaining instrument. The one thing that makes a phone produce a Position is somebody picking it up.

What to ask them to do

Three things, in this order, and the first two take seconds:

1. Open FriendTrack, on the map screen. Bringing the app to the front is what most often restores it.
2. Read the line under the capsule at the top of their map. It says which of the two problems they have. Location is off — FriendTrack can’t place you means a permission they must fix, and the line carries Open Settings to do it. 🛰 No GPS signal means their phone has nothing to answer with, and stepping outside fixes it.
3. Walk a few steps, ideally outdoors. A phone that has not moved and has no view of the sky is the hardest case for any location app, and movement is what breaks it.

What not to do

• Do not ask them to stop sharing and start again as a first move. It does not change their phone’s ability to produce a Position, and it costs them the session and the length of time they picked.
• Do not read their last known dot as current. The age beside their name is the important half of that line, and it is there precisely so a stale dot cannot pass as a live one.
• Do not conclude they have hidden from you. Stopping a session removes the row’s sharing state entirely — you would see Not sharing, not a stale position.

A worked example

Four of you are at a festival. Three are on the map; the fourth reads Sharing · no position.

1. You check the map name at the top: everybody is on the same one, so that is not it.
2. You message them. They open the app and read 🛰 No GPS signal — your position may be out of date, standing inside a metal-roofed bar.
3. They walk out to the field. Within a few seconds their line reads Sharing · just now and they appear where they actually are.

Nothing was broken, nothing was restarted, and no setting was changed. That is the commonest outcome by a wide margin.