Current location settings are interfering with Zenly - what to do

The Zenly app lets you share your real-time location with your friends. This is a great assistant for parents, especially since you can use it to find out how much charge is left on another user’s device. The program itself has a chat where you can communicate with friends who already have Zenly installed.

For the application to work, access to the location is required, which means GPS must be working on the phone. But sometimes problems arise with this; more precisely, a certain error “Current location settings are interfering with work” is displayed in Zenly. What to do about it and how to deal with it?

Why does the “Location not found” notification appear?

The reasons for the appearance of the “Location not found” status in the popular Latitude application are quite varied, and can be boiled down to the following points:

• Your spouse (child, friend, etc.) has the wrong date and time set on their phone;
• Your phone or the phone of your spouse (child, friend, etc.) is not connected to a Wi-Fi network or mobile phone line;
• The person you are interested in has GPS (location services) disabled on their phone;
• The person activated the function to hide his location;
• The person is not authorized in the Find My app;
• Your spouse's (child's, friend's, etc.) phone is located in a country or region where Apple does not support location tracking.
• The phone of your spouse (child, friend, etc.) is discharged or turned off;
• There was a problem with your phone or the phone of the person you are following.

Let's look at ways to fix the "Location not found" problem in the Find My app.

Method 1. What to do if Zenly does not start

Problems with location updates only appear on Android devices. However, the exact reason has not yet been established. But it helps to set up and continue working in Zenly without the error “Current location settings are interfering with Zenly” using the following set of measures.

First of all, you need to disable all the applications that you installed to optimize your phone's battery. They can be turned off or removed from the system. Such programs close applications running in the background.

While for Zenly to fully function, the application must be accessible to others. If there are built-in optimizers, they should also be disabled. These may include saving modes and mixed functions to extend the life of the smartphone.

Check if GPS is enabled on the target device

As you know, disabling the GPS function significantly saves battery power. That's why many people turn off the GPS function when they don't need it or don't use it at that particular moment. At the same time, the functionality of the Latitude application allows you to track your location in addition to GPS using cellular data and the capabilities of Bluetooth LE technology. The latter determines the phone's geoposition with the help of other nearby Apple gadgets. But the data obtained in this way is not always reliable or accurate.

You may receive a “Location not found” notification if the person you are interested in somehow leaves the cellular network coverage. Therefore, it would be better to use GPS.

1. To do this, on the monitored phone you need to go to “Settings”, then select “Privacy”, and then “Location Services”.
2. Here you need to check if the location service slider is activated.
3. If necessary, enable these services by moving the slider to the right.

How to hide location in Zenly

To completely hide information about your own location in Zenli, you need to turn off geolocation by following these steps:

1. Go to the settings section of your smartphone.
2. Open the “Applications” menu and find “Zenly” in it.
3. If there is an option that sets restrictions, you must use it.
4. Otherwise, you will need to go to the general settings section, disable geolocation transfer and save the changes.
5. Then you need to clear local and general cash.

Most likely, when you restart the application, the system will again prompt the user to grant rights to track their own location. You must refuse this offer and restart Zenly. After this, no one will be able to determine the geolocation.

Correct date and time display

Incorrect date and time values ​​on the monitored device may prevent the Latitude app from working correctly and cause the “Location not found” error. You need to configure your phone to automatically set the date and time from the network. This way, the application will work accurately in most cases.

To set the date and time automatically:

1. Go to your gadget's settings;
2. Select “Basic” from the list;
3. Next, tap on “Date and Time”;
4. If necessary, activate the “Automatic settings” option by moving the “Automatic” slider to the “On” position.

How to change location in Zenly

Any Zenly user can not only hide their own geolocation, but also set a different location using a VPN. There are a lot of applications in the Play Market and AppStore that allow you to change data about the current location. For example, VPN Master, Express VPN, Hotspot Shield and Proton VPN. If a person sets “Prague” in the location settings, for everyone else he will be displayed in this location. The change algorithm for most applications is virtually identical:

1. Activate VPN and select any location from the list.

2. Confirm the use of a proxy server.

After this, Zenly will automatically change the geolocation to the manually selected one.

Turn on the "Share my location" feature

Another tip to try when the location of the person you're looking for isn't available is to make sure you've enabled the Share Your Location feature.

To do this, follow the steps given below:

1. Open the “Settings” application - “Your name” - “iCloud”;
2. You will find the “Share Location” feature. Activate this option and, if necessary, specify the person with whom you want to share your location.

This will come in handy: how to find out if your mobile phone is being tapped.

Method 4: Disable address randomization on your phone

Some models of Wi-Fi routers distribute automatically generated device numbers (Mac address). This feature can be disabled as it also affects Zenly's performance.

1. Select phone settings;
2. Find the Wi-Fi item and go to it;

3. Click on the current network and hold. The item “Manage network settings” should appear, which is what we need;
4. Select "Mac Address Type";
5. Turn off randomization.

If you do not find these parameters, then you can skip these instructions. The rest of you should check out the Zenly app now. If you are using a mobile network to access the Internet, try disconnecting and restarting your smartphone. Also, the system should not have applications that change the IP address or facilitate its automatic change.

Check update

It cannot be ruled out that the problem is related to an outdated version of the application that you have installed. Developers improve programs, correct errors, and do everything for comfortable work.

Perhaps you have not updated the program for a long time, and therefore the version is outdated, and you experienced a small glitch.

To check for an update, go to the app store on your smartphone.

1. Search for Zenly.
2. Click on the program.
3. If you see a button that says “Update,” then feel free to click on it.

Also, in order not to forget about updating, you can go to Store Settings, find the “Updates” item and check the “Automatically update applications” checkbox, and then select:

• Always (any network);
• Via WI-FI.

If you have a lot of traffic, then you can select the first option and not worry about forgetting to update something.

Method 5: Zenly app settings

Each application on an Android phone is configured separately. It may contain active location settings, connection parameters, updates, etc. First, we need to find Zenly in the list of applications.

1. Open settings and select “Applications”;

2. Find the desired program in the list and select it;

3. Click on “Location” and make sure that the item is activated;
4. Select "App Data" and delete the cache first, then the app data. You may need to log in again;
5. Turn on your connection settings and make sure there is no limit on mobile network connections.

Often, due to cache and other software garbage, errors appear in the application that are difficult to fix. After cleaning Zenli, run the application to make sure that the error was fixed. Disabling the dynamic IP address may help. To do this, you need to go to the Wi-Fi settings and switch from DHCP to a static address. Then check again for changes in Zenly's response.

How to register

The process is quite simple and fast - registration is available by providing the following data:

• Name;
• phone number;
• Date of Birth.

No password needed. But it’s worth considering that the application automatically gains access to the contacts of the user who downloaded the application, installed it and was identified.

On a note! Downloading and registration are completely free, there are no advertisements.

Problems with GPS

The navigation module, which is often used by location apps, can experience various types of glitches.

The most common:

1. The smartphone cannot determine the location.
2. The smartphone determines your location, but not exactly.
3. When moving, the pointer on the map does not change its position, that is, it slowly or completely does not update data about your position.

If your phone previously worked well with the navigation system, restarting your smartphone or moving to a different area of ​​the map may help. If the problem arose in a new device or is constantly repeated, it is necessary to identify the causes of the error and eliminate them.

How to remove Zenly program

You can get rid of the application in the standard way:

• Enter the settings of your device.
• Next, go to the “Applications” section.
• Select Zenly and delete.

Zenly is a convenient, free and functional social network that allows you to communicate, knowing where this or that person is. All options are provided in order to interest users, while they are comfortable, and the interface is intuitive - all features are provided for a wide range of people.

All Zenly features

This application works on a relatively simple principle, while providing many features. Here you can see who is where and find out everything about the location of friends and acquaintances.

If you configure all the functions correctly, the social network will ask its users for information about their geolocation and at the same time allows you to show them your location. This is the main function of the application.

Important! For the social network to work correctly, the user must have location detection activated on their smartphone.

Zenly is the most popular app among teenagers. How does it work and what is it for?

The French social network Zenly entered the top 3 applications in Russia. Parents used it to spy on their children, and now teenagers themselves share their coordinates through it. How safe is it? Together with a teenager, her mother and a cybersecurity specialist, we figured out how such applications can be useful and dangerous.

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Today, many applications use geolocation data, from GIS to social networks. They all have different goals. Zenly, the first version of which appeared in 2014, tracks a person's location in real time and shows it to other approved users. In April - June 2022, Zenly suddenly rose to third place in the top most downloaded applications in Russia, behind TikTok and Telegram. It has now been downloaded about 75.5 million times.

“If my mom signs up for Zenly, I won’t add her.”

Katya, 15 years old:

Zenly is primarily about entertainment, not a way to track your friends' geolocation. Starting a conversation in Zenly is easier than in other messengers; here you don’t have to write: “Hello, how are you?” You can simply throw three emojis at a person, and he will have to physically, with his finger, clear the screen of these emoticons, which will cover everything else. Otherwise you won’t be able to exit the application, and from experience I know that when you’ve cleared everything out, you’ll definitely want to respond with something.

Image: Zenly
I very rarely use Zenly to set up meetings. Let's say I can accidentally see a person next to me in the same shopping center, come up and say hello. It happens that I’m planning a walk, and because I have nothing better to do, I find on the map the friends who are closest to me and write to them—I don’t barge in without an agreement.

Zenly doesn't show the exact number of friends, but there is a map on which all the people whose geolocation I see are reflected in circles - judging by it, I have about 250-300 friends. And I definitely know all of them personally: we met with some offline, corresponded with others.

It would be strange if I shared my geolocation with strangers, showing where I spend my time and how I live

It doesn’t really bother me that I can see the geolocation of these people, and they can see mine. I doubt that they will use it for any selfish purposes. Zenly has the option to freeze your geolocation in a specific location for specific people (or everyone). These are great ways to protect yourself from unwanted communication.

Image: Zenly

I've definitely used the freeze function more than five times. The reason was a conflict between my friends (with whom I myself did not quarrel). In order not to offend one friend, I “froze” the geoposition while I was walking with our mutual friends, with whom he was arguing. A person will not be openly told that his geolocation has been “frozen”: the data will simply stop updating. But maybe I didn’t go into the application or deleted it altogether?

There is also this option: the application reports on the user’s travels. It also shows where I spend the night and writes: “Katya is not at home.” If I’m at home, my photo has a house sticker; if I’m at school, it’s a student’s cap with a tassel. I don’t go to work, but for those who do, there is also an icon - a laptop. Sometimes it happens that if I'm walking somewhere along a route that the app already "knows", it can show where I'm going: "Katya is going home." I doubt any of my friends will keep track of such things.

Why don't I want to provide my mom with my geolocation data? It's a matter of trust. My friends see that I can sit somewhere in Tekstilshchiki for 7 hours and not move anywhere, and they don’t say anything to me about this. But if my mother notices this, she will immediately begin to ask what I am doing so far away and for so long. She still tracks me, but through a simpler app that gives less information. For example, it doesn’t show how much interest I have on my phone, how much time I spend in one place, how many times I’ve been to Tekstilshchiki. Maybe the additional information will give my friends something, but they definitely won’t judge me.

Anna, Katya's mother:

I track Katya's geoposition, but not always. This function is very useful when the daughter leaves for another city. Or when she was supposed to arrive at the agreed time, but did not come. She often doesn't answer the phone - her phone is on silent, but I can remotely unmute her phone through the Find My iPhone app. She hears the signal and calls me back.

I know about Zenly, but I haven’t delved into the algorithm of its work. In general, what I use now is enough for me.

Whether or not to track your child's location is not a matter of trust. This is my way to save my psyche. Therefore, we did not even discuss the need for such a measure, I simply confronted my daughter with a fact. When she's older, I'll stop this.

To be fair, my mom doesn't track me that often. And in most cases she gets through to me, so I can’t imagine why she might need this application. I know that she tracks me, but rather lightly - sometimes only with phone calls. The parents of some of my friends constantly video call them and generally monitor them around the clock.

Image: Zenly

If my mom signs up for Zenly, I won't add her. Firstly, we still won’t agree on any periodic “freezes” of geolocation, and secondly, she has a simpler application, which she already has enough of. If it does get added, I’ll say that I accidentally deleted the application. I just don’t want her to immediately know everything about what I did. I want to tell her myself in the evening: “Oh, you know, I went to the museum with so-and-so!” It would be sad if she just told me: “Oh, yes, I saw it.”

I don’t have super-secret data so I can worry about it too much. All applications that use my geolocation warn about this - and you can always turn it off. Sometimes it becomes something unpleasant, annoying: my area comes across in advertising. But where would we be without this? In general, I try not to use this function very often. For example, when delivering, I would rather enter the address myself than turn on geolocation. My entire social circle feels about this technology in much the same way as I do: there is such geodata and there is nothing critical.

Geolocation technology, which is now used by at least 73% of humanity, began as a military development. Its development began in the 50s along with the start of space exploration programs. In 1964, the US Army completed the implementation of Transit, the first satellite positioning system. In 1995, it was replaced by GPS, which was serviced by 24 NAVSTAR satellites.

Originally conceived for military purposes, GPS became the basis for the development of civilian mobile communications. The GPS chips that communicate with the satellites have been miniaturized over time: the first phone with geolocation Benefon Esc! appeared in 1999. In the 21st century, three more methods of transmitting geolocation data have appeared, in addition to GPS: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and mobile network.

GPS still has the highest accuracy, but consumes a lot of power and does not work indoors. Bluetooth tracking works through BLE beacons that are installed in buildings and on the street - by the way, such data transfer does not require an Internet connection. Wi-Fi provides positioning via wireless local area networks. Finally, geoposition can be conveyed through “network triangulation”—by being located in a triangle of mobile phone towers. Geolocation works best when the device uses all data transfer methods together.

How secure is the transmission of geolocation data?

Dmitry Galov, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky Lab:

Developers are obliged to take care of the private data of their users: often applications, for example, specify whether they can use certain data. Legitimate applications tend to have good security. Therefore, if you download something from the AppStore or Google Play, your data, including geolocation, most likely will not fall into the hands of third parties.

Why "most likely"? Because there are malicious applications that, very rarely, can leak onto official sites. This sometimes happens with the same Google Play. For example, you install “Flashlight”, and it asks for access to the Accessibility Service, which is responsible for making it convenient for people with disabilities to use certain smartphone functions. To an inexperienced user, such things seem harmless, but in some versions of Android, malicious applications with such access can obtain a lot of personal data.

Problems can occur on any platform if we are talking about older versions. With each new update, system developers fix more and more security gaps - but Android users are still more likely to encounter threats. This happens because the variety of mobile devices on Android is greater than on iOS, which one way or another means that the support time for devices is becoming shorter, so there are many “old” devices for which updates are no longer released. In addition, on Android a person can download an application not only from the official application store, but, in fact, from any source. Whether applications have been reviewed by these sources is a good question. In addition, cheap devices are still being produced that are installed with obviously outdated versions of operating systems.

The best way to stay safe is not to download apps from unofficial sources and install a security solution

Parents often use geolocation technology to understand where their child is currently located. For example, we have the Kaspersky Safe Kids program - it also uses geolocation information. In general, parental control applications are designed to protect children online and limit access to certain content or programs. And if a child can change the settings in such a decision, this may indicate that he knows more about the digital world than his parents believed. However, most solutions are designed with the understanding that a child cannot simply go and change the settings, because this would at a minimum require access to the parent's account. In short, in most cases, specialized applications allow you to fairly accurately control a child’s movements both online and in the real world.

Profile parental control apps are rarely limited to geo-tracking: they are comprehensive programs. They may have a built-in function for limiting access to inappropriate content, monitoring the time of device use, and even a notification function for attempts by dubious people to contact a child on a social network.

But it is still more effective to explain to a child the basics of digital literacy, using security solutions as an addition. The child must understand what and why he is being protected.

Parents may also find the safe perimeter control function useful, which sends a notification if the child moves a specified distance from the designated safe area. But if an attacker throws away a child’s phone, then adults will only have information about the location from which the signal was last transmitted.

Oleg Leonov, coordinator of the LizaAlert search and rescue team:

It’s good when the child’s phone has an application that tracks geoposition: then there is no need to contact us. Parents always see the location of their child. Problems begin when the child does not have such an application and the mobile phone is turned off. Then we can be useful.

In my practice, there have been many cases when we found children due to the fact that they had a mobile phone with them that was turned on, which was then turned off. Once we saved a sixteen-year-old girl from rape thanks to the fact that we were able to determine her location in time and send a police squad there. There have been cases where we have helped teenagers get out of the forest because their mobile phones were turned on.

Obviously, if you ask the question “Is it bad that all people on earth can know that I am at this particular point at this particular moment?”, the answer will be “Yes, of course, it’s bad.” The same Zenly does not hide from the user that it collects information about him. “Dude, we collect data about your geolocation and tell all your friends about it. Do you like it?" — the program asks when you first log in. If a person downloads this application, then they probably agree to these terms. And here the choice is up to the person. According to data on the official Zenly website, the application, for example, deletes user data a year after the application is deleted automatically or at any time upon special request.

Another thing is bad: the application also gains access to contacts - that is, it takes information about other people without their knowledge

So, as a result, a digital portrait of the user is compiled, which consists of thousands of data collected from different sources. Social networks, for example, know a lot about us. They do not provide information to everyone, they do not open it illegally - but they do provide a platform for targeted advertising.

You don’t need to think that you are constantly being watched and your phone is being tapped if you are offered the right product in the right area. The main thing here is not to slip into conspiracy theories. But you should understand that targetologists are excellent at analyzing anonymous information, customizing advertising for a specific group, and not for a specific person, and sending a request to the advertising platform. This process is regulated. Another thing is that sometimes organizations that collect data about people encounter various incidents, as a result of which this data ends up with third parties. But this is not due to cybersecurity, but to the honesty of developers.

If the user wants to avoid being tracked on his phone, he simply needs to turn off the device.

Cover image: Zenly

Unusual Features

Speaking about the application, it is worth mentioning other features that are no less interesting than the main one, which determines geolocation.

• Ability to set status. Each user can share what they are doing at the moment - for example, resting, studying, eating or sleeping.
• To track complete information about a person, he must be added to the “friends list”.
• For “friends” it is possible to send small text messages and emoticons.
• The app reads the phone's charge level and also shows it to users. This is quite convenient, since people see that the battery is running low and will not worry too much if the user is out of range for some time.