Pokemon Go GPS glitch is costing trainers Shiny Pokemon

A strange Pokemon Go glitch has been costing people Shiny Pokemon and it looks like GPS drift is making the game act up again. 

Niantic’s AR title has given players a fun incentive to travel, walk and safely adventure nearby areas throughout its run. But the game’s read on someone’s location can get wonky when players get vertical or travel at a fast distance. This has led to people missing a Pokemon encounter by buffering and loading to a different spot in a matter of seconds. GPS bugs have long been known to exist in AR titles but this one is having an unfortunate effect on the Pokemon that they manage to find.

Pokemon Go GPS glitch

Reddit user ‘pokiedokie24’ shared their experiences of losing out on multiple Shiny Pokemon variants which was met with plenty of reactions from people who’ve found it themselves. “I’ve encountered three shinies this week and all ran away,” they said. “Should I report this? Or I’m just unlucky?” They missed out on shinies for ‘mons like Taillow, Turtwig, and Chansey across different days. The trainer says they all ran away on the first attempt and it’s been happening more than once.

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The plot thickened after finding out that the player would catch Pokemon during his off time at work, up on the topmost floor. Unfortunately, they’re not the only people who’ve come across this bug at high altitudes. “It’s just a theory but maybe being in the office is creating enough drift that the game is not registering your location correctly,” one trainer surmised. “I have a similar Pokemon-running issue when I load the game from my basement.”’

Other people also pointed to the thick slabs of concrete in their buildings as a possible reason for the disruption. Though it’s unclear exactly why this could be happening, it’s being strongly linked to GPS drift issues that some players have had success managing.

Pokemon GPS glitch workaround

If you get hit with the Pokemon Go GPS glitch just as you see a coveted Pokemon, simply exit out the game before trying to engage it.

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“If it’s anything like trying to catch something after losing internet/ GPS signal, you might be able to re-encounter the mon by restarting the app and finding it again,” one player said. “At any rate, if you see a shiny Pokemon when you’re in bad Internet/ GPS signal… Wait until you know your signal is stable before you actually throw any balls.” Pokemon Go players may experience more GPS bugs in the future. While there’s no guaranteed way of avoiding the problem, you may have success in working around the problem until it gets fixed.