By Achilles Hill | Last Updated
A feature called "Find My" or "iMessages" lets you track the location of friends or family members who also have this feature enabled on their iPhone. It is very helpful in many situations. When you can't contact your friends, you can use it to locate them. And parents can also use this feature to find the exact location of their children and keep track of them.
But recently, we've received reports from iPhone users that they can't track the location of their friends or other contacts on their iPhones using the Find My or iMessages apps. Instead, they receive a "Location not available" error on the Find My app. They are not sure what is causing the problem and how to fix it.
So, without further delay, let's see why and how to fix find my friends Location not available on iPhone.
Before we discuss the fixes, let's look at why this is happening.
Restarting your iPhone is a great way to refresh your device and make Find My Friends locations work properly again.
Step 1: For iPhone X and later, press and hold the Power button and either volume button until a slider appears on the screen. For older iPhone models, press and hold the Power button until the slider appears.
Step 2: Swipe on the slider to turn off your iPhone.
Step 3: Just wait for a while and then turn on your iPhone to see if the problem has been solved.
As mentioned above, if the date & time on your friend's device is incorrect, Find My Friends will not work. So you can ask your friends to change the date and time on their iPhone.
Go to Settings > General > Date & Time, check the Time Zone and make corrections. It is also recommended to turn on the Set Automatically option. In this way, when connected to a Wi-Fi network, iPhone will automatically update the date and time and "Find My Friends" will start working properly again.
If the region of your iPhone is not correct, you may face location not available issue on your iPhone. This may mess up the location module of your iPhone and correcting the region of your iPhone may solve the problem.
Step 1: Move to iPhone's Settings > General > Language & Region, set the correct Region and Language on your iPhone.
Step 2: Restart your iPhone, check if Find My Friends location are available now. If not, check if using Apple ID to share your or your contact's location can fix the problem.
Move to iPhone's Settings > Apple ID > Share My Location, click the Share My Location toggle button once to disable it. After disabling it, wait a few seconds, then click it again to enable it. Once you're done, close the Settings page and go to the Find My or iMessages app to check the location.
Editing the Location Services settings of the iPhone may fix find my friends location not available issue.
Step 1: Move to iPhone's settings > Privacy > Location Services, and enable Location Services.
Step 2: Then tap on System Services and enable Frequent Locations. You may need to enter your Apple credentials.
Your iPhone may fail to find friends on mobile data if the feature is not turned on. Thus, enabling Wi-Fi & cellular data for Find Friends may clear the error.
Note: In iOS13 and iPadOS13 in 2019, both Find My iPhone and Find My Friends have been merged into the Find My app.
Simply move to Settings > Cellular > Find My, click WLAN & Cellular Data to enable it.
iSunshare iOS Repair Genius is a powerful tool to repair iPhone/iPad with or without data loss. It can easily repair more than 50 common problems that occur on your iOS device, including Find My Friends location not available. Just follow these steps below to solve this issue.
Notes: Before performing the steps below, you need to download and install this tool on your computer and make sure that your iPhone is connected to pc with USB cable all the time. Besides, iTunes should be installed on the computer.
Step 1: In the main screen of the software. Standard and Advanced modes are available. Standard mode can fix your iPhone without data loss, Advanced Mode can fix the device and delete all the data. If you have never backed up your iPhone via iCloud or iTunes, I recommend you to choose Standard Mode.
Step 2: Simply hit the Start button to continue.
Step 3: Make sure that your iPhone is connected to computer and click Next button. If the software can't detect your iPhone, you need to put it in DFU Mode or Recovery Mode. Just follow the guide on the interface.
Step 4: The program will automatically identify your device model and show you the latest available version of firmware. Click Select button to choose the location to save the package and then click Download button to download a firmware package. If it fails to download, you can click Copy button on the bottom to download it on the browser. Then click Select button on the bottom to import it. If you have already downloaded a firmware package on your PC, just click Select on the bottom to add it.
Step 5: Wait for the software to verify the firmware.
Step 6: After verification is complete, click Repair button to start repairing.
Step 7: This may take some time to wait. Once the repair process is complete, the software will prompt you that the device has been successfully repaired. Click OK to close the window. Finally, the Find My Friends location can work normally on your iPhone again.
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