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reactjsfirefoxnpmlinux-mint

Unknown error acquiring position GeolocationPositionError code 2 - Firefox Linux Mint

Was trying to test geolocation function in my React project on Firefox 74.0 on Linux Mint 19.3.

When trying to execute the following code:

 window.navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(
        position => console.log(position),
        err => console.log(err)
    );

The following error was shown in the Firefox browser console:

GeolocationPositionError { code: 2, message: "Unknown error acquiring position" }
Solution

  • About a year ago Google changed its policies, so now it requires a valid API key when accessing their geolocation service.

    If you type in your Firefox address bar:

    about:config

    and search the following:

    geo.provider.network.url

    you will see that its value is set to 

    https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%

    This tells us that you need a valid API key in place of %GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%

    Until Mozilla solves this issue internally, the best solution is to change that value to:

    https://location.services.mozilla.com/v1/geolocate?key=test



    Note: This solution is best for testing. For production you can try ajax calls using either fetch or axios in React.