FindMyQibla

Guide · 4 minutes

Qibla Compass Not Working?

The dial is honest about what it knows. When it won’t go live, won’t move, or disagrees with reality, work through this page device by device.

First, understand what the dial needs

The live dial needs two things your browser must grant: your position (to compute the bearing) and your device’s heading (to rotate the dial). The bearing works with position alone — type coordinates by hand and you’ll get it. The dial needs the motion sensor. If the sensor is missing, denied, or unreliable, the dial stays a static illustration and the site says so. That isn’t a bug; it’s the alternative to faking it.

iPhone (Safari)

iOS requires a deliberate user gesture before a web page may read motion data. Until you tap the permission prompt, Safari simply withholds the heading and the dial stays still. What to do:

  • Reload the Qibla finder and look for the permission prompt before doing anything else. Tap it once, firmly — a half-tap on a shaking hand sometimes registers nothing.
  • If you dismissed the prompt earlier, Safari remembers: reload the page and it asks again. (iOS Safari’s motion permission is per page load, not a persistent setting — unlike location permission, which you manage in Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Safari Websites.)
  • If the dial moves but lags or drifts, hold the phone flat and move it in a figure-of-eight three or four times. This calibrates the magnetometer.
  • Remove magnetic phone mounts and keep the phone away from speakers, fridge doors and metal railings while you read it.

Android (Chrome)

Chrome on Android doesn’t gate motion data behind a permission prompt the way iOS does, so a still dial on Android usually means the sensor data is absent or bad rather than blocked:

  • Check the phone actually has a compass sensor. Budget Android phones sometimes omit the magnetometer entirely — in that case no website can show a live compass, and this one will say so.
  • Calibrate: open the phone’s own compass app if it has one, or wave the phone in a figure-of-eight. Recheck the dial.
  • If the reading spins or jumps, you’re near interference — rebar in concrete, a car, a laptop, a magnetic case. Step a few metres away and try again.
  • Chrome’s location permission is separate (the padlock → Location in the address bar). If the site can’t get a position at all, you’ll see a location error rather than a dead dial — pick a city instead.

Desktop and laptop

There is no live dial on desktop, by design. No consumer laptop ships a heading sensor, so a moving dial would be theatre. What works fully on desktop:

  • The bearing number — take it to a physical compass, correcting for your local magnetic declination.
  • The map view — draw the line, find a landmark along it, face the landmark.
  • The angle calculator — type coordinates, get the bearing, no sensors involved at all.

When the dial disagrees with another app

Compare the bearing numbers, not the dials. Dials differ because of uncalibrated sensors; bearings differ for only a few reasons:

  • Different positions. If the other app thinks you’re a kilometre away, the bearing shifts. Check both used the same spot.
  • True vs magnetic north. Some apps report magnetic bearings without saying so. In Britain the difference is a degree or two — small, but visible side by side.
  • A frozen sensor. If one dial hasn’t moved in a while, it’s showing a stale heading. Wave the phone in a figure-of-eight and watch both.

The fallback that always works

Every failure mode above ends at the same place: a bearing number plus a map. Enter your position by hand, read the bearing (119.0° if you’re in London), open the map, find a landmark on the line, and face it. No GPS, no sensors, no permissions — just the maths and your eyes.

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