iCloud Can anyone explain how Find My works with iCloud?

[sparky672]

I've been having some trouble with Location Services on my two Macs as detailed in my other thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cannot-locate-the-current-position.2457008/

It used to work fine and now it's broken. I believe it has something to do with my iPhone 15 Pro not reporting my location/router info correctly, but honestly, it's a mystery because the whole thing started on my old Mac Pro when I reinstalled High Sierra. Then while my new MacBook Pro was still working fine, location broke when I returned from out of state.
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During troubleshooting of the Location Services issues, I have discovered inconsistencies with Find My that maybe somebody here can explain.

Current observations while locating a M4 MacBook Pro 2024 (Sequoia 15.5):

• Find My App (iCloud in Safari) - Shows MacBook Pro with "no location found".
• Find My App (iPhone 15 Pro - iOS 18.5) - Shows MacBook Pro at home with me and correctly pinned on map.
• Find My App (MacBook Pro - Sequoia 15.5) - Shows itself, MacBook Pro, "with you" but also at Dunkin Donuts* (previous location from several days ago).

* more like on the road/route coming home from Dunkin Donuts.

Expectations:

Call me crazy, but shouldn't everything be syncing through iCloud? The iPhone has the GPS radio, and after locating nearby devices, reports this GPS location data back to iCloud servers along with the router's SSID and MAC address, right?

Then why is iCloud is saying "no location found" when the iPhone is correctly showing the MacBook at home? And why does Find My app on the MacBook still show itself at Dunkin Donuts instead of getting "no location found" from iCloud.

I would think that the iPhone is supposed to report all device location data to iCloud? And then all the local Macs' Find My apps retrieve this location data from the iCloud account to populate the map? But that is not the observation.

Seriously, nothing is making any sense about how this is actually working. It's mind boggling that my stupid AirTags and AirPods Pro are always correctly pinned on the Map, but this Apple ecosystem is completely failing to locate a brand new MacBook Pro at home.

Thank you.

Settings:

• All devices are logged into the same iCloud account.
• All devices have Find My enabled.
• All devices have Location Services fully enabled.
• All devices have the proper Time Zone, and clock set to "automatic".
• All settings have been toggled and all devices have been rebooted several times.
• All devices are located at home on the same wifi.
• iPhone is always showing itself in the correct precise location.
• Same home routers, SSID, IP address, and LAN for last several years and location services used to work fine.
• Results are the same when devices are at home and tethered to the iPhone instead of wifi (thereby taking my router out of equation).
• All devices' location services seem to work fine when not at home (router? see previous bullet).

 

[UKenGB]

I have what is I suspect the same problem. My new Mac Mini M4 usually has no idea where it is. Although it does now show up in 'Find My' (on the Mini) as "with you", other devices here on the same desktop show as being "At home".

In iCloud Find My, the Mini has no location and what drove me down this path is that Maps on this Mini hasn't got a clue where it is, so trying to plan routes is mostly impossible.

For years I was using a Mac Pro 5,1 running Monterey and when I opened Maps, it immediately centred on the correct location (here at home) and I could plan a route, share it to my iPhone and immediately navigate that route. Now on the Mini, it is incapable of planning a route from 'My location' to anywhere and if I instead pick the actual location of my home, it is then often unable to share it to the iPhone and if it does allow this (i.e. Share button not disabled) the iPhone cannot then navigate the route as it can only do that when the origin is set to 'My location'.

It's a mess. Something that cannot be that hard and indeed used to work, Apple have 'improved' it to the state of NON functionality. Too often the case with Apple these days, but hey, look at all the new emojis they give with each 'dreaded' update.