This seems to be a common issue on other forums, particularly Google, but there are no real answers so far.
Issue occurs when Samsung Smart Switch is used to move from an older Galaxy to an S25 (I have ultra, but I think it may occur with both the S25 and S25 Ultra).
Symptoms: Location is turned on, and seems to work properly. In Maps, you can see the blue dot moving as you move, but in Timeline, there is no NEW activity listed since the transfer from the old phone. Timeline is turned on, Maps has needed permissions. The only "fix" (which is not any sort of fix!) is to do a factory reset on the phone and then start over not using Smart Switch.
It seems that something Smart Switch has done with the data has somehow blocked Timeline from saving new data.
I would like to add that there are a few additional fixes out there. However i tried them all and none seem to work.
1. I removed all google accounts + restar phone + sign in again + download history - this did not help
2. Clear cache + clear memory - did not help
3. Remove all updates from Google Maps - did not help. Also tried after removing all updates (and not updating) and tried updating the app - which also did not work.
4. Yesterday we got a system update - i was hoping for this to fix the issue - did not work.
I would be happy to hear from samsung if there is a TRUE fix planned.
Would it not be better to check if the settings in your Google account changed or maybe delete all of the timeline data from Google instead of resetting the phone back to factory settings. Opening Maps, then clicking on your profile avatar will open those options. I do not see performing a reset fixing the issue as all of that data is stored in Google's servers. So when you put your Google account info into the phone again, that data will repopulate.
I have also tried deleting all the data locally (deleting from all devices or server would mean that i would loose all past information).
Factory reset is not really an option as earlier said.
BTW, the data is not automatically populated - it has to be downloaded from earlier backup (which is stored on google servers but it attached to a specific device.
There was a rolling change around the end of 2024 where Google moved the timeline data onto a specific phone, as local data. You can then turn on a timeline backup, which periodically back up the local data to an encrypted backup on the Google cloud (rather than a database on the cloud). If you do a Google Takeout of timeline data now, you will find it has no data, just a txt file stating that there is encrypted data in the cloud (the backups)
