Based on my similar experience, I can propose the following two solutions:
- Switch to an Uber competitor
- Have patience if #1 is not possible.
I’ve faced the same problem before. My friend’s house is in Building A. For years, I’ve been able to select Building A on my Uber app. Then, suddenly, whenever I selected Building A, the Uber app would automatically resolve it to Building B, which was on the opposite side of the road.
I called the Uber drivers, asking them to come to Building A. Worked sometimes. When possible, I’d cross the road and stand at Building B. Also worked only sometimes.
I complained to Uber. I got no response.
I happen to have a close friend who works in the Google Maps SBU of Alphabet Inc. in Moutain View HQ. I reached out to him. He had no clue what was happening.
By chance, I noticed that competitor Ola’s app correctly resolved Building A as Building A. I switched to Ola.
Problem solved.
Then, after a few weeks, the Uber problem mysteriously vanished, just as mysteriously as it had appeared. Its app once again started correctly resolving Building A as Building A.
I’m speculating below the likely causes of the temporary location resolution problem in the Uber app:
- Manifestation of fundamental limitation of GPS technology. While we associate Google Maps as a catch-all for all things to do with our location, fact is, Google Maps does not actually locate us. That job is done by GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. GPS finds our latlong coordinates on the surface of the earth and Google Maps merely plots them for us to see on Google Maps. Google has nothing to do with GPS. The technology was built by US Department of Defense (Pentagon) decades ago and is even today maintained by the United States Air Force. We tend to take the blue dot supplied by GPS as gospel truth but, fact is, even when the GPS network is working perfectly fine, the blue dot can deviate from our real location by as much as 200 feet, depending upon weather conditions, density of high rise buildings in the vicinity, power of GPS controller used in the smartphone, etc. Cf. How Uber is moving the “blue dot” and improving GPS accuracy in big cities.
- GPS outages and inaccuracies reported during the last two years in many parts of the world. Cf. Mysterious GPS outages are wracking the shipping industry.
- Google’s initiative of renaming neighborhoods. Cf. As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume.
- Problem in the API connectivity between Uber app and Google Maps and / or Uber’s processing of data received from Google Maps.
I’m putting my money on #4. As I said earlier, when Uber had a problem with resolving my location, competitor Ola, which also uses Google Maps, was able to resolve my location correctly. Ditto many other LBS apps which use Google Maps e.g. Swiggy, Dunzo.