Why is my widget showing the wrong station?

Justin Clarke-Salt

The iOS widget doesn’t let you pick a route when you add it - it chooses one for you, and which one depends on whether Auto-select Nearest Route is switched on:

  • Auto-select Nearest Route on, with “Always” location permission - the widget shows the route with the closest departure station. If you’ve got multiple routes with the same departure station, the first one you added is shown.
  • Auto-select Nearest Route on, with “While Using the App” permission - the widget can’t check your location on its own, so it shows the nearest route as worked out the last time you had the app open.
  • Auto-select Nearest Route off - the widget shows the route you were last looking at in the app, falling back to your first route.

So if the widget is showing a station you weren’t expecting, it’s usually one of those doing exactly what it was asked to do.

Commuting hours don’t change which route the widget picks - they affect how often it refreshes, and when you get notifications.

Note that fully location aware widgets depend on the “Always” permission. iOS will at some point ask you whether you want to change to this if you use widgets, because apps can’t request that permission directly. If you want to force this, change the location permissions for Next3Trains in your iPhone settings (Settings → Apps → Next3Trains → Location).

The Apple Watch complication is different - on watchOS 10 and later you can pick a specific route when you set it up, or leave the route empty to have it follow your nearest one. See Using Next3Trains on Apple Watch.

When the widget isn’t showing trains at all

There are a few states where the widget deliberately shows something other than departures:

  • A bed icon - it’s not one of your configured commuting days. This is the default for days off; since version 1.11 you can choose to see train times on those days instead, under On non-commuting days in Settings. See How do commuting hours work?.
  • Nothing at all - the same setting has a Show nothing option, which leaves the widget empty until your next commuting day. If your widget is blank on a Saturday, check that before anything else.
  • “Looks like you’re travelling” with a suitcase (just “Travelling?” on the small widget) - you’re more than 100 miles from any of your saved departure stations, so your usual commute isn’t relevant.
  • A gift icon - it’s Christmas Day, and there are no services to show.