Why did my phone's GPS receiver stop working when the plane was descending to land?
A GPS needs a line of sight to (at least) 4 satellites in order to compute a position. Given that you were able to get a position during the cruise, I assume that you were close to a window and had a clear view of a part of the sky.

During the cruise, the aircraft trajectory was close to a straight line (or changing slowly), so your receiver was able to keep a line of sight to the same set of satellites. But during the approach, the trajectory was much more dynamic (lots of turns), so your receiver didn't had a constant line of sight toward the same set of satellites and "lost" them. It takes time for a receiver to "lock" on the signal of a given satellite, so the receiver it couldn't compute a position from other satellites because they were not in sight long enough.