Litchi locked me out, crashed!

[Jr. Stafford]

Flying today with my VR goggles and the Litchi app. Flew for awhile back and fourth around my house. Went NE of my house over a hay field for one last pass. Wide open in the country, few houses, nothing else. Was headed back toward my house, probably about 200-300 yards out and about 200 feet high, I think. I got a low battery warning coming toward my house, battery was at 25%. Mavic just stopped in the air, wouldn't do anything. So I punched Return to Home and it started rising. My RTH height was set at 300 feet. But it just kept going.....up, up, up!! I know the height on Litchi app was set at Max, which was 1639 feet I believe, though I had no intention of climbing that high. But the drone did. As it got higher and higher I couldn't get any control, so I yanked the cord from the phone with the Litchi app and ran in the house and grabbed the phone with the DJI Go 4 app. Headed up the road in my truck as it was connecting, trying to get it do anything, but to no avail. Once I connected, I could see that it had risen all the way to 1639 feet and the battery was down to 9%!! Then it tried to emergency land, but 9% wasn't near enough, I believe it got to 400 feet or so and dropped. Into some soft grass, so the damage wasn't as bad as expected.

Broke one prop (No biggie), and it looks like one landing leg is a bit broke where it attaches to the body (No biggie), but the camera is trashed. Looks like it landed right on the camera (of course) and jammed it up into the plastic cage looking thing about.....the foil looking area under those plastic pieces is dented in and the camera is hanging loose and has a broken wire.

I had read somewhere that using the Litchi app doesn't void the warranty, guess we'll see what DJI has to say, can't understand why I suddenly had NO CONTROL at all when I tried RTH, still had plenty of battery for that. Why the heck would it lock me out, and climb to maximum height? One lesson is to make sure and set that to 400 feet, didn't bother to do it, wasn't planning on going very high. If that max height was set lower maybe when it locked me out it wouldn't have risen so high, then when it finally decided to land on it's own, it would have had plenty of juice to do so....then probably just a nasty landing and nothing else.

No DJI Refresh, State Farm insurance, but hope I don't have to make a claim less than a month into it lol.

Any thoughts on what the heck happened?

 

[Spy_Corfu]

It happened to me once also with litchi and mavic after flying a mission and controls where blocked but all i did was toggle the switch normal to sport mode and back on the remote controller and everything was ok.
Its the same as flipping the switches on a phantom 4/3 remote controller it stops whatever planned flight you are in and then you should have full control of your drone


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[Marco Cantieni]

The most logical explanation is that your RTH height has not been set to 300ft or Litchi was unable to transmit the 300ft to the mavic. I would etract the flight logs and open a case @DJI

 

[Spy_Corfu]

The mavic sort of works independently of litchi or any app in case of emergency.. that could be the case to abort the mission if it calculates that there is not enough battery and it will go home automatically.. it has happened to me many times as i fly litchi missions over 10km distance and due to wind conditions it drains the battery faster but there is not problem as the mission aborts and it will return home.
Conection to the remote controller in not necessary and it works just fine.

 

[Jr. Stafford]

Sadly enough, the Litchi log seems not to be present, I wonder if it failed to save when I yanked the cord to exit the app? Other previous flights in Litchi showed when I synched, but not that one. The last few seconds when I had reconnected with DJI Go shows, but all it shows is a few seconds after its hovered at 1600 and tried to land.

 

[Spy_Corfu]

there is a long in the magic if you connect it to your computer and download it.

 

[lildevilx]

there is a long in the magic if you connect it to your computer and download it.

Is there any program to read that log file?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

[Jr. Stafford]

there is a long in the magic if you connect it to your computer and download it.

Looked in the 'Log' folder in the Mavic, nothing in there, so not sure where to find it.

Connected the Mavic back to the Litchi App today and looked at my settings. Just as I said, I had the RTH set to 300 (Actually 299) and the Maximum height to 1640. I watched the video on the SD card, and it actually cut off video at the same time that it locked me out, pretty much just locked me out entirely. Somehow when I tried to RTH, it went up to the Max height instead of the RTH height, and just hovered there until the battery hit 9%, then tried to land but didn't make it all the way down on that much juice.

Whatever caused the issue, it was a nasty lesson learned. When I set the RTH height I didn't bother with the Max height, and I should have dropped it to 400 feet. My assumption is that if I had done that, when I lost control, it would have only risen to 400 feet......and then when it emergency landed from that height at 9% battery, it would have gently landed in the grass and this discussion wouldn't be happening. Also, I will adjust the low battery level in Litchi to 50% instead of 25%, at that point, I would have had more time to try and get control when it was hovering unresponsive at 1600 feet.

Hopefully DJI will fix it based on the fact that RTH did not function, chances are that since I was using Litchi, they won't. Then it's a State Farm claim after only a month of insurance.....and chances are they will either dump my Drone policy or ask for a deductible next time.

I believe there was some kind of glitch, but I could have safeguarded myself more by setting Maximum height lower and low battery return to home higher.....it sucks.

 

[Kilrah]

If you're using Litchi and are connected I believe the RTH button tells Litchi to use its own "active" RTH processing, it doesn't call the Mavic's internal routines. So if Litchi was behaving wrong it wil likely continue to behave wrong and screw that up too (there have been several reports of strange things with it on the Mavic).

You need to disconnect Litchi with the Sport mode switch before you can use the "proven" internal behavior.

Really it should be engraved into the mind of anyone using third party apps - if anything goes strange, flip the hardware switch. I'm not sure about Litchi's docs but the manual for the Autopilot app repeats it over and over.

So DJI probably won't fix it for free but not becasue you used a 3rd party app, but rather becasue you didn't use the "emergency exit" they provide in case a 3rd party app goes crazy - the hardware mode switch.

 

[Logger]

It happened to me once also with litchi and mavic after flying a mission and controls where blocked but all i did was toggle the switch normal to sport mode and back on the remote controller and everything was ok.

I have learnt the hard way to bang that process into my head with Litchi. It is not intuitive, as we do not routinely do it with DJIGo as a recovery technique. So with Litchi I always try remind myself, if it is misbehaving, toggle to sport and back, to force it out of whatever mode it is in. WPT, Panorama or whatever and get it back in to raw FPV flight mode. Several firmware's ago, I had mine drifting downwind out to sea in ATTI mode, after a TBE spiral when it was midway through a WPT mission. No response to controls. As soon as I toggled the mode switch I regained control and flew it home fine.

So great advice - With Litchi always remember the Mode switch toggle

Snap Kilrah - typing as you posted. Pretty much saying the same thing WRT to kill switch

 

[Logger]

Looked in the 'Log' folder in the Mavic, nothing in there, so not sure where to find it.

If You connect your Mavic to our computer and fire up DJI Assistant the logs will be on the aircraft.

Connected the Mavic back to the Litchi App today and looked at my settings. Just as I said, I had the RTH set to 300 (Actually 299) and the Maximum height to 1640. I watched the video on the SD card, and it actually cut off video at the same time that it locked me out, pretty much just locked me out entirely.

Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but the way I understand it the RTH, Max heights and several other settings are not stored in the Litchi or DJIGo apps at all. They actually live on the aircraft which is logical. All the software is doing is reading it and changing it. This is why you can fire up Litchi or DJIGo wihtout is being connected to the AC and the respective settings will display as 0 or blank. My point being, your RTH and MAX heights were not Litchi specific. Had you looked when you reconnected with DJIGo mid flight, when it climbed you would have see the same figure there.

Somehow when I tried to RTH, it went up to the Max height instead of the RTH height, and just hovered there until the battery hit 9%, then tried to land but didn't make it all the way down on that much juice.

Seems to me like your Litchi app hung & locked up. Which OS are you on BTW. Android or IOS? (I have had issues with android Litchi android locking up and crashing.)

Somehow full throttle was being commanded too. Mode switch toggle may have interrupted and fixed this. Otherwise even at 1640 it should have descended and done a critical battery autoland with enough juice. Something was interrupting and conflicting with this process though.

Be interesting to see what your flight log says.

 

[Spy_Corfu]

If you're using Litchi and are connected I believe the RTH button tells Litchi to use its own "active" RTH processing, it doesn't call the Mavic's internal routines. So if Litchi was behaving wrong it wil likely continue to behave wrong and screw that up too (there have been several reports of strange things with it on the Mavic).

You need to disconnect Litchi with the Sport mode switch before you can use the "proven" internal behavior.

Really it should be engraved into the mind of anyone using third party apps - if anything goes strange, flip the hardware switch. I'm not sure about Litchi's docs but the manual for the Autopilot app repeats it over and over.

So DJI probably won't fix it for free but not becasue you used a 3rd party app, but rather becasue you didn't use the "emergency exit" they provide in case a 3rd party app goes crazy - the hardware mode switch.

i agree with you 100% just flip the switch to sports mode and back and you get 100% control back and thats 100% guaranteed!

 

[Rom3oDelta7]

Is there any program to read that log file?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Get a free healthydrones.com account. You'll get a token you can add in the Litchi settings and then manually sync existing flight logs. You can also set it up to automatically sync in the future. The log readout on Healthy Drones is excellent. There is also an app (HD Sync) that will sync the DJI Go 3/4 logs to Healthy Drones as well so you don't have to go through the awkward iTunes interface (for Apple) or manually downloading the logs in DJI Assistant and manually uploading them.

 

[Jr. Stafford]

i agree with you 100% just flip the switch to sports mode and back and you get 100% control back and thats 100% guaranteed!

Didn't realize that was the case.

 

[lildevilx]

Get a free healthydrones.com account. You'll get a token you can add in the Litchi settings and then manually sync existing flight logs. You can also set it up to automatically sync in the future. The log readout on Healthy Drones is excellent. There is also an app (HD Sync) that will sync the DJI Go 3/4 logs to Healthy Drones as well so you don't have to go through the awkward iTunes interface (for Apple) or manually downloading the logs in DJI Assistant and manually uploading them.

I was referring to the dat file from the mavic

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

[Logger]

just flip the switch to sports mode and back and you get 100% control back and thats 100% guaranteed!

Didn't realize that was the case.

Yeah it is in most cased, but not 100% guaranteed. I had my Mavic stuck in an autoland hover at the last WPT after a Litchi route. The Android Litchi app had crashed. No amount of toggling would give me 100% control back. Litchi support confirmed this to be the case in scenario I was in, where I could not access either application to clear the Landing Protection message. Switching to Sport and back was never going to fix it - but it is always worth trying. At least I could reach it and CSC'd it to shut it down. Since then I have disabled Landing Protection for Litchi missions. This way it wont get hung up autolanding at the last WPT.

 

[Rflush]

If you make a claim via state farm, please let us know how it goes. Thanks

 

[Jr. Stafford]

If you make a claim via state farm, please let us know how it goes. Thanks

Guessing by what I read, that's what I'll be doing lol. I fully expect the first one will go fine, but I bet another claim anytime soon will get me cancelled or a deductible added to the policy. Hoping DJI will determine it as a warranty issue, but won't be surprised if they don't.

Gonna give my State Farm agent a heads up when it ships, I'll keep you posted on the progress with that.

 

[f3honda4me]

Is there any program to read that log file?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Post the dat file here via dropbox or google drive. We can use datcon to read it. DatFile.net/downloads

 

[Jr. Stafford]

Post the dat file here via dropbox or google drive. We can use datcon to read it. DatFile.net/downloads

Where do I find the files.....I plugged in the Mavic and read the SD card, but the folder that says 'Logs' is empty.