Newbies - please properly prepare your phones before flying

anim8me2 · Jan 21, 2017

Just a quick point on the iPhone from a programmatic standpoint.
IOS has outstanding memory management and I have no issues flying with loads of apps running. The apps will be running as a passive thread in the background with practically no memory load and unless you have an app that is actively soaking up memory and threads you should t have problems.
If you are worried about an app using resources like location services you can always disable that on a per app basis.

m0j0 · Jan 21, 2017

Lol.. I do none of those things. I have received phone calls in flight. I just decline and send a text that I will get with them later. Then close down the window and continue my flight. I don't cache maps I just fly. The app never crashes.. the only time I have ever had a hiccup was on takeoff. About 10 seconds into flight it switched to ATTI mode and drifted a little. It was a little windy so it moved pretty quick. A quick correction and 10 seconds later I was GTG.

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PrticulrJustice · Jan 21, 2017

Andrew F said:
Not everyone and every hardware combination seems to have the same problems, but when starting out, you may wish to do the following. I do. So many "little problems" can be avoided by following a few simple steps on your phone / tablet before flying:

1. Disable and remove from memory all apps
2. Launch Go app and view area you're going to be flying in with maps to download detailed data if you want to
3. Put into airplane mode to avoid emails, texts, or phone calls and other "pushed" data that can cause your phone to switch apps
4. Or AT LEAST turn off Wifi (unless of course you are flying in Wifi mode which I don't recommend)

Your phone's Wifi can cause a lot of interference between the drone and your controller and other apps (especially it seems to me graphic heavy apps) can interfere with the Go app.

Then enjoy interference free flights! (Hopefully)

On iPhones /iOS there is really no reason to kill your background apps. The OS intelligently managers this, people do this all the time and don't realize it doesn't really do anything

RallySoob · Jan 21, 2017

Thanks for reminder i totally forgot bout turning off my wifi. Didnt realize it could interfere... good post

jdcntulsa · Jan 21, 2017

I'm all for taking all bad variables out the equation. Even if I don't have a problem. I will heed the advice. Thank you.

Question: I have a piece of metal in between my phone and case for a car holder for my phone. I was going to remove this because of possible interference. Is this something you would recommend doing as well?

RallySoob · Jan 21, 2017

Like u said... remove the possible variable, i would ditch it personally

m0j0 · Jan 21, 2017

I take my phone out of the case. I would not introduce any metal near the aircraft or TX during flight. Just my .02

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JERM77 · Jan 21, 2017

I wanted to add some commentary.

I have had 6 full battery flights with my android Google Pixel XL.

The Android DJIGO4 app has crashed during at least 4 flights. Happily though, there has been no catastrophic results of this happening. Rebooted the app, continued flying.

Starting up the app with the mavic controller connected to my Android phone, I've had numerous crash at startup failures. Sometimes requiring 3-4 retries.

I've also noticed that some of the gimbal and stick settings, I've made prior to the last 3 flights, were temporarily reset after an "app crash reboot" during flights on my android phone.

My next flights will be with my Apple IPad mini. I noticed while going through the settings on the iPad DJIGO4 app, that the app does have different settings and setpoints ranges. The Apple IPad app seems more stable so far.

At this point I don't trust my Android device for flights for cinematic shots. Especially, because my android phone steals the charge from my mavic controller. For regular sport flying, I suppose, the Android could work since it's more portable than the iPad.

m0j0 · Jan 21, 2017

I will add all my flights have been iOS. Im an android guy and have a Shield for flying but I'm not reading good things about the android devices and current go app. More crash reports are coming from the android side.

The Flying Geko · Jan 22, 2017

I also have had several problems with the DJI GO4 (and 3.1.1) and my Android phone (LG 3, under Lollypop aka Android 5.0).
Disconexions. The app not connecting when plugged into the RC, had to retry one or two times before it was ok. Loosing some settings also. And having a very bad video transmission on the screen (glitches, freezes).
I saw on the DJI website the specs for the app, and they stated that all the IOS phones and tablets are much more okay to be used with the app.
So, now, I wonder...

V0mit_C0met · Jan 22, 2017

I don't switch anything off and have never had a glitch in over 12 hours of flying using IOS

m0j0 · Jan 27, 2017

I use iOS don't turn anything off and fly. No problems

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Manfrenjensen · Jan 28, 2017

So.... I kept eating up all the data on my verizon data plan because my phone's wifi was mysteriously turning off without me noticing. After quite a few rounds of this, I noticed a pattern. It always seemed to be after my son took the mavic (and my phone) out back to fly. I finally asked, "are you turning my wifi off??".
And yes, he was. He said that it was interfering with the mavic's connection, so he would turn off my phone's wifi to fix it. I said he was full of baloney. However, shortly after, I was out there flying and I kept getting 'disconnection' notices, the video feed would freeze, etc. So I thought, why not... and I turned off my phone's wifi.. and bam... smooth as butter.

So.. I think there is something to this wifi interference thing. One thing to note is that this was just behind my house. Probably just right at the edge of my home wifi's range. It's possible that my phone is frequently connecting/disconnecting on a weak signal. It's possible that it's not even the wifi signal itself, but maybe something going on in the phone operating system's wifi function that's causing some glitches.

I'm using Android. I'm wondering if possibly these other people that had 'wifi' issues were also in range of their home wifi.

Oyibo VFX · Jan 28, 2017

LuvMyTJ said:
Have you guys run into problems personally? What device are you using? Android?
Just curious as my Apple devices are the same I use for everyday stuff and I haven't run into issues yet.

Apple rules

Adventure is just bad planning

RallySoob · Jan 28, 2017

I can report 0 issues with my iphone 6s plus... in 15 flights/30 miles/10 days owned; its like they are made for ios but 'work' with android. Fortunately ive never been anything but an ios person myself.

Before each session i turn off my wifi & bluetooth, then switch to 'do not disturb' (moon icon). Do not put your phone in Airplane mode! You will lose your phone's gps if you do that so don't.

Recently ive been leaving bluetooth on because my trackers both use it but that seem to have no ill effects

I read that the mavic scans the air for all wifi signals present then assigns the mavic with the frequency that is least likely to encounter interference

Oyibo VFX · Jan 30, 2017

No problems here with my iPhone 6S Plus either. Except with the home button (starts Siri).

Adventure is just bad planning

Manfrenjensen · Jan 30, 2017

Just to be clear, I don't think there's a fundamental problem with android & mavic apps. I simply said that, in my case, under very specific conditions, there might be some odd behavior regarding wifi. I have personally only witnessed once and my kid says he has seen it a few times..... all in the same location. This is out of, probably almost 100 flights.
Overall the apps (dji go 4 and litchi) are running beautifully.

greymonkey · Jan 30, 2017

On iPhone is it possible to still set RTH position as controller when in airplane mode, as I have found this difficult since switching to this mode because I was getting video feed disconnects

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adamsweeting · Jan 30, 2017

JERM77 said:
I wanted to add some commentary.

I have had 6 full battery flights with my android Google Pixel XL.

The Android DJIGO4 app has crashed during at least 4 flights. Happily though, there has been no catastrophic results of this happening. Rebooted the app, continued flying.

Starting up the app with the mavic controller connected to my Android phone, I've had numerous crash at startup failures. Sometimes requiring 3-4 retries.

I've also noticed that some of the gimbal and stick settings, I've made prior to the last 3 flights, were temporarily reset after an "app crash reboot" during flights on my android phone.

My next flights will be with my Apple IPad mini. I noticed while going through the settings on the iPad DJIGO4 app, that the app does have different settings and setpoints ranges. The Apple IPad app seems more stable so far.

At this point I don't trust my Android device for flights for cinematic shots. Especially, because my android phone steals the charge from my mavic controller. For regular sport flying, I suppose, the Android could work since it's more portable than the iPad.

I had the same issues with my Pixel XL, however - after doing a full device reboot (I initially installed the app, then just went flying i.e. no reboot) everything seems to be rock solid. I have had 5 flights now with 0 app crashes. I was getting the same behavior as you (2 or 3 crashes per flight).

Maui Mavic Pilot · Jan 30, 2017

I don't see any option in the DJI go app to cache maps. Maybe it's because I don't have the Mavic yet and I'm just looking at the app without ever having connected it to the drone. What am I missing here?

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