Poll: Have you noticed a decrease in video/control quality recently?

[erkme73]

UPDATED 3-19-17: after flying with a couple of other MP users, through process of elimination, we determined the problem was due to a badly crimped/crushed micro USB cable/adapter (the stock one). It appeared ok, but after swapping it out with a new one, my range and clarity improved significantly. Still getting warnings about blocked signals within just a few hundred feet of the homepoint, but video breakups are at least 75% better.

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Probably 90% of my flights are over my neighborhood, the clubhouse, and the field next to it. All within 2000' of my home point. Up until some of the more recent firmware and app updates, I rarely had signal warnings, let alone jerky controls or video.

I don't know specifically when it started (maybe in the last couple of weeks), but it's gotten to the point that when I'm no more than 100' away (only 100' up) I'm already seeing very jerky video streams and receiving warning about my signal being blocked (both control and video). I literally cannot get beyond 1500' before I get the "no signal" black and white screen.

I've tried it with both of my android devices, with and without airplane mode (makes no difference). I've even gone to extreme corners of my property and found little or no improvement.

So my question is to those that are completely current on their android app and firmware on the aircraft... Have you guys seen any degradation in the signal or control quality compared to just a few weeks ago? Are you seeing any more warnings than normal? Are you noticing a decrease in the overall distance limit?

Heck, I'll make this a poll...

Unless there is some kind of hardware failure in the RC or MP, or a neighbor recently installed a 500W wifi router, I don't know what else could be going on.

 

[Achilles]

I've noticed a substantial decrease in both video transmission and video focus inconsistency with this last firmware upgrade.

 

[pjd900]

I use an iPhone 6 and used to never have jerky live video feed. Now I have it all of the time, wherever I fly...even when I have full signal strength. I've tried airplane mode and and not saving the video feed to the phone, and nothing works. Don't know if it's due to new firmware on the Mavic or the iPhone.

 

[Robbyg]

Yes I have seen a decrease in the video range since the last firmware update. It also cuts out a lot more abruptly.

Rob

 

[erkme73]

This is quite discouraging. I sure hope it's a bug and not intentional.

 

[HFMan]

I'm on .400 right now, and no range problems at all. I take it different places each day to get a baseline from my favorite haunts. At this point, 10,600 feet out and no issues whatsoever. I wonder if I move to .500 will this change.

 

[erkme73]

I'm on .400 right now, and no range problems at all. I take it different places each day to get a baseline from my favorite haunts. At this point, 10,600 feet out and no issues whatsoever. I wonder if I move to .500 will this change.

You have my vote to try and let us know I've not downgraded my firmware before, but will research on how to do that.

ETA 1: I am downgrading to .400 right now. Will update this as soon as it's complete and I've had a chance to test it.

ETA 2: After going to .400 the signal did not improve. If anything it got worse. For the first time ever, I was getting split screens with serious ghosting. Upgrading back to .500 now.

 

[Mavicsailor]

I've never had an warning telling me to readjust antennas until after the very latest firmware. Now I do. Interesting that Healthy Drones never shows a drop in signal quality. Maybe DJI is just being overly cautious. Noticed the video being more erratic also.

For those of you that wanted to roll back everything, did you find a way to roll back the iPhone/iPad app to the previous version? Rolling back the Mavic FW looks straight forward using DJI Assist, although I've never tired this.

Too bad we always have to wonder what changes DJI has made behind the scenes when doing Updates. I don't believe they have a history of openly recognizing major bugs, and acknowledging these with FW fixes, but I suspect they slip these possible fixes in under the radar and wait to see if the problem reports stop. Maybe the GPS health/ATTI problem was fixed with this recent update. We won't know until the new reports dry up.

They have great engineering but I question some of the other facets of their operation...especially their service and being forthright with issues. Understandably, for many, customer trust is lacking.....but they are still the best overall game in town.

 

[Robert Mitchell]

I've updated regularly, and have not seen any decrease in anything. In fact during my last few flights the video feed has been flawless due to cleaning up my device before flight. I'm not flying long distances though, 1500 ft out max.

 

[flyNfrank]

The higher you fly, there is less interference. The reception is way better at higher altitudes.

I added the WindSurfer to my antennas and at the 3 mile point I only dropped down one bar total from each image and signal icon.

 

[Mavicsailor]

Yes I have seen a decrease in the video range since the last firmware update. It also cuts out a lot more abruptly.

Rob

Rob,

When your video is cutting out, do have full strength HD? I clearly see more cut outs (drop in video for a second) since upgrading to the latest FW. Compared new cached video to old pre-update cached video. Pre-update I rarely had the video cut out if under 1000 feet out. Now it does it 100 feet out sometimes. Something definitely was changed. In each instance, I had full HD signal.

 

[erkme73]

Rob,

When your video is cutting out, do have full strength HD? I clearly see more cut outs (drop in video for a second) since upgrading to the latest FW. Compared new cached video to old pre-update cached video. Pre-update I rarely had the video cut out if under 1000 feet out. Now it does it 100 feet out sometimes. Something definitely was changed. In each instance, I had full HD signal.

I am SOOO glad to read that. This describes my issue precisely. I was dreading the thought that my hardware was somehow beginning to fail. Knowing that others are seeing the same thing is reassuring - and hopefully means DJI will fix it. Unless, of course, it's by design (due to some backroom deal with the FAA)... [tightens foil helmet]

 

[Mavicsailor]

I am SOOO glad to read that. This describes my issue precisely. I was dreading the thought that my hardware was somehow beginning to fail. Knowing that others are seeing the same thing is reassuring - and hopefully means DJI will fix it. Unless, of course, it's by design (due to some backroom deal with the FAA)... [tightens foil helmet]

I suspect many have the problem, but haven't noticed it yet, or maybe a dropout for a second here and there doesn't bother them. I just know it clearly wasn't that way before the update. In my case it occurs with all iOS devices.

I was hoping it was as simple as my kids being home from college heating up the 2.4GHZ range while playing wireless video games causing interference. Too bad it wasn't that easy.

Funny I thought the same thing about this being an intentional degrading of performance. I've read threads of DJI possibly doing this in the past with other products, perhaps to help marketing sell the next best product. I hope that's not the case, and the M2 is probably a good ways out. Hopefully enough people report this that it will soon be fixed.

 

[erkme73]

I suspect many have the problem, but haven't noticed it yet, or maybe a dropout for a second here and there doesn't bother them. I just know it clearly wasn't that way before the update. In my case it occurs with all iOS devices.

I was hoping it was as simple as my kids being home from college heating up the 2.4GHZ range while playing wireless video games causing interference. Too bad it wasn't that easy.

Well, maybe I'm just starting to get more sensitive to reports of forced RTH's resulting in lost aircraft, but in the last few days, there seems to be an increase. Might be coincidence, or perhaps it's related to the very sudden and dramatic complete loss of signal that is happening at far shorter distances. Dunno.

 

[HFMan]

I think you all need to get more scientific about this. Just reporting a degradation without any numbers to back it up is simply pure speculation. Perhaps your phone/tablet is acting up? Upload the phone logs to healthy drones and pull the numbers. Grab the logs of the Mavic and also post those logs. Get to the bottom of the problem by looking at the facts. I know that my Galaxy S5 absolutely won't perform well at all unless I put it in airplane mode and shut down all background apps- then it's fine. My iPad Pro is fine, doesn't need any special attention. I continue to fly out 6500-10600 feet with not a single glitch in video or control.

 

[Mavicsailor]

H

I think you all need to get more scientific about this. Just reporting a degradation without any numbers to back it up is simply pure speculation. Perhaps your phone/tablet is acting up? Upload the phone logs to healthy drones and pull the numbers. Grab the logs of the Mavic and also post those logs. Get to the bottom of the problem by looking at the facts. I know that my Galaxy S5 absolutely won't perform well at all unless I put it in airplane mode and shut down all background apps- then it's fine. My iPad Pro is fine, doesn't need any special attention. I continue to fly out 6500-10600 feet with not a single glitch in video or control.

Neither erkme73 or I are quick to jump to conclusions on problems. We were just inquiring as to who else may have this issue, to make sure it wasn't just us. That's a logical step to take in problem solving.

In my case, there doesn't appear to be a degrading of either control or HD signal strength ....just periodic dropouts in the video feed that clearly wasn't occuring before the update. I would have assumed that for video to drop out, it would be accompanied by a lower HD signal strength, but maybe not. My signal strength for HD is excellent, and appear in line with that observed pre-update. I believe the signal strength indicated in Healthy Drones is only for the RC control signal. I've experienced this issue on 2 iOS devices both placed in airplane mode. As for the Dat log downloaded from the Mavic, I may be wrong, but I don't believe there are any numbers that can be corolated with video signal strength. It may still be interference of some type that may effect the quality of the HD signal (snr), which is separate from the HD strength. To rule this out, I need to try another location.....that's my next scientific test.

 

[erkme73]

I'm going to a meetup tomorrow at a local field. It's the first time I'll see another MP. I hope to fly his with my phone and vice versa. It will be interesting to see a 1:1 comparison.

 

[Mavicsailor]

interference

Let us know the findings of your experiments. Hopefully the other Mavic has the latest FW so a fair comparison can be made.

 

[Cerberus]

I've had a bit of a scare twice yesterday myself. First one is flew no more than 60 meters away and my video link shows signal lost and blacked out. RC shows my AC still connected to my controller.

I tried looking at my video log on my phone but it appears to me that the video I took right after take off till that 60 m distance, the video wasn't recorded. The video log only shows the recording right after i re-established my video link. So anything in between my take off and the point I lost video, no record whatsoever.

Second time, happened same day about 40 minutes later. Flew around 1700m away. Everything seems fine. At 1700m away my signal bar shows 3 only. Not wanting to go further, I headed back. Almost halfway along, my video glitched and turn black and white for a split second, and my RC shows total signal lost for both video and radio signal, no bars at all, but only for a split second.

But after that split second, everything was back in order and it appears my AC didn't even slow down from that split second. I had my throttle forward the whole split second.

The thing is, I've been flying my bird with my new firmware till now and I never had any problems. Just yesterday.

 

[erkme73]

Let us know the findings of your experiments. Hopefully the other Mavic has the latest FW so a fair comparison can be made.

OK, so the meet is over. There were two other Mavics there. Both were using Apple devices. Both were most current app and firmware. Both could hit 4000' with no warnings or glitching.

I asked one of them for thier iPhone so I could try it on my controller. With it, my MP flew 4400 feet before the first hint of signal issues. That ruled out any hardware issues on my MP or RC.

I put my android phones back on and once again couldn't get past 1000' before signal loss.

I thought great, now I now need an iFruit device. But with both Android phones behaving exactly the same way, and with most Android users having no issues with signal, I thought it can't be that.

Then I had a (very rare) stroke of genius... I asked if either operator still had their Android mini cable/adapter. They did. I hooked up my android with the new cable, and PRESTO! I had full clarity and signal all the way to 4500 feet.

Upon closer inspection of my original cable I could see where it had been pinched repeatedly between the phone holder arm and the body of the controller. What looked like scuffs was actually crush marks. The insulation was split on the edge and I'm sure the conductors were compromised.

TL;DR - if your having signal issues check your cable for damage. If you don't see any, replace it with a standard cable (using the bottom full size USB).

God am I relieved I don't have to start a DJI repair order!