51 Drones on the GPS issue some have.
- Thread starter Jagerbomb52
- Start date
I had the same problem AGAIN yesterday. Ate up 3% of my battery and still did not record a home point.
once in a while, my MA2 seems to take longer than I think it should to acquire GPS. I've found that if I take off and hover, it locks almost immediately.
TheGuyUpNorth
New Member
smfry60
Well-Known Member
9 minutes yesterday 8 minutes today and didn't have lock.. went up 200 yards over field got lock , then went up to 200ft and started time lapse.. about 200 frames in , it went from 18 satellite to 8 and stopped time lapse..WTF DJI? Landed the mav3 and up with the air 2.. 18 satellites locked with no problem..
51 Drones
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- Joined
- Mar 6, 2017
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smfry60
Well-Known Member
I hade a similar issue (another topic here) from last week with the same problem.. Monday and Tuesday last week was the same. If tomorrow doesn't have the problem then I'll know something in this area changed an is somehow blocking my GPS signal but only on Monday and Tuesday.. I have been doing time-lapse Sunrises for 6 months at the same place.
Hi Everyone,
I haven't had an opportunity to do this myself yet, but you better believe I'm going to try:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ... HRhJvw&index=1&t=3s
NET: 1) Downgrade your firmware using DJI Assistant 2
2) Boot to get quicker satellite lock
3) Upgrade back to the latest firmware using DJI Assistant 2
He actually refreshed the latest firmware as a first step and sate for 12 mins until he got a satellite lock, but I suspect is was more the downgrade, lock, and then update to firmware that may have helped.
One thing he doesn't give much more info on was if he changed batteries when trying this or tried cold booting on a different day to see if he still got fast sat lock.
I haven't had an opportunity to do this myself yet, but you better believe I'm going to try:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ... HRhJvw&index=1&t=3s
NET: 1) Downgrade your firmware using DJI Assistant 2
2) Boot to get quicker satellite lock
3) Upgrade back to the latest firmware using DJI Assistant 2
He actually refreshed the latest firmware as a first step and sate for 12 mins until he got a satellite lock, but I suspect is was more the downgrade, lock, and then update to firmware that may have helped.
One thing he doesn't give much more info on was if he changed batteries when trying this or tried cold booting on a different day to see if he still got fast sat lock.
Suren
Well-Known Member
I will give this a try and report back if it actually works. I think it just updated GPS faster because the first time around he had already being sitting at around 8 to 9 sats so it just went faster.
Suren
Well-Known Member
Well, that theory does not work. I downgraded to .400, restarted drone, then upgraded again to .500 and restarted drone using the same battery. Took drone outside and waited 4 minutes and 45 seconds to record homeport. The only reason that guy got homeport so fast was because after he did the 1st firmware refresh he left the drone to sit and wait for over 4 minutes and in that time it already acquired most of the sats, then he did the downgrade and upgrade. If he does a full cold boot he will have the same issue.
smfry60
Well-Known Member
I contacted DJI support and received an E-mail telling me to reinstall the updates or refresh thru assistant 2..
I did that a few minutes ago. both the drone and the controller.. we'll find out if that helps in the next couple days..
Fingers crossed
That advice is a huge red flag that DJI has no idea what they are doing. Reflashing the same code in this day and age does absolutely nothing. It’s not 1985 where that might be option. Might be just customer service being dumb. Or they extremely clever and shooting for the placebo effect and buying time. This will absolutely do nothing.
Any modern system today will perform a checksum to verify what was intended to be flashed actually was. And if not raise it as a severe error. It’s even common to checksum itself every time it boots so they know the image is still good. This also helps protect from hacking. Well at least real companies do this.
Happens with me in the UK usually about 1 to 2 minutes at first location . Moving say 5 miles to a different location it is less than a minute. But longer than my previous Mavic 2 Zoom certainly.
I wonder if a person's latitude can have any affect. I will need to pay close attention but here (North Pole, Alaska) I am not noticing any lag in GPS acquisition. My home point is updating as quickly as ever but I have not been looking closely at the number of satellites acquired. When I have glance it seems normal.
I have a crazy thought. It appears some folks genuinely don’t have the issue. And I don’t think it’s lucky hardware but you never know. Maybe some don’t have both GPS antennas connected.
So it appears DJI does use some sort of AGPS (well according to one of their clueless techs they implied they do).
What if it’s not where you are, but what NETWORK you are on !!!
Their AGPS servers might be in China. And on some networks you can get there (fast) and on other networks it can’t. And it might be if it doesn’t connect quickly it falls back to no AGPS and waits for the Sats.
Note: I would think BeiDou AGPS servers would be distributed world wide. But I have no idea. It also doesn't have to be in China to be a problem.
If you can try either your home wifi (for your phone) and your cellular network to see if you see any difference. You MUST be testing with cold boots each time. We know warm boots are fine. You’d have to wait a day or so for each test.
Or if you have a VPN option try that too.
I have seen variable qualities to networks to distant places. Especially China. Different networks will take different routes. Some a LOT better than others.
Also it probably makes sense to have the App up and running before powering up the Drone. Sequence folks power up might make a difference. If Drone does not see controller at boot it might skip AGPS. Ooh that might fit with the Video of someone’s claim if they reboot Drone it gets Home Point fast. If they booted Drone, then App/Controller, then Drone again that would fit. Because the 2nd time they booted the Drone the App/Controller was up and ready to hand it AGPS data. And if you really know what you are doing you can trace the activity on your router to see if it's contacting home land china for AGPS (or where ever it's going). This would also be hard to test, if DJI is testing in China.
This is just wild guess. No idea for sure they even use AGPS or anything. It’s just a thought that popped in my head to try. But this could be a link to why some folks have significantly different performance than others. Note some users could be routed to a bogus AGPS server that's not being updated correctly too.
Years ago on early mobile phones this WAS a huge issue. And folks would change which server their AGPS pointed at and made a huge difference in GPS locking.
So it appears DJI does use some sort of AGPS (well according to one of their clueless techs they implied they do).
What if it’s not where you are, but what NETWORK you are on !!!
Their AGPS servers might be in China. And on some networks you can get there (fast) and on other networks it can’t. And it might be if it doesn’t connect quickly it falls back to no AGPS and waits for the Sats.
Note: I would think BeiDou AGPS servers would be distributed world wide. But I have no idea. It also doesn't have to be in China to be a problem.
If you can try either your home wifi (for your phone) and your cellular network to see if you see any difference. You MUST be testing with cold boots each time. We know warm boots are fine. You’d have to wait a day or so for each test.
Or if you have a VPN option try that too.
I have seen variable qualities to networks to distant places. Especially China. Different networks will take different routes. Some a LOT better than others.
Also it probably makes sense to have the App up and running before powering up the Drone. Sequence folks power up might make a difference. If Drone does not see controller at boot it might skip AGPS. Ooh that might fit with the Video of someone’s claim if they reboot Drone it gets Home Point fast. If they booted Drone, then App/Controller, then Drone again that would fit. Because the 2nd time they booted the Drone the App/Controller was up and ready to hand it AGPS data. And if you really know what you are doing you can trace the activity on your router to see if it's contacting home land china for AGPS (or where ever it's going). This would also be hard to test, if DJI is testing in China.
This is just wild guess. No idea for sure they even use AGPS or anything. It’s just a thought that popped in my head to try. But this could be a link to why some folks have significantly different performance than others. Note some users could be routed to a bogus AGPS server that's not being updated correctly too.
Years ago on early mobile phones this WAS a huge issue. And folks would change which server their AGPS pointed at and made a huge difference in GPS locking.
Last edited:
skycam509
Well-Known Member
Russ doesn't know what the hell he's doing!
Just kidding... I've been following him from day 1. Great channel!
Just kidding... I've been following him from day 1. Great channel!
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