Aircraft Disconnect, mid flight no signal strength or other errors.

[Paul2660]

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This morning I had a strange issue during a flight. About 1/2 way into the flight, while in the middle of setting up for a series of pictures, the aircraft disconnected. I was using the Smart Controller and flying a Mavic 2 Pro. I had strong signal strength, and had not receive any warnings in regards to signal strength. The top left of the screen went from green (normal) to red (aircraft disconnected).

My first thought was a bird strike but I should have seen something in the video feed, i.e. spinning or something, and I had not seen any birds. Then I assumed the battery had fallen out since the disconnect happened so fast. But I waited about 30 seconds to see if the drone would return home. I was about 1600 feet out. After that I tried to move around the screen on the smart controller, and noticed the frozen image had switched from color to B&W, and I believe the device was frozen.

I rebooted the Smart Controller, via a power off/on cycle. And on powering back up, I heard the Return Home beeping and video feed was back, showing the drone was indeed returning home. I allowed the return and then took back control once it was over head, and flew it around a bit, and did not have any other issues.

What concerns me is how fast this disconnect occurred as did not get any warnings, and was well within a range that should have not caused any issues. Line of sight was good also.

My link to the flight record is on top of post, note, the record seems to just stop at time of disconnection. The next flight record is the return home, and I did not attach it.

I have also attached (2) mobile device dat files. Not sure why there are so many for one flight. If there is a way to upload these, I apologize in advance as I have only attached them below. If someone can let me know how to upload them I will do that also. There is a third but it's too large to attach.

Sincerely
Paul

 

[Paul2660]

This is the 3rd dat file, compressed to a zip. It's 13.5MB in normal size.

Thanks
Paul

 

[slup]

Looking into the first 2 DAT logs you attached doesn't reveal any cause at all, the DAT log event stream just stops, & when looking at the second with a later time stamp, it just continues but then the AC is in RTH.

My guess is, that this is again the quite common issue with the SC ... the app crashes & leaves the pilot without a functioning live stream & a dead app user interface. Even though the app is dead, the controller is usually working, so it's possible to both stick control the AC & command RTH.

Most probably your AC just stood there & hovered after the live screen froze ... until you decided to restart the SC, which initiated the set failsafe action which was RTH.

So ... this was most probably no disconnect between RC-AC, instead the GO4 app crashed.

 

[Paul2660]

Thanks for the information. One thing I did not think of was to look at the SC to see if the Green light showing connection was still green, or if it had turned red. If it was due to a app crash, on the SC, that's a first for me. It's been very reliable. This is one issue I still like the original controller for, the small screen. That would have shown me if I was still in contact with drone, and distance if it was coming home by looking at the distance read out.

I guess I did panic, and did not follow a good solution path, and I have written down a process of steps to take for the future.

I attempted to hit the return home icon on the SC screen, but the app was frozen, and thus I would have attempted a return home by using the hard button the SC, but instead I did a reboot of the SC, and by the time the SC rebooted, the drone was well under way coming home.

My first thought again was that the battery had come loose and dropped, thus crashing due to the instant way the disconnect occurred.

I was several firmware levels back on the SC and 1 on the drone, and update both to current today. I have always managed with the older firmware on the SC (3 levels back), with no problems so just did not want to upgrade. I will say the upgrade on the SC went smoother than past ones, using the Assistant 2 for Mavic software and USB connection to my Mac.

The only issues I have had with this SC are:

1. Time is never correct and has to be corrected each time you power it up.
2. About 1 in 10 times after connection, the SC screen stays grey and never shows the image, which requires a
reboot of SC. I always power on the SC first, then drone, but still get this error occasionally, but never in flight
3. Every once in a while after powering on the SC, and seeing the light go green implying connection, the SC
screen never moves to the screen where you hit "go fly", so I have to power off the SC and start again.

Paul C

 

[ClaudioNC]

Thanks for the information. One thing I did not think of was to look at the SC to see if the Green light showing connection was still green, or if it had turned red. If it was due to a app crash, on the SC, that's a first for me. It's been very reliable. This is one issue I still like the original controller for, the small screen. That would have shown me if I was still in contact with drone, and distance if it was coming home by looking at the distance read out.

I guess I did panic, and did not follow a good solution path, and I have written down a process of steps to take for the future.

I attempted to hit the return home icon on the SC screen, but the app was frozen, and thus I would have attempted a return home by using the hard button the SC, but instead I did a reboot of the SC, and by the time the SC rebooted, the drone was well under way coming home.

My first thought again was that the battery had come loose and dropped, thus crashing due to the instant way the disconnect occurred.

I was several firmware levels back on the SC and 1 on the drone, and update both to current today. I have always managed with the older firmware on the SC (3 levels back), with no problems so just did not want to upgrade. I will say the upgrade on the SC went smoother than past ones, using the Assistant 2 for Mavic software and USB connection to my Mac.

The only issues I have had with this SC are:

1. Time is never correct and has to be corrected each time you power it up.
2. About 1 in 10 times after connection, the SC screen stays grey and never shows the image, which requires a
reboot of SC. I always power on the SC first, then drone, but still get this error occasionally, but never in flight
3. Every once in a while after powering on the SC, and seeing the light go green implying connection, the SC
screen never moves to the screen where you hit "go fly", so I have to power off the SC and start again.

Paul C

In 2016 and perhaps also 2017 I was turning on the Remote Controller first, then the aircraft.
It was recommended for the Mavic Pro, Phantom 3 series with DJI GO 3 and maybe for the Inspire 1 series as well.
Subsequently I had read, here and there, recommendations to do the opposite.
First the aircraft and immediately afterwards the Controller.
For at least 4 years, I always first switch on the aircraft (Phantom 4 series, Inspire 2, Mavic 2 series) and a moment later, without waiting for the complete restart, the controller, Smart or normal and the Cendence as well.
Doing so, in my memory, I never had any anomalies for the connection and the live images or even uncertainty on the initial connection.
Thousands of flights.
However recently it started happening to me inexplicably - after having made a hundred flights without any unexpected interruption caused by bugs - that the Smart Controller (or the DJI GO 4 app) regularly disconnects during one of the flights that I usually do in rapid sequence during one day.
It can happen during the first flight, or during the second.
Am very upset for this.
Even before buying the Smart Controller I had read that it was happening to someone, but I don't understand why to me it started suddenly after a hundred of regular flights with no issue and not before.
I have to restart it to resume the full functionality, otherwise the video live does not reappear, only a gray freezed image remains, or also nothing, a black background, without image, if I click the back hardware button and then again on the Go Fly on the screen.
At least one time the flight data for distance and altitude, had also frozen.

So I restart the SC and after the reconnection everything is again ok.
In the meantime the drone has started its auto RTH, I stop it to regain my scheduled flight, if possible, and no other anomalies occur in the other subsequent flights (4...8) during the same day, but the same irritating show come back on the next day of flights; during the first or the second flight!
What could be done?
How to possibly reinstall DJI GO 4?
Today I have erased the GO 4 cash in the SC and all the small jpg preview stored, so, just to try to do something.
About half of the space on disk was free before and also now is.
For sure I do not do any upgrade, if any is available and I'll try first to (re)pilot the same Mavic 2 with another SC having an older FW.
Is there anyone here who can give me a good hint to solve this issue?