Can't calibrate and GPS is offline

[New England Droning]

Today is my second set of flights and they went ok but I noticed early this morning that it wants to calibrate the compass. I tried several different locations and did the horizontal and vertical and it keeps failing.
This afternoon the GPS seems to be offline and I had to force the takeoff (auto takeoff turned off) and I did a 3-4 minute flight with no issues. When I got down the alerts are showing in red and it says overriding the no takeoff is not recommended...

can I do the firmware again which I updates last Saturday... Who do we talk to about this... 3rd day of ownership..

Oh I did a successful calibration on Sat 11/21

mavic mini 2

 

[old man mavic]

@Salem-Drone hi my fellow flyer ,i dont mean any disrespect to you, but GPS does not go offline ,i think what you mean is that you were unable to get a successful sat lock from where you were trying to fly ,you should not have to calibrate the compass unless there is some sort of interference that was causing it, such as metal like rebar in the ground where you were trying to take off from or there was large metal structures close to you

 

[New England Droning]

During a break from work I powered it all up in the house, it did not ask for a calibration but did say no GPS and a week GPS and allowed the auto lift off... So more functional but not what I would hope for. seems like a bug or I'm missing something that I should be doing...
Is there anything on a calibration that would amount to a best practice? I notice other mavics say they leave them on the table to calibrate them but mine says spin it around... thoughts?

 

[old man mavic]

i wish i was living close to you so i could help you to understand how the drones GPS and compass work ,the GPS will not be able to get a good lock if you are inside a structure ,the GPS cannot be calibrated ,its the compass that you calibrate by spinning the drone as shown on the screen and its the IMU that is calibrated on a flat surface ,try and watch some videos on what the various components inside the drone do or if you prefer reading then you can find some good books on the subject hope you can get the info you require ,take care and happy flying

 

[New England Droning]

@Salem-Drone hi my fellow flyer ,i dont mean any disrespect to you, but GPS does not go offline ,i think what you mean is that you were unable to get a successful sat lock from where you were trying to fly ,you should not have to calibrate the compass unless there is some sort of interference that was causing it, such as metal like rebar in the ground where you were trying to take off from or there was large metal structures close to you

I realize the satellites have no fallen out of geosynchronous orbit... being indoors I would expect a weak signal but it actually worked in the house getting a weak signal but I went outside and had no GPS signal... go figure...

 

[Meta4]

During a break from work I powered it all up in the house, it did not ask for a calibration but did say no GPS and a week GPS and allowed the auto lift off... So more functional but not what I would hope for. seems like a bug or I'm missing something that I should be doing...

Are your issues happening indoors?
If so, just forget about them, take the drone outdoors where there is a clear view of most of the sky and start all over again.
GPS indoors is always going to be sketchy at best.

 

[New England Droning]

i wish i was living close to you so i could help you to understand how the drones GPS and compass work ,the GPS will not be able to get a good lock if you are inside a structure ,the GPS cannot be calibrated ,its the compass that you calibrate by spinning the drone as shown on the screen and its the IMU that is calibrated on a flat surface ,try and watch some videos on what the various components inside the drone do or if you prefer reading then you can find some good books on the subject hope you can get the info you require ,take care and happy flying

Thanks, I will check what the IMU is and I was in a clear sky situation this morning and afternoon (200' circle clearing). That is when I got the calibration message and... the GPS weak signal and then no GPS signal. Its intermittent so it makes it hard to troubleshoot. When I powered up this afternoon in the house it no longer requested a calibration... One would think that if it needed it, it would need it till it got a good one... So I'll look for some videos on this subject.

 

[New England Droning]

Are your issues happening indoors?
If so, just forget about them, take the drone outdoors where there is a clear view of most of the sky and start all over again.
GPS indoors is always going to be sketchy at best.

I was outside on top of a hill and at least a 200' clearing. But it seems to be hit or miss

 

[Meta4]

When I powered up this afternoon in the house it no longer requested a calibration... One would think that if it needed it, it would need it till it got a good one...

Just because you think the drone is asking for compass calibration doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Often it's because the compass is close enough to some steel or live electrical cables and DJI's message wording isn't very clear.
Sometimes it's because DJI, (for some reason only they know) forces the drone to ask for compass calibration if the drone is >50 km or >30 days from the last flight.

ps .. GPS would not work at all if the satellites were in geosynchronous orbits.

 

[DanMan32]

At the top the app will show how many satellites it is receiving. Is it actually showing 0 or just a low number?

I've found my Mini 1 can take as much as a full minute or two to lock on enough sats. How long are you allowing for "warmup"?

 

[teeroy]

I had the same issue with my mini 2 today. Asked for a compass calibration when I turned it on outside and then kept saying calibration failed. Did it at least 5 times with the same message, would not calibrate. I finally got a successful calibration and flew the M2 to capture one of my drivers hauling a Caterpillar scraper away from the site and after a minute or so a message came up on the screen that the controller was disconnected from the drone. I walked out to the road and could see it hovering, so I tried to lower it to come back and all controls were responding normally, just nothing on the screen but a freeze frame at the moment the controller disconnected. I flew it back visually and landed it on my truck, shut the controller off and turned it back on and had connection again.

I came home and went outside to fly it again and it did the same thing, disconnected after a minute or so, I watched it hovering and figured I would just shut off the controller to see what would happen. The mini kept hovering while I shut the controller off and back on again, connection resumed and I flew it back and landed it. So far having way more grief than I ever did with my first mavic mini...I hope this is some kind of firmware issue that will be updated.

Edit: I believe the disconnecting controller and calibration issues are unrelated. After checking out my phone I saw a notification of an issue with the USB C connector on my S9. It said moisture detected, so I cleaned it and the notification has disappeared. Hoping that was the problem, even though my phone was nowhere near any moisture to get into the port.

 

[Meta4]

Asked for a compass calibration when I turned it on outside and then kept saying calibration failed. Did it at least 5 times with the same message, would not calibrate. ... flew it back visually and landed it on my truck, shut the controller off and turned it back on and had connection again.

Are you attempting to launch from your truck and getting a message that you think is asking for compass calibration?
If so the message isn't asking for recalibration of the compass at all.
It's your compass warning you that the truck is not a suitable launching spot and if the repeated failure to (unnecessarily) recalibrate was close to the truck, that was due to doing it next to all that steel.

 

[teeroy]

Are you attempting to launch from your truck and getting a message that you think is asking for compass calibration?
If so the message isn't asking for recalibration of the compass at all.
It's your compass warning you that the truck is not a suitable launching spot and if the repeated failure to (unnecessarily) recalibrate was close to the truck, that was due to doing it next to all that steel.

I thought maybe that was the case and moved far away from it and got the same message. I've launched the mavic mini from the composite box cover of my truck many times with no compass recalibration messages. I've even launched it off the hood of the truck before without that message coming up. Maybe the mini 2 compass is that much more sensitive...?

 

[DanMan32]

I had the same issue with my mini 2 today. Asked for a compass calibration when I turned it on outside and then kept saying calibration failed. Did it at least 5 times with the same message, would not calibrate. I finally got a successful calibration and flew the M2 to capture one of my drivers hauling a Caterpillar scraper away from the site and after a minute or so a message came up on the screen that the controller was disconnected from the drone. I walked out to the road and could see it hovering, so I tried to lower it to come back and all controls were responding normally, just nothing on the screen but a freeze frame at the moment the controller disconnected. I flew it back visually and landed it on my truck, shut the controller off and turned it back on and had connection again.

I came home and went outside to fly it again and it did the same thing, disconnected after a minute or so, I watched it hovering and figured I would just shut off the controller to see what would happen. The mini kept hovering while I shut the controller off and back on again, connection resumed and I flew it back and landed it. So far having way more grief than I ever did with my first mavic mini...I hope this is some kind of firmware issue that will be updated.

Edit: I believe the disconnecting controller and calibration issues are unrelated. After checking out my phone I saw a notification of an issue with the USB C connector on my S9. It said moisture detected, so I cleaned it and the notification has disappeared. Hoping that was the problem, even though my phone was nowhere near any moisture to get into the port.

Did it say signal lost/aircraft disconnected, or did it really say Remote Disconnected? The latter means the phone/app lost communication with the remote, and not that the remote lost connection with the AC. Your finding a problem with the C port on the phone pretty much confirms my suspicion.

When you turned off the remote, that should have caused fail-safe to kick in, which the default response is RTH. You might want to check your fail-safe setting if you expected RTH. Of course RTH when closer than 60ft from HP will instead land.

 

[teeroy]

Did it say signal lost/aircraft disconnected, or did it really say Remote Disconnected? The latter means the phone/app lost communication with the remote, and not that the remote lost connection with the AC. Your finding a problem with the C port on the phone pretty much confirms my suspicion.

When you turned off the remote, that should have caused fail-safe to kick in, which the default response is RTH. You might want to check your fail-safe setting if you expected RTH. Of course RTH when closer than 60ft from HP will instead land.

I'm pretty sure it just said remote disconnected, which makes sense as I still had control.

I brought it down to about 10 feet in case it just shut down and crashed (there is about a foot of snow, soft crash landing), first tried unplugging the phone from the remote and reconnecting, when that didn't work I turned the controller off and then on again. I was a long ways from where I had launched as I walked out into my field after the disconnect to see it better, it just stayed hovering as I shut the controller off and turned it back on. It did not initiate RTH, I have not changed any default settings.

 

[teeroy]

I have not changed any default settings.

The above is inaccurate, I did change my RTH altitude to clear the trees in my yard.

 

[Meta4]

I'm pretty sure it just said remote disconnected, which makes sense as I still had control.

If the remote was disconnected, you would have had no way to control the drone.

 

[teeroy]

If the remote was disconnected, you would have had no way to control the drone.

It was the message on the screen.

 

[teeroy]

When you turned off the remote, that should have caused fail-safe to kick in, which the default response is RTH. You might want to check your fail-safe setting if you expected RTH. Of course RTH when closer than 60ft from HP will instead land.

I just found this about controller disconnect:

Lost Connection With Remote Controller – The Failsafe RTH function automatically activates after the remote controller signal is lost for more than 11 seconds. However, this depends on whether the Home Point was successfully recorded in the first place.

Makes sense as to why it didn't try to RTH when I shut off the controller, it was definitely less than 11 seconds before I powered it up again.

 

[New England Droning]

At the top the app will show how many satellites it is receiving. Is it actually showing 0 or just a low number?

I've found my Mini 1 can take as much as a full minute or two to lock on enough sats. How long are you allowing for "warmup"?

You are right about the warm-up. I now realize that I (the newbie) have to wait and have patience about the lock-on process as it can take up to 1 minute to get a GPS signal. the other issue with the calibration was also fixed when I moved the drone to sit on dirt instead of rocks and I assume the rocky ground may have had some Ferris metals... so a new calibration has been done...