Care Refresh: Gimbal & Camera flipping out?

[nicoloks]

Hi All,

Have had my Mavic for around 8 months in which time it has worked pretty much flawlessly. Last night however a few things went weird;

1. When I first turned on my Mavic I thought I'd give Litchi a go to see how it compared as I basically haven't used it as my default flight app since I sold my P3 Pro. The motors would not spin, I couldn't see any errors to indicate why this was. I switched back to DJI Go 4 (4.1.18) and an error came up saying the aircraft was locked. Had never seen this before, so I restarted the Mavic and the error was clear. Using DJI Go 4 I was able to take off and fly normally for a good 10~15 minutes. Even landed for a battery swap out.

2. Then when I was about to return home anyway, this happened and it really freaked me out. At first I thought I'd lost my Mavic, however it wasn't moving in the sky and the app was reporting everything else fine. For some reason I stopped recording, would have been handy to have all the footage to show all the issues that followed. Essentially the gimbal continued to flip out as shown in the linked video, however in addition to this the camera focus went WAY out. I tried tapping to focus again and it would snap in for a second, only to lose it again moments later.

This morning I contacted DJI to get my Mavic sent in for repair (I have Care Refresh until April), however they are insisting I upgrade all firmware and uninstall the DJI Go 4 app and install again using the latest version. I'll do it if I have to, would rather not though as it has been such a stable platform. I used to update my P3 Pro firmware and app version all the time and experienced terrible video transmission artifacts that were never addressed (hence Litchi).

Long story short, given I have Care Refresh can I insist DJI take my Mavic as is considering it has been stable for so long? I just can't see how firmware that has been used for months is going to cause an issue like this. Main concern I have is there is a physical issue there that may only intermittently show up and my Care Refresh is going to expire we me having this defective drone.

Anyone else having these issues with the Gimbal?

 

[Former Member]

I would do as they are asking. If that fails, you're going to need to send it in anyway.

 

[ashdob]

Just give it an update like they say and if it works that's great if not least you can send it back.

 

[nicoloks]

Makes sense. Looks like I was on Mavic firmware version 1.03.0600, which also looks like it was the last firmware before requiring a login to DJI or have the flight height and radius limited to 30m and 50m respectively. Does this literally mean that regardless of what flight app I am using (e.g even Litchi) that I have to have an active connection to DJI to be able to fly the drone? A good deal of the footage I take is remote with zero mobile phone reception, no way these newer firmwares are going to work for me if that is the case.

 

[nicoloks]

Not sure what is going on, but prior to upgrading my firmware I was given this message stating the changes mentioned above and that if I did not like it I could downgrade my firmware. So, with the knowledge that I could revert to 1.03.0600 should I not like the new restrictions on the newer firmware I went ahead and upgraded using DJI Assistant 2 (which listed my current firmware as well as every iteration up to the current). I upgraded to the current version and now when logging into DJI assistant 2 there are no other firmwares listed apart from the current once which I am on.

Does this mean I can no longer revert to 1.03.0600?

 

[beachcombing]

Makes sense. Looks like I was on Mavic firmware version 1.03.0600, which also looks like it was the last firmware before requiring a login to DJI or have the flight height and radius limited to 30m and 50m respectively. Does this literally mean that regardless of what flight app I am using (e.g even Litchi) that I have to have an active connection to DJI to be able to fly the drone? A good deal of the footage I take is remote with zero mobile phone reception, no way these newer firmwares are going to work for me if that is the case.

You only have to log in once while connected to the internet. After that, an internet connection is not required.

 

[Noobin]

Hey guys, just joined the forum, I hope to be posting about happy things in the future but unfortunately I need to start with saying that I've just experienced the same sort of camera/gimbal malfunction.

I have the latest firmware (V01.04.0200) and DJI GO Android app (4.2.4), and the camera behaves normally now, so I'm trying to work out if it's a reoccurring problem that I should report to DJI. I do have care refresh but after only 1 month and no damage/other issues I'd rather not use it yet. Without any camera/gimbal logs its a bit hard to diagnose/monitor :/

The text below is a copy of what I wrote on the youtube video:

At no time were the flight controls of the drone affected. It performed a RTH (Return To Home) exactly as commanded, and no sensors seemed to be malfunctioning. I uploaded the flight data to AirData UAV and it shows no errors of any kind.
I have had no crashes or previous malfunctions but it's only one month old and flight #22.

What happened was I was flying above a wetlands area and decided to inspect some green weeds that were growing on the surface of the water. I came in close and pointed the camera directly down (which I have mapped to C1 on the remote).
From that point onwards, none of the camera/gimbal controls were touched by me, and the camera performed a number of uncommanded movements.

First, it tilted the camera up abruptly (as if I pressed the C1 command again as above) and at the same time it rolled the camera from side to side as if it forgot where the horizon/level was.
Then it stopped recording video on the drone by itself (at this point I initiated the RTH, you can see the drone rising then turning towards home), then as it began the RTH it went in and out of focus a number of times (I was using manual focus so it should have been fixed focus) while still rolling the gimbal, and finally tilted straight down abruptly. The video on my phone stopped recording at that point (the end of this video), about 15 seconds after it stopped recording on the drone. I believe this is somewhat normal as it only records on the phone if it's recording on the drone, but I think 15 seconds is longer than the usual delay/difference.
The camera then tilted up again and remained rolled to about 30 degrees for the remainder of the flight home.

I landed safely and performed a gimbal calibration which was successful and the camera and gimbal seem to be operating correctly now, on the ground (Haven't flown again since).
At first I thought maybe a bird had hit the drone but I realised that the drone itself hadn't moved, as I was watching both the video feed and the drone in the sky.
This video is the one saved on my phone, as the video on the drone stopped recording around when I pressed RTH and missed some of the malfunction.

Is it safe to fly again, possibly far away and relaying on the video feed for accurate positioning? The law here in Australia says that you need to see the drone at all times (around 600m away max I believe), but to capture accurate video it's far easier to have a spotter and to fly while watching the feed. I was watching the feed and thought the drone did a somersault! Not fun while above water and around 400m away!

 

[Noobin]

OK on further reading, it seems like I might have just experienced a camera/gimbal reset, which is quite common, and shouldn't happen again for a long time unless something really is wrong..
Gimbal reset?
Mavic gimbal reset during flight

hopefully you also just had this and nothing more nicoloks, I'll let you know if I have any additional problems while flying tomorrow..


Edit/update: Flew today with no camera or gimbal issues, tried to induce a 'drunken horizon' but it stayed pretty level under full yaw and/or strafe, hope it never does a camera/gimbal reset again!