Complete blackout on screen.

[Eddy_B]

Well, my 4th flight this year was a bit of an event. I was about 2 minutes into the flight when suddenly my screen went totally black. I've flown about 130 times now and this had never happened before. The Mavic was about 50 meters away from me but behind some trees so I couldn't see it. I pushed the left stick up in the hope it would respond and luckily it did. It climbed to where I could see it and I could then land it on sight alone. After it had landed I turned everything off and then on again to make a second flight, to see if the same thing would happen again. It didn't but now I kept on getting a warning that I was in a restricted flying zone. I happen to live in an area designated as a Low Flying zone so I can't go higher than 50 meters there. When I clicked the message away, it kept coming back! Very annoying. I've flown most of my flights in this area and this also never happened before. So now I'm going to roll back to version 4.1.15 again. I don't know what they're upto at DJI but they need to get their act together. This is ridiculous.
(I'm running the DJI Go4 app v4.1.22 on a Galaxy S5, which has never given me any trouble apart from the well documented problems with the video link in the 4.1.18 update late last year.)

 

[BD0G]

You can do an advanced unlock for 3 days at a time for NFZ's. Using your DJI Online Account and entering your Remote Controllers Serial number.

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[Eddy_B]

You can do an advanced unlock for 3 days at a time for NFZ's. Using your DJI Online Account and entering your Remote Controllers Serial number.

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Ah thanks for that!

 

[BD0G]

Welcome Eddy_B and Welcome to the forum!

You can even stack your Unlocks - For instance Apply for an unlock for today 01-10-2018 and you get to fly through 01-13-2018 Then apply for 01-14-2018 and you get through 01-17-2018. Rinse , repeat...

I just sent a form letter to my nearest Heliports (LifeFlight) and told them that I would be flying in the area from time to time. At the bottom I gave them my cell number and told them to text me if a Lifeflight was inbound or outbound. They actually called me back (surprising) and confirmed that they would do so. Now I am on record as pre-notifying.

 

[Eddy_B]

Cool! I never knew that was possible.

 

[DanL54]

Well, my 4th flight this year was a bit of an event. I was about 2 minutes into the flight when suddenly my screen went totally black. I've flown about 130 times now and this had never happened before. The Mavic was about 50 meters away from me but behind some trees so I couldn't see it. I pushed the left stick up in the hope it would respond and luckily it did. It climbed to where I could see it and I could then land it on sight alone. After it had landed I turned everything off and then on again to make a second flight, to see if the same thing would happen again. It didn't but now I kept on getting a warning that I was in a restricted flying zone. I happen to live in an area designated as a Low Flying zone so I can't go higher than 50 meters there. When I clicked the message away, it kept coming back! Very annoying. I've flown most of my flights in this area and this also never happened before. So now I'm going to roll back to version 4.1.15 again. I don't know what they're upto at DJI but they need to get their act together. This is ridiculous.
(I'm running the DJI Go4 app v4.1.22 on a Galaxy S5, which has never given me any trouble apart from the well documented problems with the video link in the 4.1.18 update late last year.)

I had a similar problem yesterday flying near (not in) a NFZ. When flying I kept getting a pop-up message to update, I kept ignoring it because 1-I didn't really understand what it was going to do to my system, 2-I didn't know the source of the pop-up and 3- the pop-up gave me the option to ignore. Twice, my galaxy s2 tablet screen blacked out (status bar still displayed) and I was unable to see through the MP camera. I almost panicked (only flown 3 times) thinking I've lost control of my MP. I saw that the RC was still connected to my MP (displayed on its screen) so I activated the RTH and all was good, except for that nagging message I kept getting. I read the reply about unlocking such and such. What does this all mean? Have you resolved your issue?

 

[Eddy_B]

I had a similar problem yesterday flying near (not in) a NFZ. When flying I kept getting a pop-up message to update, I kept ignoring it because 1-I didn't really understand what it was going to do to my system, 2-I didn't know the source of the pop-up and 3- the pop-up gave me the option to ignore. Twice, my galaxy s2 tablet screen blacked out (status bar still displayed) and I was unable to see through the MP camera. I almost panicked (only flown 3 times) thinking I've lost control of my MP. I saw that the RC was still connected to my MP (displayed on its screen) so I activated the RTH and all was good, except for that nagging message I kept getting. I read the reply about unlocking such and such. What does this all mean? Have you resolved your issue?

That unlocking is for the error message I kept getting that I was in a restricted flying zone. You can unlock those and get permission to fly there. I have not yet done this tho. I've reverted back my app to version 4.1.15 and I'll go flying again today to see where I stand with the problems. But if you ever get problems like blackouts, the first thing is never to panick. Your Mavic was designed to deal with that. Let go of the sticks and then give it some height and bring it back on sight. And train yourself to always face the drone when flying, even if you can't see it so you have a mental picture of roughly where it is. That way you'll probably never loose it. (hopefully )

 

[Eddy_B]

Update 11 januari 2018: I've rolled back my DJI Go4 app to version 4.1.15 and did a flight this morning. No problems, no pop-up messages, nothing. It was an excellent flight so for the foreseeable future I'm going to keep flying with version 4.1.15

 

[DanL54]

Thanks for the advise. I'm not going revert back to the earlier app version from 4.1.20 yet. The reason being that I wasn't having this issue before when flying in the same area. I'm going to fly in the same area today where i was having the issues to see if i can get it to blackout again. Do you know if it's possible that if your flying the MP near or in a restricted fly zone that the software/ firmware can determine this and cut the video to the display device? I may be wrong but I suspect that all those messages I was getting on my screen (and ignoring them) and then not too long afterwards having a blackout are related. Time will tell hopefully. I'm glad to see that when you reverted back to 4.1.15 you didn't have any blackouts. I'll update latter with any developments with my flights today. Hopefully I won't experience the pucker factor today (like anyone I don't want to lose or wreck my MP).

 

[Eddy_B]

No that could never be because if that were true it would be very unsafe. To cut off vision can never be a deliberate act of the software, too dangerous. It's a fault. Has to be. Hope your flight goes well!

 

[BD0G]

Yeah I agree. To think that DJI would purposely cut video and black out the live feed while flying in a NFZ would endager your drone as well as people or property.

That would never , uh, ehem , uh , that would never , cough , uh there was that one drone that landed on the White House Lawn. LOL

 

[DanL54]

Yeah I agree. To think that DJI would purposely cut video and black out the live feed while flying in a NFZ would endager your drone as well as people or property.

That would never , uh, ehem , uh , that would never , cough , uh there was that one drone that landed on the White House Lawn. LOL

Yeah, I wouldn't dismiss the idea that dji wrote code in their latest software/firmware that intermittently crashes while using ios or android to boost sales of their crystalsky units.