Complete Disconnect with a M2P

[Skydriver]

Does this sound familiar? After a few fun years with a P4P, 6 months ago bought a new M2P. The M2P has been great--no issues except the following: After pre-flight including compass and voltage checks, flew the drone for about 12 minutes yesterday and was returning to base. I stopped the drone to take a picture, was rotating the drone when I experienced a total disconnect between the controller and the M2P. I am using a DJI Smart Controller. The video image stopped, turned B&W, all buttons were greyed out. Total disconnect. Drone Batt was at about 55% and controller at 80%. Clear, nice WX, good direct line of sight, distance back to base about 1/2 mile or less. The RTH button was greyed out like all the other buttons.I waited for about 6 minutes to see if it would come back then went to look for it. Long story short, about 15 minutes my wife called and said "The drone is back". It returned home and made a beautiful landing between some palm trees. Why did the RTH take so long? My theory is when it lost connectivity it hovered in place until the computer said "Low batt--time to RTH", and then it did. After recharging the battery I flew it very close by for 15 minutes and all worked 100% Today called DJI and they asked me to synch the flight data. They said they would have an answer for me in 48 hours. Meanwhile, anyone have any ideas? I did not press the RTH button on the Smart Controller or try and reboot the controller. I probably should have but I thought the drone went down and went to look for it. I don't know if it was the drone or the controller that caused the disconnect. I'll post whatever DJI says. Thanks.

 

[Starz]

I’ve not had the scenario you describe. The aircraft setting for what it will do when disconnected is something you can change in the settings.
Was it set to hover?

 

[slup]

You have a couple scenarios to consider that could have prevented or delayed the RTH & caused the greyed out live view besides a control signal disconnect.

We have earlier seen that the DJI GO 4 app can crash on SC ... but that the control signal is still maintained. If this was the case you should have seen that on the link status LED to the left, on top of the SC. If this was the case no failsafe action would have been triggered as the control signal were still active. And as mentioned in previous post ... did you have the failsafe action set to RTH in the app, or was it set on hover?

The fact that it eventually did a RTH can be either due to that you later lost the control signal when you went to search for it or due to that the drone hit the low battery RTH threshold percentage.

 

[GKomar]

I was forced into buying a Smart Controller after I damaged the one that came with my M2P. I had some minor trouble with the SC from the start. Occasionally not responding sharply, or at all, to control inputs. Then it started to do exactly what you experienced, always while hovering. After re-booting the SC, it would work OK. But it truly bothered me to think what might happen if the SC went dark just after I had commanded a fast movement control. Would it continue moving in that direction until otherwise commanded? After I got the original controller repaired, I had the SC professionally re-loaded the software, tested it briefly to see that it was working, then sold the SC.

 

[slup]

...if the SC went dark just after I had commanded a fast movement control. Would it continue moving in that direction until otherwise commanded?

That's not how the control works ... the drone will continuously receive the command you give with the sticks as long as you do it with a established connection, the command will revert to neutral when you quit the command or if the connection is broken. So if you lose connection in the middle of a turn the yaw & roll command ends & the drone brakes, levels out & hold position ... & hovers in place, then the failsafe action gets triggered.

 

[Skydriver]

I’ve not had the scenario you describe. The aircraft setting for what it will do when disconnected is something you can change in the settings.
Was it set to hover?

No--it was set to return home at a RTH designated altitude--300 feet. Thanks.

 

[Skydriver]

You have a couple scenarios to consider that could have prevented or delayed the RTH & caused the greyed out live view besides a control signal disconnect.

We have earlier seen that the DJI GO 4 app can crash on SC ... but that the control signal is still maintained. If this was the case you should have seen that on the link status LED to the left, on top of the SC. If this was the case no failsafe action would have been triggered as the control signal were still active. And as mentioned in previous post ... did you have the failsafe action set to RTH in the app, or was it set on hover?

The fact that it eventually did a RTH can be either due to that you later lost the control signal when you went to search for it or due to that the drone hit the low battery RTH threshold percentage.

The disconnect was total with a red boxed text at the top of the screen saying "Aircraft Disconnected". See picture made by connecting the drone to the SC, then turning off the drone battery to simulate disconnect. I believe the drone hovered until the reaching the low batt RTH threshold. There was no connection between the SC and the drone to command it to RTH until that point. The question is why did it disconnect?

 

[slup]

The disconnect was total with a red boxed text at the top of the screen saying "Aircraft Disconnected". See picture made by connecting the drone to the SC, then turning off the drone battery to simulate disconnect. I believe the drone hovered until the reaching the low batt RTH threshold. There was no connection between the SC and the drone to command it to RTH until that point. The question is why did it disconnect?

Hmm ... yeah if you had that text in the app it seems it was a legit control signal disconnect.

Have you inspected the antenna cables just where they fold ... have earlier seen connection problems coming from that they have been damaged just there ...

 

[Skydriver]

No--but I will, thanks. However, the drone seems to be working now so I can connect it and wiggle it around and see if that makes any difference.

 

[Paul2660]

I had the exact same thing happen a while back. See this post.

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

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Q0HNNTP8LBACLI9Z78YR 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...

mavicpilots.com

The sceeen you showed with aircraft disconnected is what I got also. I did not check to see if the green light on co triller was still there. As I understand it you can have the SC crash this crashing go4 and get the screen you show.

I had the same video response black and white.

I rebooted the sc and drone was already in run home mode. However I am not sure if the run home happened when I rebooted the controller. I was not current in SC firmware when this happened.

Was about 1836 feet out. And I also had stopped to shoot a series of pictures.

Has not happened since but still worries me.

Drone is about 2 years old with no crashes and quite a few hours on it.

Paul C

 

[Skydriver]

I had the exact same thing happen a while back. See this post.

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

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Q0HNNTP8LBACLI9Z78YR 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...

mavicpilots.com

The sceeen you showed with aircraft disconnected is what I got also. I did not check to see if the green light on co triller was still there. As I understand it you can have the SC crash this crashing go4 and get the screen you show.

I had the same video response black and white.

I rebooted the sc and drone was already in run home mode. However I am not sure if the run home happened when I rebooted the controller. I was not current in SC firmware when this happened.

Was about 1836 feet out. And I also had stopped to shoot a series of pictures.

Has not happened since but still worries me.

Drone is about 2 years old with no crashes and quite a few hours on it.

Paul C

HI PAUL--I read your post and it is almost exactly my experience. Thanks for sharing. Like you, if it happens again I will have an Emergency Disconnect checklist already in my brain. That would consist of (1) Pushing the RTH button on the SC, and see if that made any difference, then (2) rebooting the SC controller. 1 or 2 could be switched depending on circumstance. DJI tech support still has not answered but I will post their reply when I get it. My drone is about 8 months old and all soft/firmware up to date. First time it has not flown perfectly, although it has lost contact in the past but has RTH as expected. I think that the explanation of the Go Fly App crashing is the best one so far, and that seems unpredictable.