Customer Service will NOT answer Questions!

[zmerkling]

I recently crashed my Mavic while using active track. I tracked onto the back of a home and started to go straight up. All of the sudden the Mavic decided to fly backwards as well with no user input. This resulted in an impact with a tree.


I then set my Mavic in for repair. After evaluation I received an email saying that it was a user command error. From my understanding of Active Track the Mavic tries to hold the same distance from the subject unless changed by the user. So why all of the sudden would it just decided to fly backwards?


I have tried to contact DJI 6 times to try to understand how this was a user command error. After 2 emails, 2 online chat sessions and 2 calls (with over 2 hours on hold) I still cannot get an answer as to how this is classified as user command error.


Has anyone had any luck with receiving answers from DJI? For any company this is unacceptable and if I would have known that customer service was this bad I may have considered a different brand of drone!


Thank you to anyone that may have some advice.

 

[msinger]

I cannot help you with your customer service issue, but I'll take a look at your TXT flight log if you upload it here and post a link back here.

 

[Cyberpower678]

DJI is well known for bad CS. Welcome to the club.

 

[zmerkling]

Here is a link to the flight log. Thank you for looking at it!

DJI Phantom & Mavic Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[zmerkling]

DJI is well known for bad CS. Welcome to the club.

I hope that is at least has a membership card for the club.

 

[doccy]

So in the flight log it looks like active track was deactivated way before the crash? You were in P mode - but with a reduced number of satellite contacts and an error message about GPS position coming up for some time. It did say that it had lost the subject before going to P mode.

Possibly because you were in so many trees?

TBH using active track in trees like that is gonna be risky anyway. Trace is probably safe... but if you were using profile - the obstacle avoidance is turned off and I have seen the drone do some pretty fast wide manoeuvres to keep you in profile shot in that mode.

 

[Cyberpower678]

I hope that is at least has a membership card for the club.

It's one of those design your own membership club card clubs. BTW, I looked at your flight log, quickly. It lost the subject and appears to have backed up to search for it. If you have backwards flying enabled for intelligent flight modes, then this is most certainly pilot error, sorry to say. Of course, I'm very tired and about to take off in a plane, so I could have misread the log.

 

[zmerkling]

I was in active track at the time of the crash. At 15m 57.1s I entered active track and stayed in that mode until the subject was lost at 16m 14.2s. (that is the time that I hit the tree)

And for some reason between those two times the aircraft went backwards of its own accord without loosing track.

Also if you look at 16m 8s that is when it starts to fly backwards.

I did know it was risky in that location but I have preformed this shot several times and this is the first instance where it flew backwards. I wanted DJI to explain the logic of Active Track but they wont answer any of my attempts to contact.

 

[doccy]

I was in active track at the time of the crash. At 15m 57.1s I entered active track and stayed in that mode until the subject was lost at 16m 14.2s. (that is the time that I hit the tree)

And for some reason between those two times the aircraft went backwards of its own accord without loosing track.

Also if you look at 16m 8s that is when it starts to fly backwards.

I did know it was risky in that location but I have preformed this shot several times and this is the first instance where it flew backwards. I wanted DJI to explain the logic of Active Track but they wont answer any of my attempts to contact.

Ah OK. I just saw that it continued moving between 16.14 and 16.20 in P mode at reasonable speeds - wasn't clear if this was you moving it or not. 6 seconds seemed a long time to be falling out of a tree!

Out of interest - was it in profile mode? And did you have backward movement in active track modes enabled?

 

[zmerkling]

I was in trace at the time. And no i did not have backwards flight enabled at the time.

I was moving it after the crash. it landed on the top and the motors would not shut off right away.

It just seems like an odd circumstance and I would like to know if it was a glitch or if i did something wrong.

 

[msinger]

Here's a view of the flying location:




Your flight log does not explain what happened, but it does show your Mavic moved backward by itself (as you said above). Here are some things I noticed and some general comments:

• About 10 seconds passed between the time you started ascending with the throttle in the full up position and the Mavic made contact with the trees.
  
  
• During those 10 seconds, you did not attempt to let go of the throttle or cancel ActiveTrack to take control back. That said, I can only assume you did not notice the backward movement from wherever you were standing.
  
  
• Your flight log does not show whether or not the "Enable Backward Flying" setting was enabled in DJI GO. If it really was enabled, that could explain the backward movement.
  
  
• ActiveTrack was not designed to lock onto large objects at such a close distance. It would have been interesting to see a screencast of DJI GO to see what it really locked onto.
  
  
• When flying with any kind of automated flight modes, it's always best to do so in a location that is not surrounded by obstacles. And if you choose to fly in a dangerous location (like this one), you should be ready to manually take over when something does not go as planned.

 

[zmerkling]

Here's a view of the flying location:

View attachment 15561


Your flight log does not explain what happened, but it does show your Mavic moved backward by itself (as you said above). Here are some things I noticed and some general comments:

• About 10 seconds passed between the time you started ascending with the throttle in the full up position and the Mavic made contact with the trees.
  
  
• During those 10 seconds, you did not attempt to let go of the throttle or cancel ActiveTrack to take control back. That said, I can only assume you did not notice the backward movement from wherever you were standing.
  
  
• Your flight log does not show whether or not the "Enable Backward Flying" setting was enabled in DJI GO. If it really was enabled, that could explain the backward movement.
  
  
• ActiveTrack was not designed to lock onto large objects at such a close distance. It would have been interesting to see a screencast of DJI GO to see what it really locked onto.
  
  
• When flying with any kind of automated flight modes, it's always best to do so in a location that is not surrounded by obstacles. And if you choose to fly in a dangerous location (like this one), you should be ready to manually take over when something does not go as planned.

Thank you for the feedback. I wish DJI would give me something like that to explain why they say user command error.

The object that I tracked onto was a dish on the roof. I knew I needed something with contrast to the roof to get the shot I was looking to capture. This is the first time that the Mavic decided to go backwards.

I know you cannot tell what I locked onto but attached is a link to the video from the accident. I kept switching between looking at the Mavic and the screen and missed the fact that it was going backwards.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=akFXYTdRdjNHWWsxM3pfak5IRjMwYzRlY01IQ1pB