DJI Fly app lost connection to remote

[big9erfan]

I was at my office checking on the building and it was a nice quiet morning so I pulled out the mini for a flight. Pre-flight checks were all good. Booted up the mini and the controller, everything looked good.

I started flying, everything was fine. Went up and over the building, came back, flew around some more and I was about 100' up and a few hundred feet away when the DJI Fly app went black. The message said something in red, I immediately check the controls, but the mini is still responding properly. I try rebooting the Fly app...nothing. So I fly it back and hand catch. Unplug the phone from the controller, kill the app again, reconnect and restart the app and it's connected again. Then it also wants a compass calibration (either because I set the mini in the car or because of my Apple watch, I think I caught it with the hand that has my watch), but I put it back up, kept it low for a few minutes just to make sure everything seemed fine, and from that point on everything was normal again.

I haven't flown much yet, I've only had my mini for a few weeks and I'm not able to fly anywhere near as much as I would really want to (then again who is unless you do this for work or you're retired), but I'm curious as to how often this kind of issue happens to others and how they deal with it.

Just in case it's important:
- DJI Fly App version 1.1.3(88)
- iPhone 11 iOS Version 13.5.1

 

[PRO>KOMP.<]

I have the same situation on last tree flights. Before fw update on MM all is working good. When I update last fw where I can manual set video settings I start losing mobile connection to RC and only RC controls work...

 

[big9erfan]

At least I'm not the only one (which makes it less likely there's a hardware issue), so that's comforting I suppose.

What do you do when you lose connection to the application? Do you bring your MM down? Do you reboot the app mid-flight (I tried and that didn't seem to help in my case at least)?

 

[PRO>KOMP.<]

I bring down MM than restart MM, RC and reboot Dji Fly app. If problem repeat I restart phone. My phone is Galaxy Note 9. And I noticed problem can only appear in first ~5min of flight.

 

[Flere-Imsaho]

I had a similar experience after about 11mins into a flight last weekend. The MM was about 100m away and 50m high when I noticed that the screen output was frozen, no errors or anything. The application then dropped and it went back to the iPhone main screen. I confessed I panicked a bit and pressed the RTH button on the controller which started the RTH sequence. I immediately then went back into the app which allowed me to connect to MM. I cancelled the RTH and all was okay, the rest of the flight was fine.
First time it has happened. Only had the MM just over a month but the Fly App has probably had two updates in that time.

 

[Dorib]

I was at my office checking on the building and it was a nice quiet morning so I pulled out the mini for a flight. Pre-flight checks were all good. Booted up the mini and the controller, everything looked good.

I started flying, everything was fine. Went up and over the building, came back, flew around some more and I was about 100' up and a few hundred feet away when the DJI Fly app went black. The message said something in red, I immediately check the controls, but the mini is still responding properly. I try rebooting the Fly app...nothing. So I fly it back and hand catch. Unplug the phone from the controller, kill the app again, reconnect and restart the app and it's connected again. Then it also wants a compass calibration (either because I set the mini in the car or because of my Apple watch, I think I caught it with the hand that has my watch), but I put it back up, kept it low for a few minutes just to make sure everything seemed fine, and from that point on everything was normal again.

I haven't flown much yet, I've only had my mini for a few weeks and I'm not able to fly anywhere near as much as I would really want to (then again who is unless you do this for work or you're retired), but I'm curious as to how often this kind of issue happens to others and how they deal with it.

Just in case it's important:
- DJI Fly App version 1.1.3(88)
- iPhone 11 iOS Version 13.5.1

My mavic mini is just the same after the upgrade,haven 't flown it much got my self the new mavic air 2 ,and i'm loving that drone it is perfect.

 

[big9erfan]

I had a similar experience after about 11mins into a flight last weekend. The MM was about 100m away and 50m high when I noticed that the screen output was frozen, no errors or anything. The application then dropped and it went back to the iPhone main screen. I confessed I panicked a bit and pressed the RTH button on the controller which started the RTH sequence. I immediately then went back into the app which allowed me to connect to MM. I cancelled the RTH and all was okay, the rest of the flight was fine.
First time it has happened. Only had the MM just over a month but the Fly App has probably had two updates in that time.

That's a little different. That was an app crash. For me, the Fly app didn't crash (app closed without you closing it), the app was still responsive, it just said the controller wasn't connected to the phone.

 

[greg409]

Possibly turn off the wifi on your phone?
I believe "wifi" is only between the controller and aircraft, the phone is hardwired to the controller, therefore is basically a visual display?

greg

 

[big9erfan]

Possibly turn off the wifi on your phone?
I believe "wifi" is only between the controller and aircraft, the phone is hardwired to the controller, therefore is basically a visual display?

greg

I've done that when flying around my house because I often connect to the wifi of my house, but outside my work the wifi isn't strong enough to reach so I didn't think to turn it off (I only turned off cellular). Maybe wifi being enabled did it. Though I've flown at parks with wifi on (cellular off) and not had this problem before...maybe it was just bad luck.

 

[Slade]

Ankar Cable.

 

[PRO>KOMP.<]

I recorded this problem when fly long range, check this video:

 

[Flere-Imsaho]

Very odd, at least the RTH worked okay. Have you changed the RC to Phone cable (Ankar cable) as someone else mentioned? There just seems to be lots of odd issues that keep occurring. Difficult to say whether it is the application updates / firmware or just some bug with the many different phones out there.
I will hopefully be flying a couple of times later this week as weather is looking good. Will have to see if my issue returns...

 

[big9erfan]

I recorded this problem when fly long range, check this video:

That's a different problem...or different problems. First, the RC lost connection to the drone. That's likely due to distance. You were 1.7km or so (equivalent to 1 mile) and I'm assuming you're on the CE version, so you're about 800m shy of the theoretical max transmission.

Then you had an issue with the app crashing. That wasn't good, but bringing it back up, you had a connection again.

This differs in the problem I mentioned in that I was but 30m away and the RC lost connection with the PHONE, I still had full control over the air craft.

 

[PRO>KOMP.<]

That's a different problem...or different problems. First, the RC lost connection to the drone. That's likely due to distance. You were 1.7km or so (equivalent to 1 mile) and I'm assuming you're on the CE version, so you're about 800m shy of the theoretical max transmission.

Then you had an issue with the app crashing. That wasn't good, but bringing it back up, you had a connection again.

This differs in the problem I mentioned in that I was but 30m away and the RC lost connection with the PHONE, I still had full control over the air craft.

No,no. I lost connection on 2.1km(1.3mile) it can go to 3km max but its depend on place, CE version. That's not problem. He got connecting back and start RTH auto. Then he lost connection again and after this the live preview is black I click to restart app you can see I'm puling side controls to get out of app. I try to restart app but didn't help. I try once more to reset app and unplug and plug back cable to RC and got green screen with glitches. I again try to kill app in process and start again and got black screen but in one moment with telemetry and again lost. This is when MM come to landing. I cancel auto landing and lend MM manually with RC(black screen on mobile). In the end I turn off only RC and turn on and all is normal I start again flying...

Edit: Also this happens to me when I'm 50m distance I lost connection to app but I have control on RC. In this video I try to restarting app and some troubleshooting what is fates way to fix this problem

 

[PRO>KOMP.<]

Hi, I fix my problem. Go to Dji Go app and clear cache then go to Settings>Apps and clear data and cache. After this I don't have problem with disconnecting phone from RC.

 

[Juantana]

Hi, I fix my problem. Go to Dji Go app and clear cache then go to Settings>Apps and clear data and cache. After this I don't have problem with disconnecting phone from RC.

I have a MA2 and iPhone 12, iOS 14.4 - this has happened (it seems) every time they update the app - I emailed DJI and I think they said same as you, clear the cache, but I actually deleted the app and reinstalled the latest one and that worked - but will I have to do that every app update? its ridiculous.