Drone did not RTH!

[flightmike]

Blue dot = Your phone.
H sign = Drone's interpretation of where it's home point is.
Plane icon = Mavic's current location determined by its GPS.

So check that H is correct.

The problem here is that people see a message they've never seen before, which is, admittedly, somewhat confusingly worded. This message is asking them if they want to return the drone's original home point or their phone's current position as indicated by its sensors. In this case they hit current, which sends the drone to the phone/tablet. This would be fine if the phone/tablet correctly knew its location -- in the examples above it obviously doesn't.

Blue dot is not necessarily where your phone is. It's where your phone was last time it had wifi. So if you were 100' away and it recorded that home spot because you had wifi/phone gps but where your at now does not have wifi/gps it will go to last known.
I think [emoji106]

 

[go fast]

Yep blue dot is the wifi range...

 

[m0j0]

Sounds to me that if you ever get the message -"return to original or current location"- NEVER hit current location!
What I don't get is, if lets say you have moved, 100' or your in some kind of moving vehicle, You would want your bird to fly to "current location", & if I read these posts correctly, there is a good chance, if you get this choice, your bird may not know your current location & just , dare I say- flyaway?

Really the problem described here is not the Mavic it's your mobile device. I'm going to ask those that had their Mavic fly as they directed to another zip code what device were you using. I fly with a Shield and a Mini 2. The mini is always absolutely dead on accurate the radar is usually perfect as well. The shield is usually also very accurate on the GPS location but the radar is usually off.

 

[sar104]

Blue dot is not necessarily where your phone is. It's where your phone was last time it had wifi. So if you were 100' away and it recorded that home spot because you had wifi/phone gps but where your at now does not have wifi/gps it will go to last known.
I think [emoji106]

It has nothing to do with whether the phone has wifi - all that matters is that the phone has a GPS lock, which is independent of wifi or cellular network reception.

 

[Panhead55]

This same issue happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I also hit Current Location assuming the MP would return to where I was standing with the controller and my phone. Instead it headed off to never never land and would not let me operate the controls. Lucky for me the battery was already low and it started an auto land sequence about 400 feet away from me in an open field. I was able to find the MP via the "find my drone" feature on the app. Scared the heck out of me. Msinger was able to review my flight logs and it appears that the MP was on it's way to the last recorded point which was my home 6.4 miles away. It would have never made it even with a full charge. I was lucky it didn't decide to land in water or trees that were close by. I learned my lesson. I now land manually whenever possible in order to train my reflexes not to panic and hit the wrong button. I also learned now to use the original location but I have never seen that warning since the incident several weeks ago and I fly every day. Hope you can recover yours.

 

[scjerry]

I've experimented a bit with setting HP to my RC. Here's what I've found so far. 1) Re-calibrate the compass at every launch, even though you've been there before, otherwise it will go off to never-never land, 2) Trying to use the map w/o a data connection may be problematic, I check the Cache Map option on my DJI Go 4 app running under Apple ios 10 on my mini Ipad 4 w/ wi-fi + cell., the GPS works flawlessly but maps do not (blue dot may not appear in real-time) 3) If you plan on re-setting HP to your RC location, DO NOT record "precision location" checkbox above the slider at launch time. If you do, it will not record a new HP using the new RC location. I've attempted that several times. I will always come back to the original launch site HP. This even after a successful "Follow Me" excursion. See my screen shots (using my iPad's GPS successfully). I'll make no further comment about the quality of this s/w. 4) Oh, I did get a wireless interference warning! There was no indication of any effect, but I'm going to try to find a interference free zone to repeat my experiments.

 

[sar104]

I've experimented a bit with setting HP to my RC. Here's what I've found so far. 1) Re-calibrate the compass at every launch, even though you've been there before, otherwise it will go off to never-never land, 2) Trying to use the map w/o a data connection may be problematic, I check the Cache Map option on my DJI Go 4 app running under Apple ios 10 on my mini Ipad 4 w/ wi-fi + cell., the GPS works flawlessly but maps do not (blue dot may not appear in real-time) 3) If you plan on re-setting HP to your RC location, DO NOT record "precision location" checkbox above the slider at launch time. If you do, it will not record a new HP using the new RC location. I've attempted that several times. I will always come back to the original launch site HP. This even after a successful "Follow Me" excursion. See my screen shots (using my iPad's GPS successfully). I'll make no further comment about the quality of this s/w. 4) Oh, I did get a wireless interference warning! There was no indication of any effect, but I'm going to try to find a interference free zone to repeat my experiments.
View attachment 20573 View attachment 20574

The only thing I would take serious issue with is the advice to calibrate the compass every flight. That's a really bad idea because once you have a good calibration, every subsequent calibration adds a risk of a bad one due to local magnetic field variations at the location where you calibrate. Remember that the calibration is only to account for the magnetic field distortion due to components on the aircraft, so unless those change, or you expose the aircraft to a significant magnetic field, there is no need at all to recalibrate.

 

[scjerry]

I can only speak as an empiricist. On several occasions, I've had to rescue my Mavic from running away when I did not re-calibrate. I'd like to try this using the RC alone w/o DJI Go 4. I assume I can do that. So, launch using the CSC sticks and hit RTH. Will it fly away? I used to do this with my Phantom 2 w/o RTH. As to variations in local magnetic fields, who is to say which environment is free of them and the "best" to keep forever in the flash memory of the quad? Even DJI says calibrate every time. This may be a s/w bug, maybe the use of stale, corrupted data.

 

[geigy]

Empirically speaking, I have never done a compass calibration, and have flown 60+ flights in California and Alaska with no problems.

 

[scjerry]

On any of those wonderful 60 flights, did you reset HP to the RC not the launch point? Were you on a boat? Also, if so, did you turn off Safe RTH? See Return to Controller - NOT take off location

 

[Dogtown]

Used the "take off" and checked "precision landing" on the DJI Go 4 app. The app confirmed "home point has been updated", the aircraft launched as normal. I was flying in a new area but took off from my orange landing pad. I had forgotten to change out the battery so after just a few minutes I got the "battery level low" warning so I engaged RTH. I got a message I have never seen before after some 2 1/2 years of piloting both my Phantom 3 Advanced and the Mavic Pro. The message said "Return to "current" location or "original" location. Without really thinking it out, I chose "current" location. Aircraft took off and did not return home. Using the log and latitude and longitude coordinates, located the Mavic via Google Earth but it was not reachable. Anyone ever have this message appear? Plan on calling DJI

YES!!!! IT happened to me a few weeks ago and I wrote in about it here! I was able to land it using the Camera and then find it. What I think the issue was, is that I did not close the dji App from the previous flight from a different location and for some reason it thought I was still on the previous Flight. When it sent "current or new" home point ( I selected current) it goes back to the home point of your last Flight!

 

[Dogtown]

It's supposed to be the mobile device's current location (it's assumed that's your location too).

When This happened to me, I launched, the home point was set to where I was, I flew a bit and when I pushed RTH the home point changed to my previous flight 6 hours earlier... The bird would have never made it, and i was able to cancel and land it with the Camera about a 1/2 mile away and find it. Lucky day for me!!!

 

[contactpete]

Since these problems, I cheat abit and just use the RTH function to turn the MP is the correct direction then cancel it and manually fly it in.

My 2 cents worth

 

[JeepDSL]

Even DJI says calibrate every time.

Would you please provide your reference for this statement. I am trying to find the reference. Instead, I found this on page 52 of the Mavic User Manual: "Only calibrate the compass when the DJI GO 4 app or the status indicator prompt you to do so."

 

[sar104]

I can only speak as an empiricist. On several occasions, I've had to rescue my Mavic from running away when I did not re-calibrate. I'd like to try this using the RC alone w/o DJI Go 4. I assume I can do that. So, launch using the CSC sticks and hit RTH. Will it fly away? I used to do this with my Phantom 2 w/o RTH. As to variations in local magnetic fields, who is to say which environment is free of them and the "best" to keep forever in the flash memory of the quad? Even DJI says calibrate every time. This may be a s/w bug, maybe the use of stale, corrupted data.

No - DJI does not say to calibrate every time - in fact quite the opposite. From the Mavic Pro manual v. 1.6, p. 52:

"Only calibrate the compass when the DJI GO 4 app or the status indicator prompt you to do so."

And if your aircraft is "running away" on RTH then that is a home point or GPS issue - nothing to do with the compass.

 

[geigy]

On any of those wonderful 60 flights, did you reset HP to the RC not the launch point? Were you on a boat? Also, if so, did you turn off Safe RTH? See Return to Controller - NOT take off location

No, Yes, No. I also never calibrated the compass.

 

[RenoBoy]

Thanks. I guess what concerns me is that after many, many flights using RTH, this has never happened before - asking me which location to RTH. The other strange thing I failed to mention was that the telemetry was showing that my distance from home was 435,000 feet! What? When I saw that I realized I was going to be screwed. $1,000 up in smoke since according to my flight log and the lat and long, the Mavic is on the side of a huge cliff. And of course, DJI cannot do anything unless they have the aircraft.

Get another drone and a coat hanger.
Think I'm joking? Worked for me pulling my drone out of the top of a tree.
Good luck brother.

 

[tracer bullet]

OP hasn't posted in his thread since Monday but shows as having been on the forum just a few hours ago. FYI @Lone Droner 10 we'd like to know - how did things end up?

 

[m0j0]

Do not calibrate on every flight. That is just bad advice. I have two Mavics I only calibrated one because I notice something irregular. Landed went to a clean location calibrated and have not touched it since..

 

[geigy]

Get another drone and a coat hanger.
Think I'm joking? Worked for me pulling my drone out of the top of a tree.
Good luck brother.

Congrats on the rescue, RenoBoy!

If you have footage, or any ideas to share on how you designed the hook, etc., I have a thread going on this topic that you might want to contribute to.