Flying manually with Litchi and chaos-read what happened

[danCER]

Hello,

This has happened before.
I am flying a Litchi flight...not waypoints...everything starts and connects properly. No signal loss, video is on tablet, telemetry etc.
At some point, the female says video stopped...video started,..video stopped...on and on. The camera is going haywire, showing props above and all over the place.
I have seen the Mavic Pro at this time lurching in wrong direction.
Usually I connect to Dji afterwards, do imu, compass, and gimbal calibrations.
Then no problems until the next time down the road when it happens.
When I check sd card, the video is fine until the start and stop video chaos.

Last eve before sunset, I was quite away but within vlos when this happened again. I tried RTH on controller but no indication on screen that is was returning. I struggled to bring it back still messed up video transmission but enough to get it back safely.
Not good times.

Has this happened to any of you?

 

[Afremont]

Are you recording at 4k, if so try a lower res to be sure it's not having trouble writing data fast enough. Try a different SD card. Make sure all background tasks are closed and that you don't have a USB cable issue. I think you'll just have to experiment as a process of elimination. The processing going on inside the craft and that in the tablet are super complex. If anything is causing intermittent and unexpected delays, it all kinda falls apart.

 

[danCER]

Are you recording at 4k, if so try a lower res to be sure it's not having trouble writing data fast enough. Try a different SD card. Make sure all background tasks are closed and that you don't have a USB cable issue. I think you'll just have to experiment as a process of elimination. The processing going on inside the craft and that in the tablet are super complex. If anything is causing intermittent and unexpected delays, it all kinda falls apart.

I am recording in 4K and use a Sandisk Extreme Plus which has always captured the 4k without issue. So, I don't believe it is the SD card. The tablet I use, a Nvidia Shield K1, only has Litchi app installed, so not much going on in background.
This doesn't happen all of the time but when it does it concerns me--like the RTH not working from controller and the camera definitely going berserk.
Thanks for the reply. The USB was seated properly and like I said everything started out correctedly. It was about 9 minutes of flight when it happened.

 

[Qoncussion]

I am recording in 4K and use a Sandisk Extreme Plus which has always captured the 4k without issue. So, I don't believe it is the SD card. The tablet I use, a Nvidia Shield K1, only has Litchi app installed, so not much going on in background.
This doesn't happen all of the time but when it does it concerns me--like the RTH not working from controller and the camera definitely going berserk.
Thanks for the reply. The USB was seated properly and like I said everything started out correctedly. It was about 9 minutes of flight when it happened.

Try re-formatting the SD card in the Mavic (not in your computer). I've had a similar problem before, and formatting the card in the drone cleared it up.

 

[danCER]

Try re-formatting the SD card in the Mavic (not in your computer). I've had a similar problem before, and formatting the card in the drone cleared it up.

Would the SD card cause camera to malfunction and mavic to fly erratically?

 

[Qoncussion]

Would the SD card cause camera to malfunction and mavic to fly erratically?

If the Mavic's processor is hanging up on writing files ~ I'd say yes (or at least possibly). It takes about a second to format the card in the Mavic... So why "wonder" - just do it so you can knock it off of the list of possibilities as you troubleshoot your problems.

 

[Kilrah]

Sounds like the gimbal reset issue, which would have nothing to with Litchi and doesn't actually impact the flight at all - you may just think it does if all you're doing is looking at the erratic video feed.

 

[danCER]

If the Mavic's processor is hanging up on writing files ~ I'd say yes (or at least possibly). It takes about a second to format the card in the Mavic... So why "wonder" - just do it so you can knock it off of the list of possibilities as you troubleshoot your problems.

Hey if reformatting the card on Mavic is the fix I am all for that!

 

[danCER]

Sounds like the gimbal reset issue, which would have nothing to with Litchi and doesn't actually impact the flight at all - you may just think it does if all you're doing is looking at the erratic video feed.

So gimbal calibration is solution?

 

[dvarapala]

So gimbal calibration is solution?

Unfortunately not. AFAIK there is no known solution to the gimbal reset issue.

 

[danCER]

Unfortunately not. AFAIK there is no known solution to the gimbal reset issue.

I am unfamiliar with the gimbal reset issue. Is this something that just happens unexpectedly while during flight?

I recall doing Litchi mission once and the gimbal went haywire although Litchi ran the mission. No errors on the tablet screen and the video recorded whole mess.

 

[Qoncussion]

I am unfamiliar with the gimbal reset issue. Is this something that just happens unexpectedly while during flight?

I recall doing Litchi mission once and the gimbal went haywire although Litchi ran the mission. No errors on the tablet screen and the video recorded whole mess.

That's it, exactly. It sounds like you've experienced it at least once. Many Mavic owners get a random gimbal reset (same camera movements as when you first power up). I've not experienced it myself. I imagine it would freak me out if/when it does happen.

Any luck with reformatting the card?

 

[danCER]

That's it, exactly. It sounds like you've experienced it at least once. Many Mavic owners get a random gimbal reset (same camera movements as when you first power up). I've not experienced it myself. I imagine it would freak me out if/when it does happen.

Any luck with reformatting the card?

Yes I did a reformat after calibrating gimbal. I also did IMU and compass calibrations.
I flew it around same time and to same places.no problems this time.
I wonder if Litchi app reacts differently to this issue than the DJI app does?
I also wish it would have recorded what I was seeing on the Litchi app

 

[Kilrah]

I am unfamiliar with the gimbal reset issue. Is this something that just happens unexpectedly while during flight?

Do a little search, there are multiple long topics on here about it.

Basically it's a hardware fault. If it happens too often or bothers you too much send it for repair.

 

[Afremont]

If you format the SD card as FAT32, you're definitely going to have problems when a single video recording reaches 4GB in size. NTFS can handle larger files, but creates a lot of unnecessary overhead. EXFAT would be the optimal format and I think this is how the bird formats it.

Edit: It takes about 9 minutes of 4K video to reach 4GB of storage required.

 

[ksmusa]

The DJI Mavic Pro does not support NTFS. Exfat32 is your best bet.

 

[Afremont]

Okay, I wasn't sure of that. At any rate, regular FAT32 is a sure fire problem at around 9-10 minutes of continuous 4K recording. That seems to fit the OP's problem.

The DJI Mavic Pro does not support NTFS. Exfat32 is your best bet.

 

[ksmusa]

Yes, fat32 file size is limited to 4 gigs. Each time you record a video in your flight, the flight is always captured in two files. The first portion is always 3.91 GB and then a second file captures the last half of the flight.
What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?
FAT32 Systems and 2GB File Size Limit

 

[Afremont]

So it splits it automatically? Maybe that pushes things over the edge when closing, updating size and then creating and opening a new file while continuously capturing at almost 10MB/S.

 

[ksmusa]

Yes, this is a limitation of the ICT-technology, not of the drone or DJI, a video file can never be recorded longer than 4.x gB. Nothing you can do about that. Maybe some day Windows and Linux and Mac OS will agree to lift that limit if in any way possible.
For now, you just need to stitch the parts together with a video-editing program, which is no problem at all.
Note: you will need a PC or a MAC for, most tablets or phones lack the processing power to work with the highly compressed files of the video @ 4K and sometimes even at Full HD.