Gimbal freak-out in flight when switching from video to still camera

[skipSmith]

Happened to me last week. Camera settings also reset. I was shooting sunrise & thought Sun might have caused it.

 

[pogopilot]

I should have mentioned in my original post that I am running IOS as well

 

[JohnRobinson]

Ok so obviously not an android problem. I have been trying to keep updated in the new thread etc but cannot see if anyone has found a solution / fix.

 

[David_D]

I went out and fly yesterday for about 40min or so and I did not do video recording (well once a short video clip) and only took still shots and did not experienced this. It must be when switching between video and still mode that made the gimal gets into that reset routine.

 

[Youser]

I went out and fly yesterday for about 40min or so and I did not do video recording (well once a short video clip) and only took still shots and did not experienced this. It must be when switching between video and still mode that made the gimal gets into that reset routine.

Happens to me without switching. When it happens it stops the recording.

 

[JMF]

So this is now happening to me on a regular basis and cannot find a similar issue previously posted. So when I am flying and recording video and decide I need to stop recording to take a snap, the gimbal freaks out (or maybe it is just a reset). I then have no control over the camera trigger button for maybe 15-20 seconds and then things go back to normal. The first time it happened I had to change my shorts, now it is just a pain in the butt. Any ideas how to remedy this? (I am on all latest firmware and apps.) I fly with the DJI go app

This exact same thing happened to me for the first time about an hour ago, I thought the Mavic was crashing, freaked me out too, brought her back in right away.
I re-calibrated the gimbal and will test again in a few minutes.

I am running .700 firmware.

 

[JMF]

To be honest both are scary. Nothing like thinking you have lost control and going to crash to build confidence. I am wondering whether the problem is not so much the mavic firmware but the android app? Can someone on IOS confirm they have suffered the same symptoms please?

I'm running IOS 11 on an iPad 4 mini and this happened to me for the first time an hour ago, running .700 firmware.

 

[Youser]

I'm running IOS 11 on an iPad 4 mini and this happened to me for the first time an hour ago, running .700 firmware.

It happened to me on .800, I've downgraded to .700 and it happend there as well. On iOS 10.3.3.

From what I've read, it's not FW related. Some talk of it happening when recording in 4k. Some talk of it happening when a recording hits 2gb. From what I've gathered, it's happening randomly and no one has currently pin pointed the cause. Not even DJI

 

[Starfighter]

It occasionally has happened to me using an IPad 2. It seemed to happen at the 9 minute mark, when a new video file would have been started. When it finishes, it leaves the video record off. The SD card never catches it. When you see it for the first time, "alarming" doesn't do it justice! The obvious initial fear is that the quad is in unusual attitudes. It hasn't done it in a while now, and I forget what's changed in the interim. For me it was intermittent. It would do it right when I quit worrying about it. LOL

 

[alexcannas]

It happened to me on .800, I've downgraded to .700 and it happend there as well. On iOS 10.3.3.

From what I've read, it's not FW related. Some talk of it happening when recording in 4k. Some talk of it happening when a recording hits 2gb. From what I've gathered, it's happening randomly and no one has currently pin pointed the cause. Not even DJI

DJI has said it is a hardware issue and has asked members on their forums to send back the done for repair.

There is also a video on YouTube with a guy walking through the replacement of the camera ribbon cable with a new one, fixing his camera reset issue. There is another video where air is blown on the gimbal causing to reset even with the done stationary.

So the cause is known, just not generally acknowledged. Changing the ribbon cable is a tedious task and people seem to generally continue hoping that each new firmware version will solve it instead. I note that the gimbal reset posts on this forum date from December 2016. How many different firmware versions we went through and it keeps re- appearing.

 

[Starfighter]

DJI has said it is a hardware issue and has asked members on their forums to send back the done for repair.

There is also a video on YouTube with a guy walking through the replacement of the camera ribbon cable with a new one, fixing his camera reset issue. There is another video where air is blown on the gimbal causing to reset even with the done stationary.

So the cause is known, just not generally acknowledged. Changing the ribbon cable is a tedious task and people seem to generally continue hoping that each new firmware version will solve it instead. I note that the gimbal reset posts on this forum date from December 2016. How many different firmware versions we went through and it keeps re- appearing.

Pretty bad news that it's a hardware issue. Good news that the cause is known. Thede forums are priceless, without them, I wouldn't have known that I wasn't the only one I the world having a random freaky problem. Warranty Issue: If we're out of warranty is the repair costs on us?

 

[Starfighter]

Pretty bad news that it's a hardware issue. Good news that the cause is known. Thede forums are priceless, without them, I wouldn't have known that I wasn't the only one I the world having a random freaky problem. Warranty Issue: If we're out of warranty is the repair costs on us?

Forums are absolutely priceless. Every issue I've ever had has had an active thread when I look. I can't believe I waited so long to search for this Gimbal problem. I thought it was unique to me, for some stupid reason. There are millions of these things out there. When a malfunction like this happens, the odds are probably nearly a certainty that someone out of the millions, has had the same problem. I think it took quite a few hours to first appear. And it has repeated it about 3 times. I wonder if the ribbon cable gets frayed over time, due to a design defect in the routing path.

 

[Youser]

Forums are absolutely priceless. Every issue I've ever had has had an active thread when I look. I can't believe I waited so long to search for this Gimbal problem. I thought it was unique to me, for some stupid reason. There are millions of these things out there. When a malfunction like this happens, the odds are probably nearly a certainty that someone out of the millions, has had the same problem. I think it took quite a few hours to first appear. And it has repeated it about 3 times. I wonder if the ribbon cable gets frayed over time, due to a design defect in the routing path.

It's happening to people straight out of the box. The cable shouldn't have much wear at all. Loads of people have received replacement units which are having the same problem

 

[Starfighter]

It's happening to people straight out of the box. The cable shouldn't have much wear at all. Loads of people have received replacement units which are having the same problem

Well that shoots down that theory. I wonder what the problem is, and why it appears so difficult to pinpoint. I was a EE for a defense contractor, and I know that some of these kind of problems can occur that can be cruel to your brain to debug.

It has to happen when you're looking at enough things to point you in the right direction. There could be crosstalk between runs on a circuit board, that's marginal, but hits a threshold under curtain changing signal situations. An ugly thing to find.

 

[Starfighter]

It's happening to people straight out of the box. The cable shouldn't have much wear at all. Loads of people have received replacement units which are having the same problem

Blowing on the camera can kick it off?! Have people who've replaced ribbon cables and fixed it, or flew it a few times and it worked. I can make 10 flights easy, then have it happen. I think mine usually happens after the 9 minute mark, where it has to start storing SD video into another file. I've gotten out of the habit of recording my download on my forgive
Device. Not a good thing. I've found it doesn't seem to affect the video feed, and can provide valuable information if the bird goes down. OR IF YOUR NEIGHBORS STEAL IT, AND CALL YOU A PERVERT! LOL:
The SD card never catches it. Recording to my device really saved me once. It started with me being an idiot. I had spun new or propellers on, but figured I'd tighten them in the morning. FORGOT. Self tightening from there actually worked pretty well, but I later learned that they were loose enough so that a resonant shaking vibration could break out, latter while idling in my living room. But at the time I was flying it, "engine seized", and all kinds of messages in red were flashing across my screen. My plan was not to come anywhere near the condos I live. I was flying it from my balcony over the beach, and was going to land 100yds away and go get it. All the error messages made me want to get it on the ground quick. I brought it close, LOS flying, but apparently paused outside a neighbors condo for 30 seconds or so, and I let it land in the grass. Where before I could get there, the neighbors, assuming a voyeur was spying on them, went down and stole it, with the video still running! The GPS told me where it ended up. They said it landed in their balcony, and were going to give it back only to the president of the condo board. Who was my next door neighbor, friend, of 16 years, would know I was innocent. BUT suppose I had just moved in? I could have gotten evicted. I was renting, my landlord was an incredible attractive young woman, we were close as family, and she's a lawyer. So I was in no peril BUT COULD HAVE BEEN. These people swore at me, lied, and slammed the door in my face. I was just going to wait until the morning, but I wanted to know what had gone wrong, and then I started getting mad. And then I realized I had recorded everything on my phone! They stole a running video recorder! LOL. I was nice enough to warn them I was going to call the cops. They wouldn't answer the door, and then went out to dinner. I was still mad when the Sheriff department deputy arrived. I explained the weird situation, and played him the video. It was near sunset, I had been down the beach, and the footage had a beautiful Ocean tone, with the condos starting to light up. And showed my landing, that I hadn't bdrm looking in their place, and then showed them taking it from the bushes. The P3P even managed to transmit to me from the elevator! A metal box.

The deputy got really torqued off, and when they wouldn't answer his calls from the restaurant "restricted" they knew, he got madder. The president, who we were talking to, said she'd just go get it when they got back, and tell them what happened. The deputy said, "Oh, no, both of them are going to the jail for grand theft!" They were well to do, pompous, from Texas, thought they had been peeped at, and throwing them in jail was more than I could do. So I said that, declined to press charges, and the deputy said he wanted to at least talk to them, "And it better go well." They finally answered from the restaurant, and got to "it landed on our balcony." Cops hate blatantly being lied to. "NO! YOU listen. You've just added lying to a police officer to your felony grand theft charges. Everything was caught on video which I've watched." After he hung up, the deputy said, "I don't think that would have gone well in person". LOL I'M GOING TO START RECORDING TO THE DEVICE AGAIN.

 

[MavicPilot]

Same thing here folks. I was fine with my previous MP, but I sent mine in for repair and of course they replaced her vs. making the repairs. I received my replacement MP this week and saw the behavior on the first flight.

A few things to mention:

- It happens on both iOS (iOS10 with an iPhone 5s) and my Android device.
- Apps are at the same version they were with the old MP. The Android device is FW'ed off, so no chance of DJI injections at this point (Android side).
- The iOS device is not FW'ed so no major releases, but it may have slipped in a side load update
- old MP was running the newest FW (v01.04.x000 branch from 1 month ago) and the replacement is @ v01.03.1000.
- RC is on the v01.04.xxxx branch of FW. Strange that they would mismatch them?

It happens a few times per flight - I flew about an hour today and I saw it once per battery.