Harrowing flight this morning

[Gerry65]

Hi folks. I had some bad moments this morning. I was trying to get footage of my buddy on his mountain bike. The area was large with the only obstacles being trees lining the periphery of the loop but big open baseball/softball fields in the middle. Each field had 3-4 tall metal light towers and I had to move away from one tower to get initial calibration before starting. But got that done and did two batteries worth of flying to set up waypoints missions to track the biker. No problems with that but when I went up with the 3rd battery I was within 5 feet of one of the light towers but didn't think that would matter as I was calibrated. Got about 20 feet up and the RC started beeping and with each beep the screen went blank for a few seconds and then would flicker back on again. This pattern continued but I was able to get the bird down while the connection was good. While on the ground, the RC continued cutting in and out.

A bit scary but I really wanted some footage of my buddy. The controller stabilized for a couple of minutes so I sent the bird up just 10 feet or so to test and, viola, the app crashed. Yikes! The bird started to go to RTH altitude and came very close to the cluster of lights but I managed to cancel RTH and maneuvered it down safely. Oh, and my buddy thought all of this was very funny... NOT!

Sorry for the longevity of this, but could being so close to the metal light tower on my third flight possibly account for this behavior? When I successfully set up my waypoints missions, I was standing 20 feet from the tower, so I'm thinking that maybe being so close on my final flight caused the RC issues and the app to crash.

PS, there were no warnings of any sort and the gps and RCsignals were strong in the beginning, although I really didn't think to check at the moment of the crises.

Here's a picture of where this happened:
I'd appreciate any ideas of what could've caused this, although I know it also could be the quirky 600 software update that I have installed. Thanks.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Can you upload the DAT file so I can take a look?

How to retrieve a .DAT

 

[Gerry65]

Thank you for helping. I will follow the instructions in the link you provided when I get back to my home.

 

[Gerry65]

Can you upload the DAT file so I can take a look?

How to retrieve a .DAT

Dropbox - FLY127.DAT
Dropbox - FLY128.DAT
I got to my computer and think I got this done correctly but I'm not sure. I had to drag the 2 relevant files to my MacBook's desktop but when I tried to upload to this forum I got a message it was too big. So, I tried just uploading one of the files and it was too big also. I'm new to dropbox but I put them there and, hopefully, these links will make them available to you. FLY127 is where I had the problem with the RC flickering on and off and that started happening near the end of the flight. FLY128 was very brief as that is when the app quit on me. I'm not even sure there is anything there as the file doesn't have the 'exec' name on the files icon.

Let me know if I didn't do this correctly and I will give it another shot. The link you provided didn't say what to do with the file once you'd identified it but I noticed that I have a newer version of the assistant.

Thanks again for helping with this. Great service provided by folks on this forum.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Dropbox - FLY127.DAT
Dropbox - FLY128.DAT
I got to my computer and think I got this done correctly but I'm not sure. I had to drag the 2 relevant files to my MacBook's desktop but when I tried to upload to this forum I got a message it was too big. So, I tried just uploading one of the files and it was too big also. I'm new to dropbox but I put them there and, hopefully, these links will make them available to you. FLY127 is where I had the problem with the RC flickering on and off and that started happening near the end of the flight. FLY128 was very brief as that is when the app quit on me. I'm not even sure there is anything there as the file doesn't have the 'exec' name on the files icon.

Let me know if I didn't do this correctly and I will give it another shot. The link you provided didn't say what to do with the file once you'd identified it but I noticed that I have a newer version of the assistant.

Thanks again for helping with this. Great service provided by folks on this forum.

Sorry for the delay. I was analyzing flights for someone that lost their drone. I'm downloading yours now.

 

[Cyberpower678]

I assume your first flight, FLY127 was all OK. I see that you looped around and then ran the waypoint mission twice before landing.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Out of curiosity, what app did you use to fly? Was it DJI GO? I can't read your stick inputs. They're completely empty in both files.

@BudWalker this needs your attention as well.

 

[Gerry65]

I assume your first flight, FLY127 was all OK. I see that you looped around and then ran the waypoint mission twice before landing.

Thank you for helping. Sorry for a lost bird too. That first flight, 127, was were, at the end, the RC started flickering on and off while I was standing near that metal tower of lights. It did that at the very end of the flight. I was able to land when the RC happened to flicker back on.

 

[Cyberpower678]

In your second flight log. I see the controller disconnects, but only once. This prompted the drone to initiate RTH, and so it started to climb to the RTH altitude. Without stick inputs I cannot gauge if this was an issue with the pilot or not, but the fact that I can't read them in the first place is an indication of a problem. Possibly with a mismatched RC firmware. Try reloading the firmware in both devices.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Thank you for helping. Sorry for a lost bird too. That first flight, 127, was were, at the end, the RC started flickering on and off while I was standing near that metal tower of lights. It did that at the very end of the flight. I was able to land when the RC happened to flicker back on.

I see no RC disconnect at FLY127.

 

[Gerry65]

Out of curiosity, what app did you use to fly? Was it DJI GO? I can't read your stick inputs. They're completely empty in both files.

@BudWalker this needs your attention as well.

Yeah, I did use the DJI Go4 app. Now I recall, the 128 flight was me just holding the Mavic and filming. Sorry, I forgot that but that's must be why there were no stick inputs on that flights. On 127, I was doing a waypoints mission and didn't use stick input. I did , try to yaw but I had the positioning of the Mavic accidently locked in the the way it was during setting the mission up.

 

[Cyberpower678]

@Robbyg I'm also bringing in another expert to look at this. The missing RC inputs have me concerned. I'm betting there's a FW mismatch happening here, so I would first try reloading both the RC and the MP with the same version FW, and uploading another flight after that to see if it fixes it.

I do also see a momentary complete loss of GPS, but it recovered quickly. It happened near the light post. That pole could be interfering with the drone.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Yeah, I did use the DJI Go4 app. Now I recall, the 128 flight was me just holding the Mavic and filming. Sorry, I forgot that but that's must be why there were no stick inputs on that flights. On 127, I was doing a waypoints mission and didn't use stick input. I did , try to yaw but I had the positioning of the Mavic accidently locked in the the way it was during setting the mission up.

Unlikely. I see the drone moving around in the first loop that wasn't a waypoint mission. Even with 0 input, I would see no input. But here I see nothing. There are no stick values.

 

[BudWalker]

Out of curiosity, what app did you use to fly? Was it DJI GO? I can't read your stick inputs. They're completely empty in both files.

@BudWalker this needs your attention as well.

I'm guessing you're running an older version of CsvView? SHould be version 1.1.1

 

[Cyberpower678]

I'm guessing you're running an older version of CsvView? SHould be version 1.1.1

Derp. I didn't get an update notification. :/

 

[Gerry65]

In your second flight log. I see the controller disconnects, but only once. This prompted the drone to initiate RTH, and so it started to climb to the RTH altitude. Without stick inputs I cannot gauge if this was an issue with the pilot or not, but the fact that I can't read them in the first place is an indication of a problem. Possibly with a mismatched RC firmware. Try reloading the firmware in both devices.

Ok. I bet that must have been when the app crashed on my iPhone. I had updated both the bird and RC to the latest firmware when it first was available. To reload FW to both, do I just connect the bird and RC to the Assistant 2 and reload the latest updates again? And, can you do both at once? I can find those answers by searching...don't mean to bog you down with petty things. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[Cyberpower678]

I'm guessing you're running an older version of CsvView? SHould be version 1.1.1

You know you could have told me before I made myself look like a fool.

I can see the stick inputs now. The drone is responsive to your inputs. That is when it disconnected it got no more input logically and proceeded to RTH. If you ask me there may be an issue with the controller, or the Mavic's receiver, or the metal post was just causing too much interference. I would recommend reinstalling the FW for both devices and flying somewhere else.

 

[Gerry65]

I see no RC disconnect at FLY127.

So, I wonder if because it was just flickering off them back on it never registered as a truly "lost signal".

 

[Cyberpower678]

So, I wonder if because it was just flickering off them back on it never registered as a truly "lost signal".

Probably. See my post above for my possible solution.

 

[Gerry65]

You know you could have told me before I made myself look like a fool.

I can see the stick inputs now. The drone is responsive to your inputs. That is when it disconnected it got no more input logically and proceeded to RTH. If you ask me there may be an issue with the controller, or the Mavic's receiver, or the metal post was just causing too much interference. I would recommend reinstalling the FW for both devices and flying somewhere else.

Gotcha. Will do and appreciate your assistance.