Having issues with Airdata UAV and my second hand smart controller

[Ronny St.]

Hello,
I recently acquired an almost new M2P with smartcontroller and tried it out on a first flight yesterday. I have installed Airdata UAV and so I looked to see if my new flight was added.
It appeared it was not so I did a 'Synchronize all' which took quite a long time. All my previous flights with the Mavic Mini and the Mini 2 were visible.
Apparently the previous owner had named the aircraft 'flyingflagey' so during my only flight the M2P carried that name. (In the meantime I changed it to 'DJI Mivic 2 Pro' for me).
But after 'synchronize all' all the flights of the previous owner appeared in my Airdata UAV logs. In total about 90 flights with a duration of a few minutes each, confirming that the previous owner never used his M2P more extensive than just trying it out. So I deleted them one by one, only keeping my flights of my Mavic Mini, Mini 2 and the flight with the M2P.
So my question is where did Airdata UAV took this data from? I had logged out the previous owner and logged in with my own account.
Is the drone somehow registered at DJI and is that the reason? How to undo that (I can contact the previous owner if needed)?
Should a perform a clean on the cache of the smart controller? Or just delete the previous owner's identification of the aircraft (flyingflagey) in Airdata UAV and thereby loosing only my first flight? Or do I have to do a factory reset? I fear that with the latter I will have more problems to get it running again, as I read a lot of a lot of problems re-registering a second hand drone again, an other issues as it often is
Please help me out, so that all new flights are automatically added and that I do not have to perform a 'synchronize all' after each flight and delete the logs of the previous owner every time I use Airdata UAV.
Thanks or responding!
Kind regards,
Ronny

 

[msinger]

Is the drone somehow registered at DJI and is that the reason?

The aircraft name is saved inside of the TXT flight log. While you cannot change the name saved in a previously created TXT flight log file, you can update the aircraft name in DJI Fly so it's accurate going forward.

 

[Ronny St.]

The aircraft name is saved inside of the TXT flight log. While you cannot change the name saved in a previously created TXT flight log file, you can update the aircraft name in DJI Fly so it's accurate going forward.

Thanks for your reply, Msinger! But does that resolve the issue that all previous flights under the name 'flyingflagey' will be overlooked when synchronizing with Airdata UAV? Because that is the main problem I have now.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

So my question is where did Airdata UAV took this data from?

The data is stored on the smart controller irrespective of the owner, the previous owner should have manually deleted the logs of his flights prior to sale. Airdata presumably simply downloads all the flight logs on the device.
It's the same as if he had handed over a phone with a complete flightlog history stored on it.
I would regard having them as a BONUS since you have a greater history of the drone. Infact I would back all the logs up to computer.
The FPV goggles do the same thing, i.e. store the logs of ALL the flights they have been used with.
I would bet that you can not see his logs in your App.
I asked the previous owner of a drone I bought for a set of logs, just for curiosity's sake. He was kind enough to supply them. On a phone using MY login to the App MY App can not see them but my computer etc. can.
I suspect the phone's own file browser would also see them. Neither the computer nor, at a guess, the phone has the concept of ownership/'pilotship' with regards to these logs, they are simply data.

 

[msinger]

does that resolve the issue that all previous flights under the name 'flyingflagey' will be overlooked when synchronizing with Airdata UAV? Because that is the main problem I have now.

That sounds like an Airdata issue maybe? If so, you should contact Airdata for support.

 

[Ronny St.]

The data is stored on the smart controller irrespective of the owner, the previous owner should have manually deleted the logs of his flights prior to sale.
It's the same as if he had handed of a phone with a complete flightlog history stored on it.
I would regard having them as a BONUS since you have a greater history of the drone. Infact I would back all the logs up to computer.
The FPV goggles do the same thing, i.e. store the logs of ALL the flights they have been used with
I would bet that you can not see his logs in your App.

How did the previous owner had to delete all his previous flights? Via the smart controller or online in his DJI account? Btw: the flights are not visible in the smartcontroller but they pop up in Airdata UAV. And his history and mine are tangled up (arranged chronically) so it is hard to know which flights are mine.

 

[Ronny St.]

That sounds like an Airdata issue maybe? If so, you should contact Airdata for support.

I follow your advice and will ask them the same question, but sometimes one can get a better and clearer answer on this forum

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

How did the previous owner had to delete all his previous flights? Via the smart controller or online in his DJI account? Btw: the flights are not visible in the smartcontroller but they pop up in Airdata UAV. And his history and mine are tangled up (arranged chronically) so it is hard to know which flights are mine.

I have ammended my post , #4, to hopefully explain the situation, does it help?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

With regards to their deleting logs I imagine the smart controller can do it via its own file browser or that it can be done by a computer connected to the controller via a usb connection.
If you don't want them left on the controller then I imagine you can do the same thing i.e. delete them via a USB connection to a computer or the controller's own file browser .................. BUT instead of deleting them I would suggest you move them to the computer etc.

 

[Ronny St.]

I will have to find out where they are stored in the SC as I previously used another controller for my Mini 2 so still getting acquainted with the smart controller

 

[MaxHam]

I don't get the whole thing at all.
To my understanding Airdata grabs the logs from the DJI cloud that I'm synchronizing my flights to.
If I do not synchronize, Airdata doesn't find new flights.

If the OP is logged into his DJI account and he syncs - how could Airdata display records from a previous owner's account?
The discussion here implies that Airdata grabs the flight records from the controller which I thought is not the way it works.

What am I not understanding, please?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

The controller is acting like a memory device, 'just like' a hard drive or USB memory stick or phone.
The logs are stored on it until they are deleted, all that Airdata did was copy the logs, all of them, off the memory device i.e. the controller.
Imagine selling a phone, you 'wipe' it so that the buyer can't access the photos etc. that were on the phone. In this instance the seller did not 'wipe' the controller and Airdata copied all the flight logs that were on the controller.

 

[Ronny St.]

I don't get the whole thing at all.
To my understanding Airdata grabs the logs from the DJI cloud that I'm synchronizing my flights to.
If I do not synchronize, Airdata doesn't find new flights.

If the OP is logged into his DJI account and he syncs - how could Airdata display records from a previous owner's account?
The discussion here implies that Airdata grabs the flight records from the controller which I thought is not the way it works.

What am I not understanding, please?

That is exactly the point where I also lost track of the way Airdata UAV works, indeed.
It must have found these logs in the controller itself, since I was logged in GO4 and in Airdata under my DJI account, what is confirmed by Yorkshire_Pud above.
So how can I delete these flight logs from the controller so it will only record my personal flights? I know it is a .txt file, but is it allowed to delete it, without having problems afterwards? Does the .txt file will be newly created the next time I start GO4?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

If the controller has its own file browser you can probably use that to delete the logs. Similarly if you can access the logs via a USB connected computer you can probably delete or move the logs to the computer, the latter would be my approach.
With regards to what happens once they are deleted and the question "will they return?". With my phones a deleted, or in my case moved log, does not return.
This 'cost me' around 200 Phantom 3 logs when I screwed up and somehow deleted them from their 'proper folder' on my computer. Fortunately I was able to find around 130 logs spread around various backups devices and the computer.
HOWEVER, if the logs have been synced to DJI ....BY YOU using YOUR APP ( I think that that should not be possible as they are not recorded under your login) .... then a future sync by you might restore them but, as I said, I do not think your App/login should be able to sync logs recorded under someone else's login.
I would seem that Airdata's app simply reads the controller's memory ... ignoring 'ownership' of the logs.

To be honest, I am a bit confused by this sync stuff and DO NOT generally sync logs with DJI but I have the impression that a sync performed on an empty phone i.e. a phone with NO DJI flight logs on it, downloaded, into the FLY app file system, an logs that I had synced with DJI including logs from Go and Go4. Though those logs were all originally synced to DJI using the same login i.e. they are all associated with one DJI account.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

If the above methods of deleting do not work then you could ask the previous owner for his login detail, log in as them and then delete the logs that their login can see.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

You might like to have a look at

How To Export Flight Records from Smart Controller

How can you export the flight records from the Smart Controller to a computer desk top to be shared?

mavicpilots.com

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

Smart Controller - How to access flight logs

I have a Windows 10 PC, and it shows the MTP driver error, as most people seem to have. I can find no suitable driver available on my system or online. When I access the SC with USB cable (file transfer mode), I have access to the photos folder only. How do we mount the SC's filesystem to get...

forum.dji.com

 

[Ronny St.]

Ok, I will go for the advised method of connection the smart controller to my computer via USB and see what I can find. Before deleting anything I will copy it to my computer, so that no information whatever is lost. As I am at work now, I will do that this evening at home and share my findings, since it can always help some others in the future as well

 

[msinger]

how can I delete these flight logs from the controller so it will only record my personal flights? I know it is a .txt file, but is it allowed to delete it, without having problems afterwards? Does the .txt file will be newly created the next time I start GO4?

You could delete them from your remote controller if you know the filenames. However, it would probably be easier to delete them in your Airdata account. I doubt Airdata will try to sync the deleted logs a second time.

 

[Ronny St.]

You could delete them from your remote controller if you know the filenames. However, it would probably be easier to delete them in your Airdata account. I doubt Airdata will try to sync the deleted logs a second time.

Well, I did delete them in Airdata, so I will try a next flight and see what it gives.
Unfortunately the weather in Belgium hasn't allowed us to enjoy our drone hobby: rain, rain, rain and strong winds.
Maybe next week there will be a few days when it will be better a few days and I will make the best of it then!

 

[Ronny St.]

Just a little update, maybe it is useful for other members here: I managed to connect the SC to my laptop by enabling 'Developer' mode. It required some googling, but I finally got it connected and transferred all content to my laptop. It is a bit unfortunately but it seems it is not possible to undo the enabling of that mode once you have activated it.
In the dji>dji.go.v4>FlightRecord I found all the logs indeed. In the Airdata map I found the log.txt file in which it stated that all previous flight records indeed had been transferred to my Airdata account. I will attach that file here so you can see what was logged.
Now I need fo find out which files I can delete so that the previous flight records are gone (except the one of my own flight), without messing up everything so that I don't have problems the next time I go flying.
So I am still considering whether it would not be better to do a factory reset and hope all goes well afterwards, since I read a lot about problems re-activating a drone that has been activated under another account.