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Help understanding my first crash (at night)

Giladwashere

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Jan 8, 2018
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Hello,
I'm a novice pilot. Been enjoying my Mavic pro for about 3 months now without a problem (as well as this very useful forum).
I have one reoccurring is that I would like to get help with:
I live in a large apartment building, with an inner court yard. I'll describe it as I think it may be relevant.
It's about 120 feet / 40 meters high, and shaped like a circle. The diameter of said circle is approx. 30 feet / 10 meters. I have been trying to take off from the middle of this inner court yard.
That's when things started getting weird.
For the first and only time in my life, as I'm taking off - I get notified that I can't fly higher than 5 meters. The drone would simply not get higher. It said to check setting which I did, and there wasn't any height limit, no beginner more, nothing of that sort. Everything was fully charged as well. I even re-calibrated the thing and tried again the next day from the same location and same thing happened, which leads me to believe it's because of the spot I was standing in.
I'm not so well versed in the technology behind the drone. Could the high walls surrounding me with only about 5 meters to each side have been the reason the drone would not get any higher? If not, any ideas what might have caused it?

Anyway, that's not the worst part. About two weeks later, I have completely forgotten about this, and tried to take off again, from the same spot, but this time at night / dark time. This time, the drone acted even more strange. It got about 3 meters high, but instead of standing in place awaiting my control, it just flew on it's own strong to the right, until it hit the wall. I wasn't doing anything in my remote. and in fact, when I tried to control it and stop it, my remote wasn't even doing anything. I tried it again (stupid I know) and exactly the same thing happened, it took off to the right on it's own, and I couldn't control.

Can anyone shed some light for me on these matters? i have too assume they're related. But why do they happen? How is it being dark made the drone act this way? If I'm at an open area will it be safe(r) to fly it?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.
G.
 
Unless that "cylinder" is made out of wood and has no wires, conduit, or metal pipes in it you're probably 1) not getting an accurate compass reading, 2) not seeing enough GPS satellites and 3) causing the forward sensors to think they're too close to something. Fly it in the open.
 
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Unless that "cylinder" is made out of wood and has no wires, conduit, or metal pipes in it you're probably 1) not getting an accurate compass reading, 2) not seeing enough GPS satellites and 3) causing the forward sensors to think they're too close to something. Fly it in the open.

And to add to this the reason it "behaved" differently when it was night: the downward vision systems hold the drone in position when there is sufficient light. No light & no GPS means the drone has no way of knowing where it is.

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/mavic/20171219/Mavic Pro User Manual V2.0.pdf
 
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