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Help With Repair Flight Log Errors from Inflight Wifi and Auto Sync On, RC Controller, Fly 1.6.9

Mike107

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I have Flight Log errors caused by having both Wifi and Auto Sync on during a flight. Normally I fly with Auto on and Wifi off, but this time I happen to have turned wifi on after takeoff, so as to download the most detailed possible map for that area.

That Having Auto Sync On can cause broken files is documented--for example here in the Mini forum and here in the Mavic 2 forum, and I wish I'd known that previously. AirData recommends leaving it Off at all times. If you aren't familiar with this issue and don't want to read the regrettably long post, skip to "The Bottom Line".

The issue in simple terms is that the Fly App (1.6.9 in my case) may be uploading partial Flight Records to the DJI server while you are flying. Airdata may then pick these up and list them as separate flights. How (If ever) the records are sorted and concatenated by the DJI server is beyond me.

I have a bit of a variation on what was reported elsewhere...My RC controller had multiple files for one single long flight, and some of those files were portions of another. My RC had multiple files for the same flight. One flight record is a duplicate part (subset) of a greater flight record (not a simple splitting of one record), and that greater flight record is missing the end of the actual flight, and that missing part is in a different file which has a Flight Reader indexed Start Time of 4:48 and End Time of 4:47, not to mention that the flight record for the end part also has a partial duplicate (subset) file--also with an end time before the start time. Go figure.

These flight records all have an Index listed as 104.
Some of the file names for the raw data may have changed slightly when uploading to Drop Box.

I think...
This Flight Record (A) is a subset of this Flight Record (A-Plus), and this Flight Record (B) is the completion of "Flight Record A-Plus." However, Flight Record (B-Minus)" appears to be a subset of "B".

"B" and "B-Minus" are the ones with the indexed start time appearing to be later than the end time when listed in Fight Reader and both show about a 4.5 second time gap between the end of A-Plus and the beginning of B.**

Question 1: Can anyone verify I am correct in how the Flight Records are related?
Question 2: Can anyone please tell me how to join "B" to the end of "A-Plus" so I can reload it to Flight Reader and AirData?
Question 3: What accounts for B having an end time before the start time in Flight Reader?
Question 4: Why in the csv/aircraft log files, is the first entry in the Custom Update Time (first column) sometimes listed with a time of " " (Blank) in Airdata, or "00:00.0" in Flight Reader-aircraft-csv, or "7 pm" in Flight Reader-aircraft-log, while at other times in all cases the first line's entry will be an actual time that is just before the second line's timestamp?
Question 5: Is it odd/likely that the time gap in the split flight record files was caused by moving away from the Camera View screen, thereby interrupting the Flight Record?

The Bottom Line: Don't fly the RC controller with both Wifi and Auto Sync on or you may get very confused (or confusing) flight records. o_O

Thanks ahead of time for the education and the assistance.
I hope wasting my morning on this mistake keeps someone else from having to waste theirs...

Mike
**The time gap may have been caused by leaving the Camera View screen momentarily, but I cannot tell yet. I saw in my Screen Recording that my fat thumb hit the View Files icon instead of the Auto Focus icon and that caused the RC controller to move away from the Camera View screen and to the "Home Screen" (black screen, pic of M3P, Connection guide, etc) until I switched it back.
 
A+ = DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
A, subset of A+ = DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
B, completes A+
B- subset of B = DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Thank you —that means my morning wasn’t a total loss, as I figured out the elements a a good guy confirmed it.

Any idea how to string A+ and B together to get “C” (as in almost Complete?)

Mike
 
Curious—how long did it take you, a more experienced rPIC, to get comfortable with what the facts were?
 
I would try downloading the csv's of A+ & B then open both in spreadsheet windows and copy and paste the data content of B into A+ and save the result as C.
That should work as a csv but whether or not a log reader will like the resulting csv I have no idea. I think I have a couple of split flights and if I can find the pairs I will give it ago later today.
 
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Tested one pair and CsvView was able to process the merged csv.
Thanks, Y’pud!
I’ll have to see how it goes with Flight Reader and AidData.

Can CsvView download the merged file as an “original” txt file?
 
I have found two pairs of split flightlogs so far and think there may be a third spanning a proper loss of connection that triggered a failsafe RTH.
When it processed the merged csv's, CsvView appears to produce exactly the same sort of results as it does when it processes original unencrypted .txt flight logs and or the 'normal' csv's, of encrypted logs from the FLY app, that have been processd by and downloaded from, DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help .

From memory Airdata can not handle csv's produced by Phantomhelp (PH), I have accidentally, at times, attempted to upload PH csv's rather than the original .txt's and the upload of each csv fails in someway, though I can not remember how it fails.

I suspect Airdata can handle some csv's since I think it can handle Litchi flight logs and I now think Litichi produces only a csv, and a small one at that. I have a few Litchi logs from when I first installed, a whils ago, but I haven't yet looked into them properly and have, what I have marked as Litchi txt logs, mixed up with Litchi csv's so I am not sure if I screwed up in my 'associations'.
 
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Combined files would not upload as CSV to Airdata--unsupported format.
Pleasantly, Flight Reader Accepted the .csv file!
Edit--Almost--the Flight Reader record doesn't contain all the info of the Airdata one....bummer...

As serendipity would have it, the experiment was useful in another way.
A .txt flight record of today would not upload to Flight Reader, but it was accepted by Airdata.
I downloaded the original from there and it still would not upload to Flight Reader.
I downloaded the .csv file from Airdata and it was accepted by Flight Reader.
Cool.

Still can't resolve the split flight in Airdata, may have to live with it unless someone knows how to convert it back to an original txt flight record (which on second thought would surprise me since they haven't released a key to these files), or has another idea...In the meantime I'll ask airdata, if they can slice them and upload them to that account.

If anyone is interested, they have a video describing the issue and prevention Here.
 
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FYI if anyone else is dealing with split flight logs...

Airdata confirmed my findings but as of yet cannot be sure why there are 4 unevenly overlapping flight records--none of which are complete in and of themselves, but still suspect it is related to inflight uploads from DJI Mini 3 Pro to DJI server which was possible because I was flying with wifi and auto sync both on at the same time.

Airdata cannot concatenate the flight records either, but their suggestion to group the files which comprise the whole flight suffices for my needs. Creating a Flight Group was a snap once I determined which files to join.

Hope that helps.
Happy Flying (but not with WiFi and Auto sync on simultaneously)
Mike
 

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