How to reconnect?

[LivinLarge]

After many successful flights in the same location, today I had a disconnect from the tablet and then the RC. The Mavic was just hovering about 20 feet away and 20 feet up. I restarted the app and also tried restarting the tablet, but it did not connect. There was no response from the RC at all. After a bit the Mavic returned to home but did not land. It hovered about 6 feet off the ground. I reached up and grabbed it and it fought to get away. I let it go and after a minute and it eventually landed.
Battery was showing 3 lights after landing. RC was at 75%.
What could I have done differently? Should I have shut off the RC and restarted it?
I have no confidence in this bird now.

 

[LivinLarge]

Anyone?

 

[Hollow Dog]

Pretty sure you DO NOT want to shut the RC off when you are flying.

 

[LivinLarge]

Pretty sure you DO NOT want to shut the RC off when you are flying.

Well certainly not if it is connected but in this case it was not connected to the Mavic and did not seem to be trying to reconnect. What else could you do?

 

[gnirtS]

Was the RC not working at all? Did you try the pause button or sport mode switch to see if that kicks it out of it?

Turning the RC off *should* trigger a RTH.

 

[LivinLarge]

Was the RC not working at all? Did you try the pause button or sport mode switch to see if that kicks it out of it?

Turning the RC off *should* trigger a RTH.

Pause button did nothing. Did not try sport mode but since the RC was disconnected, I don't think that would have helped. The Mavic did return to home after connection was lost.but I could not make it land.

 

[gnirtS]

Did the RC actually say "CONNECTING..." or was the display frozen looking like its connected?

 

[Kilrah]

If RC doesn't respond at normal distances, definitely reboot it.

 

[Hollow Dog]

After many successful flights in the same location, today I had a disconnect from the tablet and then the RC. The Mavic was just hovering about 20 feet away and 20 feet up. I restarted the app and also tried restarting the tablet, but it did not connect. There was no response from the RC at all. After a bit the Mavic returned to home but did not land. It hovered about 6 feet off the ground. I reached up and grabbed it and it fought to get away. I let it go and after a minute and it eventually landed.
Battery was showing 3 lights after landing. RC was at 75%.
What could I have done differently? Should I have shut off the RC and restarted it?
I have no confidence in this bird now.

I would say if the RC was not connected than shutting off and trying to reconnect would be the first thing to try.

 

[LivinLarge]

Did the RC actually say "CONNECTING..." or was the display frozen looking like its connected?

I don't recall seeing the "connecting" message. I guess it was frozen. The Mavic realized the connection was lost an returned to home.
Although there are mixed opinions here, I guess I should have tried to shut down and restart the RC as a last resort.
If this happens again, I will try that. I will also set my RTH settings to land rather than hover.

 

[bonzo]

New r/c cable?

 

[LivinLarge]

New r/c cable?

Don't think it was the cable. I could understand a bad cable causing the tablet to lose connection with the remote, but this was the remote losing connection with the aircraft.
I have checked the cable by connecting to my PC and it works fine.

 

[AvatarWings]

I also had this happen about a week ago. After it "disconnected", it moved over our roof and was acting like it was trying to land. I assume that the reason it didn't land was because it calculated the sloping roof was not safe to land. The sticks would not respond and the return home button didn't work. It was a bit breezy and it kept drifting closer and closer to the roof as I became more and more frantic. Finally my son quickly ran and grabbed the ladder, climbed on the roof and reached up and grabbed it. It fought back for a few seconds and then gave up.

The things that I did try (that didn't work) was:

1. Panic!
2. Restart the DJI Go app.
3. Panic some more!
4. Unplugged my phone and plugged it back in.

After that experience, I read about a "joystick mode" that the drone can get into and clicking the Sport Mode switch back and forth will get it out of this mode. I didn't try this but it if it ever happens again, this will be the first thing I will try. Second thing will be to restart the remote in hopes that it will reconnect.

I am also a bit suspicious of the cable. I don't know if a cable going bad could cause this specific problem but after hours of flying my Mavic without a single disconnect, I am now getting them quite frequently. During my last flight, I used a nicer, more expensive cable and I didn't experience any disconnect problems. I will continue to use this cable in hopes it will solve these problems.