I had some unnerving gimble glitches yesterday...equipment failure?

[WildDoktor]

Have you seen this issue before? Any idea what causes it, and how to make it never happen again? It really drained my confidence and made for a nerve wracking rest of the flight. No fun!​

Problem?
I am still new to the mavic pro (but not drones in general); looks like i have right around 5hrs / 28 flights on the clock for this bird. I picked it up a month or so ago from the 2nd owner, neither he nor the first owner flew it more than 5 or 6 times. So it's basically brand new.

I've been trying to get used to it, get it setup to my way of flying, and see if it's usable for business purposes, so I keep flying it in simulated "work" settings.

Yesterday my goal was to orbit a cell tower and document the new antennas that were installed last week. Then go do a 360 pano over a site next door to the tower that just started breaking ground on construction.

So I did about 4 orbits of the cell tower; 2 above the tower, 2 mid-way down to focus on the new antennas.

After stopping the POI mission, I began to fly away from the tower and the gimbal started to glitch very badly, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another few minutes; it didn't glitch any more.

Then I landed it, swapped batteries, took off, and headed to the construction site. The gimbal started glitching, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

Again I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another 10 minutes or so, getting two 360 panos of the construction site. It didn't glitch any more.

???

Was unit in a crash? no

What have you tried so far? see above

What device are you using ( iphone , ipad, Samsung , etc)? Samsung Note 5

What firmware are you running ( aircraft, remote controller)? Can't recall at the moment; don't have the drone with me currently

What Go app version are you using? Go App 4, 4.3.37

Any modification? (if so what) Super Patcher, some battery settings in the DJI Assistant 2

Did you change anything or install any apps? (if so what) see above

Do you have a video or pictures of the problem? (if so post link)

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[brett8883]

Have you seen this issue before? Any idea what causes it, and how to make it never happen again? It really drained my confidence and made for a nerve wracking rest of the flight. No fun!​

Problem?
I am still new to the mavic pro (but not drones in general); looks like i have right around 5hrs / 28 flights on the clock for this bird. I picked it up a month or so ago from the 2nd owner, neither he nor the first owner flew it more than 5 or 6 times. So it's basically brand new.
View attachment 132180
I've been trying to get used to it, get it setup to my way of flying, and see if it's usable for business purposes, so I keep flying it in simulated "work" settings.

Yesterday my goal was to orbit a cell tower and document the new antennas that were installed last week. Then go do a 360 pano over a site next door to the tower that just started breaking ground on construction.

So I did about 4 orbits of the cell tower; 2 above the tower, 2 mid-way down to focus on the new antennas.

After stopping the POI mission, I began to fly away from the tower and the gimbal started to glitch very badly, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another few minutes; it didn't glitch any more.

Then I landed it, swapped batteries, took off, and headed to the construction site. The gimbal started glitching, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

Again I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another 10 minutes or so, getting two 360 panos of the construction site. It didn't glitch any more.

???

Was unit in a crash? no

What have you tried so far? see above

What device are you using ( iphone , ipad, Samsung , etc)? Samsung Note 5

What firmware are you running ( aircraft, remote controller)? Can't recall at the moment; don't have the drone with me currently

What Go app version are you using? Go App 4, 4.3.37

Any modification? (if so what) Super Patcher, some battery settings in the DJI Assistant 2

Did you change anything or install any apps? (if so what) see above

Do you have a video or pictures of the problem? (if so post link)

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

There’s a known issue with the Mavic Pro and certain SD card that can make the gimbal bug put like that. The Sandisk Extreme Plus 32GB is the worst offender by far but there are others. Which SD card are you using?

 

[WildDoktor]

An SD card can cause the gimbal to wig out? Wow.

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra PLUS 64Gb V10 XC1 C10 A1

 

[Carl B]

Have you seen this issue before? Any idea what causes it, and how to make it never happen again? It really drained my confidence and made for a nerve wracking rest of the flight. No fun!​

Problem?
I am still new to the mavic pro (but not drones in general); looks like i have right around 5hrs / 28 flights on the clock for this bird. I picked it up a month or so ago from the 2nd owner, neither he nor the first owner flew it more than 5 or 6 times. So it's basically brand new.
View attachment 132180
I've been trying to get used to it, get it setup to my way of flying, and see if it's usable for business purposes, so I keep flying it in simulated "work" settings.

Yesterday my goal was to orbit a cell tower and document the new antennas that were installed last week. Then go do a 360 pano over a site next door to the tower that just started breaking ground on construction.

So I did about 4 orbits of the cell tower; 2 above the tower, 2 mid-way down to focus on the new antennas.

After stopping the POI mission, I began to fly away from the tower and the gimbal started to glitch very badly, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another few minutes; it didn't glitch any more.

Then I landed it, swapped batteries, took off, and headed to the construction site. The gimbal started glitching, and the mavic started drifting when I let go of the sticks.

Again I landed it, checked it out, put it back in the air, and flew it around for another 10 minutes or so, getting two 360 panos of the construction site. It didn't glitch any more.

???

Was unit in a crash? no

What have you tried so far? see above

What device are you using ( iphone , ipad, Samsung , etc)? Samsung Note 5

What firmware are you running ( aircraft, remote controller)? Can't recall at the moment; don't have the drone with me currently

What Go app version are you using? Go App 4, 4.3.37

Any modification? (if so what) Super Patcher, some battery settings in the DJI Assistant 2

Did you change anything or install any apps? (if so what) see above

Do you have a video or pictures of the problem? (if so post link)

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I had some issues the other day that sound similar. I was on my second battery when things got a little wonky. I landed and let things cool down some. It was a very sunny somewhat humid afternoon and about 90 degrees. After the cool down I didn’t have any other issues.

 

[brett8883]

An SD card can cause the gimbal to wig out? Wow.

I'm using a Sandisk Ultra PLUS 64Gb V10 XC1 C10 A1
View attachment 132196

Yea so that card is no good for the Mavic Pro. You need a card that says U3 or V30 on it which refers to the minimum write speed of 30mbps. The card you are using is a minimum 10mbps it’s not fast enough.

Why this causes the gimbal to freak out I don’t know but it’s well documented. My theory is that the cache on the camera fills up and so the camera has no choice but to restart itself to clear the cache and what you are seeing is a partial reboot and recalibration of the camera/gimbal. Purely speculation though.

As I noted earlier there is a 32 GB Sandisk Extreme Plus that is known to cause the same issue even though it’s labeled U3/V30. I don’t know if they just had a bad run of them back in the day of why that specific card doesn’t work when it should but steer clear of it. Other sizes of Sandisk Extreme Plus work fine.

I use to have the same problem and have been tracking it for some time. 9/10 people who have this issue were using an insufficient card and it was fixed with a card that meets the minimum required specs and wasn’t the Sandisk Extreme Plus 32 GB

 

[WildDoktor]

What the...! Well, I do have some other U3 cards, so I'll give those a try.

Interestingly though, I flew a roof shoot yesterday evening with the current setup and had zero issues. (Other than I got the exposure settings wrong, so I've got a lot of post work to do on the images). I was able to so some very precise / close quarters tripod-mode flying with confidence. Same SD card. But I only did one slow POI orbit, with a large (260') radius at 4mph. I wonder if part of the issue is that I did 4 orbits with a 25' radius and an altitude change. But then, changing the battery and flying straight should have cleared things up. Also interesting, the 2nd glitch started when I started recording video.

Anyway...I'll try another card, and then try the same POI orbits around the cell tower and see what happens.

Thanks for the head's up, @brett8883!!!

 

[WildDoktor]

Seems I only have a 16GB u3 card. Well, it'll be enough for testing anyway.

 

[brett8883]

Seems I only have a 16GB u3 card. Well, it'll be enough for testing anyway.

View attachment 132218

That SanDisk Extreme is a good one.

It was my experience too that it didn’t happen every flight. I noticed you were recording when it happened did it record the incident to the SD card? If it did record this may not be it but you should be using a U3/V30 card anyway.

 

[WildDoktor]

The first glitch shut off the video; the 2nd glitch didn't! Well, either way I'll test with the U3, and it looks like now I have a 64Gb card for my old gopro 4 silver...or a 2nd one for my old reliable Autel XSP!

 

[WildDoktor]

Hmm...the first glitch happened while video was recording, and eventually stopped the recording on it's own, and swapped from video to camera. The 2nd glitch happened just after I started recording, and also eventually stoped the recording...but didn't swap from video to camera.

 

[brett8883]

Hmm...the first glitch happened while video was recording, and eventually stopped the recording on it's own. The 2nd glitch happened just after I started recording, and didn't stop the recording (but I landed a little quicker the 2nd time).

The fact that it is happening during video recording is further proof to me that this is the same issue I have been tracking and it’s related to the SD card issue.

 

[WildDoktor]

I haven't had a chance to get to the cell tower again, but I did a commercial roof "after" photo/video shoot, and with the 2nd battery at 56%, I started seeing what looked like interference (like you'd get in fpv goggles while flying a "race" drone". At 54%, I got this error:



Great. But hey; at least the gimbal wasn't glitching! :-(

I unplugged/plugged the usb cable (both ends). I killed the go4 app and restarted it. Nothing helped.

I had to fly back to the homepoint at 3mph because it was stuck in tripod mode. I didn't immediately press RTH on the controller because the mavic was behind a 130' tree, and I'd forgot before starting the flights to set the RTH height to 150'...it was currently set to 90' for the last shoot I did at the cell tower.

This is with the 16GB U3 card.

I probably should have formatted it from the mavic, rather than just delete everything while I had it plugged into my PC.

Ugh.

 

[brett8883]

I haven't had a chance to get to the cell tower again, but I did a commercial roof "after" photo/video shoot, and with the 2nd battery at 56%, I started seeing what looked like interference (like you'd get in fpv goggles while flying a "race" drone". At 54%, I got this error:

View attachment 132371

Great. But hey; at least the gimbal wasn't glitching! :-(

I unplugged/plugged the usb cable (both ends). I killed the go4 app and restarted it. Nothing helped.

I had to fly back to the homepoint at 3mph because it was stuck in tripod mode. I didn't immediately press RTH on the controller because the mavic was behind a 130' tree, and I'd forgot before starting the flights to set the RTH height to 150'...it was currently set to 90' for the last shoot I did at the cell tower.

This is with the 16GB U3 card.

I probably should have formatted it from the mavic, rather than just delete everything while I had it plugged into my PC.

Ugh.

I don’t think that is an SD card related issue.

I’d do a compass calibration, IMU calibration, as well a remote controller calibration.

 

[WildDoktor]

Doh! I was going to do that on site but I didn't write it into my plan, so I forgot. :-(

However, I recently (like 2 weeks ago-ish) did all 3 of those calibrations in my backyard. Which is about 50 miles from the roof site. I think the elevation is also a couple hundred feet different.

I haven't found info anywhere on how to exit a flight mode like "tripod" from the controller itself. I did hit the "pause" button on the controller, but that didn't do it.

I suppose I could have hit RTH; supposedly the sensors would have kept me out of the tree. But I also figured that if things are this screwed up already, there's no way I was going to trust the sensors! I'm glad I was only ~250' out and ~45' up, so I could see it and hear it and guide it back.

 

[brett8883]

Doh! I was going to do that on site but I didn't write it into my plan, so I forgot. :-(

However, I recently (like 2 weeks ago-ish) did all 3 of those calibrations in my backyard. Which is about 50 miles from the roof site. I think the elevation is also a couple hundred feet different.

I haven't found info anywhere on how to exit a flight mode like "tripod" from the controller itself. I did hit the "pause" button on the controller, but that didn't do it.

I suppose I could have hit RTH; supposedly the sensors would have kept me out of the tree. But I also figured that if things are this screwed up already, there's no way I was going to trust the sensors! I'm glad I was only ~250' out and ~45' up, so I could see it and hear it and guide it back.

Switch to sport mode momentarily to exit any intelligent flight mode from the remote.

Kind of weird it would still be in tripod mode while in Atti mode. Maybe it just switched to atti mode for a moment.

 

[WildDoktor]

Ah...sport mode. Thanks! I'll put that in my bag of tricks for the next time.

So "A-mode" is atti mode! I couldn't figure that one out either. You're a world of knowledge, thanks!

I think you're right that it was only in that mode momentarily, because I remember the controller's screen saying gps mode while I was flying it back.