Major signal weirdness

[WoodstockNick]

I was flying my Mavic Pro 1st Gen out over the Hudson River by the Esopus Lighthouse today. It was a picture-perfect day and I was trying to capture the sailboats on the river with the lighthouse in the shot. Out of the blue with no warning I got "Aircraft Disconnected." I never got the RTH initiating on the display. I hit the RTH button and no response. Telemetry info on the remote display and on my phone was all dashes. I was out over the river with nowhere to manually land even if I had control. I franticly jockeyed up and down the shore trying to re-establish a signal to no avail.
I finally gave up after helplessly holding the controller in my hand for what seemed like an eternity and was headed back to my car.
Suddenly I heard a distant whine and saw my trusty bird headed back to the shore.
She landed back at the takeoff spot as if everything was normal.
There strange thing is I never re-established connection even when the Mavic was right next to me and landing.
I'm glad the RTH did what it is designed to do and saved the day, but I'm really concerned about what caused the connection to drop and why it never reconnected.
I've had it glitch out on occasion, but never at this location. When it does drop, I get the connection back as soon as I bring it back toward me a bit.
I've flown here numerous times. It's wide open over a river. I've never had any problems.
I'll see what telemetry data I have and upload here when I get the chance. Any ideas? I'm counting my lucky stars she finally decided to come back.

 

[Olav van Gerven]

I think the standard requst from all the experts will be: Please post the log-file. There (might be) the information that explains what happened and even gives an idea on why.

 

[Thomas B]

@Olav van Gerven is correct.

RTH is the default action of the drone when controller signal is lost. Just be sure that you don’t get caught without enough battery to RTH.
Here’s some light reading that will help you know your bird better::

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/mavic/update+documentation/Mavic+Pro+User+Manual+v1.0.pdf

 

[Top Hat]

Did you try to reboot everything(RC/app)?

 

[GavieboyDji]

I was flying my Mavic Pro 1st Gen out over the Hudson River by the Esopus Lighthouse today. It was a picture-perfect day and I was trying to capture the sailboats on the river with the lighthouse in the shot. Out of the blue with no warning I got "Aircraft Disconnected." I never got the RTH initiating on the display. I hit the RTH button and no response. Telemetry info on the remote display and on my phone was all dashes. I was out over the river with nowhere to manually land even if I had control. I franticly jockeyed up and down the shore trying to re-establish a signal to no avail.
I finally gave up after helplessly holding the controller in my hand for what seemed like an eternity and was headed back to my car.
Suddenly I heard a distant whine and saw my trusty bird headed back to the shore.
She landed back at the takeoff spot as if everything was normal.
There strange thing is I never re-established connection even when the Mavic was right next to me and landing.
I'm glad the RTH did what it is designed to do and saved the day, but I'm really concerned about what caused the connection to drop and why it never reconnected.
I've had it glitch out on occasion, but never at this location. When it does drop, I get the connection back as soon as I bring it back toward me a bit.
I've flown here numerous times. It's wide open over a river. I've never had any problems.
I'll see what telemetry data I have and upload here when I get the chance. Any ideas? I'm counting my lucky stars she finally decided to come back.

This has happened to me a few times. To fix it you have to turn the controller off and back on reboot it to get connection back.
I don't know when this started to happen but DJI needs to fix this bug out because it's bad, it seems like it doesn't reboot itself after the connection is lost even when it's hovering right above yourself and landing.

Restarting the DJI go 4 app does nothing you have to restart your controller to get video feed back.

 

[Hayabusa]

@Olav van Gerven is correct.

RTH is the default action of the drone when controller signal is lost. Just be sure that you don’t get caught without enough battery to RTH.
Here’s some light reading that will help you know your bird better::

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/mavic/update+documentation/Mavic+Pro+User+Manual+v1.0.pdf

Wouldn’t the Mavic initiate RTH when it senses it only has enough battery life to return home anyways?

 

[Thomas B]

Wouldn’t the Mavic initiate RTH when it senses it only has enough battery life to return home anyways?

It should, but also may have just landed. Especially if the warning was dismissed.

 

[4wd]

The best option if this happens is to turn off and restart the controller.
It's unlikely to reconnect otherwise but there is a risk that any stick movements are actually having wild effects - which you can't see on the 'disconnected' app.
If it still won't connect at least it should initiate RTH when the controller is off.

 

[WoodstockNick]

Hi all thanks for the replies. It was a matter of panic and operator error. I’ve encountered this numerous times. If I had just calmed down and taken a breath, a simple phone reboot would have solved the problem. The last time this happened, I noticed I still had telemetry data on the remote display and I flew blind, looking at the distance number and watching it decrease to confirm I was flying back home.
Since then I’ve used a standard USB to lightning cable on the bottom USB port and it’s been rock solid.
The takeaway is to not rely on the side micro USB port as it’s notoriously unreliable.
The other takeaway is when all else fails, calm down and look at the remote control telemetry data. If it still shows data and not dashes, bring it back home. If not, wait a bit and your bird will RTH. Just be patient.
Happy flying. Don’t panic.

 

[LeafPeeper]

So your controller never disconnected, only the phone did? THAT is common....

LP

 

[WoodstockNick]

Yes. I now only use the bottom USB port and it hasn’t disconnected once.