Mavic 3 Stopped Responding Mid Flight

[Meta4]

Could the light in the direction he was traveling be from a reflection off the PVC hand catch he has attached. If it is white and the light is reflecting towards the sensor, it would be from below the drone and indicating an obstacle telling it to stop.

The forward facing sensors that are obstacle avoidance sensors.
They can't see anything of the handle that's below the drone.

 

[Meta4]

if it stopped due to a perceived obstacle wouldn’t the flight log indicate that ?

Not directly, but it can be inferred from a combination of your joystick inputs, the drone's speed and the heading angle.

 

[Capt KO]

Sounds like the drone was facing the sun. Common problem when front sensors are blind..it stops.

 

[Tim3459575]

The stalling issues starts to show up at around 14:07 and there are a number of examples after this
Each time the drone is heading around 262 degrees.

When RTH is working to bring the drone back, it is on a heading of 282 degrees.

Obstacle avoidance looks like the most likely explanation, with OA falsely identifying a low, bright sun as an obstacle and OA set to brake.
This can be avoided by turning OA off when not needed, or flying a different course to avoid flying towards the sun.

The blocked VPS messages would have no effect on forwad motion, and your boat's mast and rigging wouldn't have affected anything.

thanks Meta, I was unaware of this potential phenomenon, but will have to watch out for that in future.