Mavic Air compass calibration error - couldn't fly

Andy England · Nov 17, 2018

Hi everyone

I'm a new MA owner and decided to get into the mountains (Cederberg) is Western Cape, South Africa. Only to find that when I did try to launch, I got the compass calibration error again and again, and ended up not being able to fly at all. Really annoying when you travel into such a wilderness area like this.

I have seen other posts complaining about this, and removed smart watches etc and anything metallic on me, etc, but didn't expect to get issues out here in the Cederberg.

I don't recall ever getting a successful calibration, but switching the MA or RC off often resolved the issue. I've had no similar issues when flying from the coast recently.

I have also seen posts that suggest the MA shouldn't need re-calibration as the data is downloaded to a table on board.

Is this a hardware or software issue? (I have all the current firmware installed).

Any suggestions welcome on how to overcome this really irritating problem.

Meta4 · Nov 17, 2018

Andy England said:
when I did try to launch, I got the compass calibration error again and again, and ended up not being able to fly at all.

If you put the drone down on a steel or reinforced concrete surface, your compass will complain and show a compass error (it's more a compass warning).
But if you have repeated failure to calibrate at different locations and well away from steel objects, look at the settings in your app and see what it's showing you for the compass.
If it's disconnected, you will never be able to calibrate until that's fixed.

Andy England · Nov 19, 2018

Meta4 said:
If you put the drone down on a steel or reinforced concrete surface, your compass will complain and show a compass error (it's more a compass warning).
But if you have repeated failure to calibrate at different locations and well away from steel objects, look at the settings in your app and see what it's showing you for the compass.
If it's disconnected, you will never be able to calibrate until that's fixed.

Andy England · Nov 19, 2018

Thanks for the reply ….

I didn't check the app settings, must do that in future. But the location was far away from buildings (in fact I was up a mountain). There were power lines about 20 m away, but I tried calibration from the campsite, where there were definitely no metal objects (and on grass) . Would a WiFi signal cause problems? That's was the only thing I can think of. On return to my home, the MA gave no calibration errors at all.

What should the app show when there is genuine interference? Whenever I have checked it, it shows a small green spot or line.

Even if the MA doesn't ask to be calibrated, is it recommended to do so? (I'll try again later to see if I can get a successful calibration even though its not asking for one)

Meta4 · Nov 19, 2018

Andy England said:
Even if the MA doesn't ask to be calibrated, is it recommended to do so?

If your Mavic is flying straight and hovering in place without wanting to slowly spiral, it's compass is calibrated and no further calibration is necessary.
Calibration is simply the way the drone can measure the magnetic fields around it and determine which belong to the drone so it can ignore them in flight.
That doesn't change unless you modify the drone.

Andy England · Nov 19, 2018

Understood.

MA is flying perfectly fine then. Does precision RTH consistently.

Any advice for the future, if I keep getting the compass calibration error that prevents me flying at all, and all precautions taken (on grass, no watches, away from vehicle, away from RC)?

Do you turn off the smart phone (Airplane mode) used on the RC?

Meta4 · Nov 19, 2018

Andy England said:
Do you turn off the smart phone (Airplane mode) used on the RC?

Yes or no.
It makes no practical difference.

Bigbird48 · Feb 26, 2019

I went to fly today and notice the red arrow did not point towards my home point. nor did it point toward the H on the map. this is weird because it always pointed towards the red dot and if I point the arrow aka AC towards the red dot it would point towards the take off point. anyway I landed the ac and tried to do a compass calibration but it wouldn't let me , it was like to touch screen wasn't working. I kept touching the compass and it would not open up for the calibration.The touch screen worked on other stuff so any idea whats going on.

Meta4 · Feb 26, 2019

Bigbird48 said:
I went to fly today and notice the red arrow did not point towards my home point. nor did it point toward the H on the map. this is weird because it always pointed towards the red dot and if I point the arrow aka AC towards the red dot it would point towards the take off point. anyway I landed the ac and tried to do a compass calibration but it wouldn't let me , it was like to touch screen wasn't working. I kept touching the compass and it would not open up for the calibration.The touch screen worked on other stuff so any idea whats going on.

Your description is confusing.
The only time your red plane icon should be pointing toward the homepoint is when you are flying back towards home.
If your drone was flying normally, recalibrating the compass is not needed.

Bigbird48 · Feb 26, 2019

Meta4 said:
Your description is confusing.
The only time your red plane icon should be pointing toward the homepoint is when you are flying back towards home.
If your drone was flying normally, recalibrating the compass is not needed.

yes but it doesn't point toward my home point when flying back. and why won't it let me calibrate the compass

Meta4 · Feb 26, 2019

Bigbird48 said:
yes but it doesn't point toward my home point when flying back. and why won't it let me calibrate the compass

Were you looking at the map view or the radar view?

Forget about calibrating the compass as it's not something you needed to do anyway.

Bigbird48 · Feb 26, 2019

I was told that calibrating the compass was how to get the map and arrow to line up properly. and I was looking at the map lower left hand corner of screen. and I still want to know why I can calibrate the compass. It will not hurt anything to do that and might fix the problem.

Meta4 · Feb 26, 2019

Bigbird48 said:
I was told that calibrating the compass was how to get the map and arrow to line up properly. and I was looking at the map lower left hand corner of screen. and I still want to know why I can calibrate the compass. It will not hurt anything to do that and might fix the problem.

Calibrating the drone's compass won't make any difference to the map display.
The compass that needs to be calibrated is the one in your phone or tablet.

Andy England · Mar 5, 2019

Just a footnote to my original post .....

After many unsuccessful (and frustrating) attempts to calibrate the MA compass at various locations (mountains, coast etc) I resorted in taking the MA to the DJI store in Cape Town, where the staff were also unable to calibrate it. I was told that there were 'problems' with the compass calibration on the MA. I returned it to the retailer, with a full report on my 'research' and what happened at the DJI store. They replaced it with a completely new fly more combo (phew that was a relief).

The replacement is working fine and calibrates on the first or second attempt - no problem. I can only conclude there was some technical issue with the first MA I bought.

Still loving this little technical marvel, and now just need more time to fly and edit the footage

Endeavor · Apr 12, 2019

I have owned pretty much every DJI drone made so far and now have the MA and M2z. My MA constantly needs to have the compass cal done yet none of my others including the spark ever prompt. I owned my P4A and MP for over a year and only calibrated the compass once. I am actually thinking of selling the MA as it's a real pain to keep doing the compass virtually every time I need to launch.