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Mavic Pro and Mavic Pro Platinum Cameras BOTH Go Haywire During Litchi Flights

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With both my Mavic Pro and Mavic Pro Platinum flying 6-mile round trip Litchi waypoint missions over the past couple of days, I have encountered an identical camera anomaly which in both instances occurred during the last few minutes of those waypoint missions launched out over tropical rainforest.

The first portion of these two test flights was uneventful, but then all of a sudden the camera began to rock violently in the yaw and roll directions, while simultaneously Litchi's audio announcements repeatedly intoned the warnings "Camera Stopped/ Camera Started", while the camera view horizon tilted wildly.

At the very start of all my Litchi waypoint flights, I generally tilt the camera down to a minus-20 degrees downward attitude to maximize the ground view, while leaving just a narrow sliver of the horizon in view at the very top of the screen. In these two instances when the camera of both my Mavics took on a life of its own and proceeded to flail about, the camera tilted upwards until the horizon and sky filled more than 60% of my iPad's Litchi camera view screen, while also rocking left and right in a most alarming manner.

Attempting to roll the camera back down to my preferred minus-20 degree tilt angle did not work while the camera danced about during those flights, because there was no response at all when I turned the wheel at the top left corner of the controller. The camera continued displaying abrupt and random movements most of the way home after I actuated RTH, with the effect tapering off a little as the drone approached within audible range.

My initial suspicion was that a simple SD memory card replacement might resolve the looney camera syndrome because I recently discovered that failure to re-format the SD card prior to each flight also disabled the camera-tilt thumb wheel, and disabled the record function. This is pure speculation on my part though, as is my conjecture that an SD card flaw is more probable than the odds that BOTH my Mavic Pro and Mavic Pro Platinum could develop identical in-flight camera failure symptoms within days of each other.

This mystery bothers me enough to post its description in this and one other forum, just in case any Litchi and/or Mavic Pro users have encountered such sudden departures from normal camera behavior during waypoint flights or even during manual drone flights. Any ideas that can be shared would be gratefully considered here, as I try and figure out what might be amiss.
 
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I had this identical experience with an Inspire 2 with an X4s camera. I had flown a mission with Litchi and all was fine. Two weeks later went to fly the same mission and had the experience you had. I don’t recall if I had done any updates on any of the softwares. But when that happened, I took out my Mavic Pro, loaded it with the same mission, and it was flawless. I never did solve this as I started just flying the Inspire mission by hand.
 
The intermittent nature of those camera flailing episodes does make it difficult to work out why it happens. After the first Litchi mission during which the camera of the Mavic Pro Platinum ran amok, I formatted the SD card and then test flew the same drone on another 6-mile autonomous mission during which absolutely nothing unusual occurred.

Having it happen with my Mavic Pro Platinum and then again with my Mavic Pro on a completely different mission flight path was too much of a coincidence for me to ascribe that identical symptom to a problem within each drone.

To retain connectivity with Litchi that the 0050 firmware upgrade temporarily blocked, I recently downgraded the firmware on both Mavics and their controllers from the current 0050 edition to a much earlier 0010. I suppose there is a possibility that the firmware downgrade caused an intermittent Litchi bug to emerge from dormancy and strike terror into my heart mid-flight. If this camera problem persists I might go ahead and upgrade to say the 0030 firmware, before running a couple more flight tests.
 
Turns out that intermittent signal connectivity between the drone and its controller is known to be a direct cause of the camera gimbal falling about. On both occasions when I observed the jittery camera aberration, the Mavic Pro1 and Mavic Pro Latimum drones were flying 6-mile round trip Litchi waypoint missions out over tropical rainforest, during which drone-controller signal reach became intermittent not long after launch.

With this key nugget of information gleaned from another drone discussion forum, I found that by simply powering off the controller whenever the drone is outbound on an autonomous Litchi waypoint flight, and then powering up the controller only during the last few minutes of the flight as the drone is inbound within a strong signal range, cures the break-dancing gimbal syndrome, with the result that buttery smooth footage is recorded throughout the waypoint mission.
 
Good to know for those with Litchi.

I knew once it set off on its way, if controller signal is lost it just keeps flying the mission until complete, or a low battery initiated RTH occurs.
Intermittent signal causing gimbal calibration (or just going haywire) in flight would probably mean just switching off the controller to keep it on the mission is best for sure.

You'd just have to be on the ball to be sure to hear it approaching on return to switch on and land.
(Or can a Litchi mission auto land ?)
 
Hello, Oz I found that for all Litchi waypoint missions longer than 15 minutes, the estimated flight time for each mission shown on the Litchi screen is always 5-minutes longer than the actual round-trip flight time of the drone, in calm skies.

Before launching a Litchi waypoint mission over 15 minutes long, I thus deduct that 5-minute overestimate from Litchi's elapsed mission time figure showing onscreen, to arrive at the true time of the drone's arrival at the launch point, which I set on my phone's alarm. Typically I'm on the computer indoors when that alarm goes off, and by the time I step outside I can hear the drone on final approach.

Litchi supposedly is capable of carrying out autolands, but by force fo habit I've always disconnected autopilot on arrival, then made manual landings since I don't entirely trust that autoland process yet haha.
 
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