Mavic pro lost connection and never came back

[guest112]

Sorry to chime in, yesterday I flew my mavic out about 400m and turned it around 180 to fly it back in, and it wouldn't come forward at all. I could go up and down, and sideways but not forward. Obstacle avoidance keeps flashing on my screen. I had to fly it sideways for a break before I could return it back safely. It was a really sunny day, do you think this could have been because of the sun?

Hello JessC,

This sounds exactly like what you are guessing. The DJI obstacle avoidance works with cameras and when your drone flys towards the sun the integrated camera based obstacle avoidance can get confused (i.e. think there is an obstacle).
So on sunny days always keep in mind that flying directly towards the sun may cause the OA to trigger. Also bear in mind that this can also happen during a RTH flight, that by chance is oriented directly towards the sun.
This has been reported a lot and is a known issue for the Mavic. If the drone flys automatically, it will also start to climb up to get over the wrongly "identified" obstacle. You can turn this off in the RTH settings. The best solution if such a situation occurs is to switch to Sport mode (which turns off obstacle avoidance) and fly the drone manually home. Another solution is to turn off forward obstacle avoidance completely when flying toward the sun, but I'd rather not recommend it as one might forget to turn it back on etc.

Happy flying,
DH Team

 

[peros550]

I think when obstacle avoidance kicks in you can hear a beep and maybe feel a vibration on your remote

 

[benjaminkan]

Sorry to chime in, yesterday I flew my mavic out about 400m and turned it around 180 to fly it back in, and it wouldn't come forward at all. I could go up and down, and sideways but not forward. Obstacle avoidance keeps flashing on my screen. I had to fly it sideways for a break before I could return it back safely. It was a really sunny day, do you think this could have been because of the sun?

Yes if you are flying facing the sun.

 

[Starfighter]

Hello JessC,

This sounds exactly like what you are guessing. The DJI obstacle avoidance works with cameras and when your drone flys towards the sun the integrated camera based obstacle avoidance can get confused (i.e. think there is an obstacle).
So on sunny days always keep in mind that flying directly towards the sun may cause the OA to trigger. Also bear in mind that this can also happen during a RTH flight, that by chance is oriented directly towards the sun.
This has been reported a lot and is a known issue for the Mavic. If the drone flys automatically, it will also start to climb up to get over the wrongly "identified" obstacle. You can turn this off in the RTH settings. The best solution if such a situation occurs is to switch to Sport mode (which turns off obstacle avoidance) and fly the drone manually home. Another solution is to turn off forward obstacle avoidance completely when flying toward the sun, but I'd rather not recommend it as one might forget to turn it back on etc.

Happy flying,
DH Team

But if it's coming home because of an RC connection loss, and happens to point at the sun, you could have an unknown snd uncorrectable problem. I kind off thought that especially at close range, the RC connection to the Mavic has a high priority, meaning that I thought any ap causing the physical RC to lose connection was unlikely. Am I wrong? I know that the DJI Go app crashing leaves the connection intact. Anyone flying with an Android device knows that by experience. I bet.

 

[mryeje]

But if it's coming home because of an RC connection loss, and happens to point at the sun, you could have an unknown snd uncorrectable problem. I kind off thought that especially at close range, the RC connection to the Mavic has a high priority, meaning that I thought any ap causing the physical RC to lose connection was unlikely. Am I wrong? I know that the DJI Go app crashing leaves the connection intact. Anyone flying with an Android device knows that by experience. I bet.

That's how I thought it would work but DJI wont do anything for me, heck, they didnt even offer me the 30% off a new one or whatever. Terrible company, selling an incomplete product for thousands and abandoning their customers.

 

[Starfighter]

That's how I thought it would work but DJI wont do anything for me, heck, they didnt even offer me the 30% off a new one or whatever. Terrible company, selling an incomplete product for thousands and abandoning their customers.

I'm really sorry about your Mavic, and it sounds like DJI is screwing you to some degree, but there are scammers out there, and they DJI doesn't have much information to work with. I just have a feeling that the system would make it difficult to cause a break in a well established link to the physical remote. But I don't have anything to base that feeling on. Obviously you feel the same way, thus the disconnection was a hardware failure. At that point, given that the hardware error could have been catastrophic, even a battery failure, RTH ability may have been compromised. If it was coming home, after this debacle, and was thwarted by the sun/obt. avoidance bug, you had bad luck, bud.