Mavic Pro lost

Quillotine · Oct 30, 2021

Hello!

I lost connection to my drone for a while and it braked and hovered @ 60meters. Battery was at 19% at this point. I was just gonna RTH. This is the last known location in my flightlog. Then i gained connection with the RC but for some reason phone could not get connection so next actions are not in the flight log. I was flying it manually towards RTH point after it had locked the straight line to it. All i remember is seeing AC battery 3% and doing emergency landing somewhere between the RTH point and last known location from the flightlog. I have been searching the area by foot for the past 3 days without luck of finding it. 8 hectares area of really dense forest and fields towards the RTH point. It is possible the drone landed on some thick tall tree and cannot be seen from the ground.

So the question is, is there some data in the Remote Controller BlackBox that can help me track the events after the FlightLog ends. This would help alot narrow the search area down. Like the data from the RC screen, distance to RTH, flying height. I have already sent these files to customer service. Is there any way i can read the RC BlackBox data myself?

Link to the files:

Mavic Lost - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Here is the flightlog:

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

slup · Oct 30, 2021

Hi there & welcome to the forum neighbor

There is no flight log in the RC ... you only have 3 available logs.

-One DAT log in the AC itself
-One DAT log in the connected, with GO4 running mobile device
-One TXT log in the connected with GO4 running mobile device

So you're out of luck here ... AC still out there with one log & the GO4 app not running preventing the 2 mobile device logs to be recorded.

... And yeah, it's possible that the AC became stuck in a tree when it Low battery auto landed. You flew out with way to little battery left, with 35% you should be coming in for a landing, not take off for a new flight.

eEridani · Oct 30, 2021

Taking off with a low battery ... then flying downwind nearly a mile.

Quillotine · Oct 31, 2021

eEridani said:
Taking off with a low battery ... then flying downwind nearly a mile.

Yes i know it was risky and greedy flight. In the previous flight with the same battery i did get some battery malfunction sucking the battery from 60 to 30 in just 17 seconds during flight. Then it continued draining the battery abnormally fast. I landed that flight with just 3% battery. Restarted the battery, and it immediately gained that 35% battery level whit which i left for this fatal flight and lost the drone.

Ive had this problem with the battery in the past showing inaccurate battery level, landing with 0% battery while the batterys LED indicator shows 2/4 lights left after a 10 minute flight. Thats why i took the stupid risk and paid the iron price. I have the flightlog of that flight too but i will not post it on this thread now as it is another matter. If i find the drone and its still working i will get rid of that battery. All i care right now is getting some useful information of the drones possible whereabouts to help me narrow down the search area.

If only i wouldnt have lost the video feed i could have landed on some spot and picked it up from elsewhere other than RTH. Thanks for the wind data i havent seen this one yet. Maybe i can utilize it in the search.

slup said:
There is no flight log in the RC ... you only have 3 available logs.

-One DAT log in the AC itself
-One DAT log in the connected, with GO4 running mobile device
-One TXT log in the connected with GO4 running mobile device.

I think this is incorrect as there have been thread about about fatal.log from the controllers black box. They said:

Kilrah said:
Search for DJI_ftpd_aes_unscramble, but you won't find anything useful in this file, it's just a system log with nothing relevant to flight.

mryeje said:
Thanks this worked, it actually had some useful info, like altitude, speed, battery life, distance at the last waypoint.

If someone out there that can read the controllers fatal.log data please help!

fatal.log

After my mavic fly away I watched a video on getting the blackbox data from the remote. There is a file named fatal.log; however it is encrypted. Anyone know how to view this file?

mavicpilots.com

slup · Oct 31, 2021

Quillotine said:
...I think this is incorrect as there have been thread about about fatal.log from the controllers black box...

Yeah ... that was 3-4 years ago & included much more than just decrypting the RC files, it mainly gave root access to all files on the AC & RC making it possible to take away all restrictive boundaries. At the time a lot of threads explaining "how to" was deleted, most probably on DJI's request ... & since then all has gone silent, you can't find anything newer than from 2018, so it was most probably blocked by DJI.

You will most probably find your AC faster spending your time walking, searching between the last known location & HP instead of trying to get this to work.

But if you manage to get something out of that fatal.log ... come back & tell us.

Rquirk · Oct 31, 2021

Sorry to hear of the pro loss. I always aim to come back and land with around 50% charge. I also have my M1P covered in reflective tape. That way if I lose it, night time would be the best time to look for it with a bright torch.

Quillotine · Oct 31, 2021

slup said:
You will most probably find your AC faster spending your time walking, searching between the last known location & HP instead of trying to get this to work.

I am searching all daylight time for the past 4 days and when it gets dark i continue data analyzing. Searched the whole staraight line from last signal to RTH. Now searching from RTH 350-500meter circular area from wide radius as i think the last length to RTH on the RC was around 400m˜.Theres no better way to spend your holiday than treasurehunting a drone heh.

Rquirk said:
I also have my M1P covered in reflective tape. That way if I lose it, night time would be the best time to look for it with a bright torch.

Yeah i thought of putting that on my next drone, also seperate failsafe tracker.

Droniac · Oct 31, 2021

Rquirk said:
Sorry to hear of the pro loss. I always aim to come back and land with around 50% charge. I also have my M1P covered in reflective tape. That way if I lose it, night time would be the best time to look for it with a bright torch.

Obvious, but never thought About A strip or two of reflective tape. I’m down, it’s quite cool. Thanks. Godspeed, Droniac

eEridani · Oct 31, 2021

Walk the clearing, starting at the tree line where the log stops, heading back towards your home point. On LOS, the drone will RTH or hover then land depending on LOS settings. Do a couple of search pattern loops in the clearing, then head into the trees on that line. Look high and low.

eEridani · Oct 31, 2021

Droniac said:
Obvious, but never thought About A strip or two of reflective tape. I’m down, it’s quite cool. Thanks. Godspeed, Droniac

And - place a couple of large black and white "eyes on the top and sides so the drone looks birdish. Will help if a raptor gets interested. I fly where raptors are very common, have seen them around when flying and so far none have taken a serious interest (they have noticed the drone but weren't hunting), so I have been researching what works to deter them. Seems the evil eye works.

jookieapc · Dec 19, 2021

Quillotine said:
I am searching all daylight time for the past 4 days and when it gets dark i continue data analyzing. Searched the whole staraight line from last signal to RTH. Now searching from RTH 350-500meter circular area from wide radius as i think the last length to RTH on the RC was around 400m˜.Theres no better way to spend your holiday than treasurehunting a drone heh.

Yeah i thought of putting that on my next drone, also seperate failsafe tracker.

I'm curious about a fail-safe tracker. I have a similar problem to you. I hope you manage to find it. Do you think searching with another drone would be helpful?

Slawaw · Jan 3, 2022

jookieapc said:
I'm curious about a fail-safe tracker. I have a similar problem to you. I hope you manage to find it. Do you think searching with another drone would be helpful?

Everything has been invented for a long time. 27 g.
It works with GPS and GSM. Shows coordinates very accurately. The battery is independent of the drone battery. When I come to the search point, I call the tracker on the phone - it emits a sound, so it is easy to find it even on a high tree.