Mini wont pair to controller

JV in Philly · May 21, 2020

Just a perfect day to fly and I took my MM out, powered up the rc and the Mini and launched the app. It always connected immediately, but not this time. No camera view, just a black screen and a message that the aircraft is not connected. I went thru the manual pairing steps as directed in the app but the pairing timed out. I rebooted everything including my phone but got the same result - no connection - each of three tries. I’m running the latest version of the dji Fly app, but I’ve been reluctant to update the mini firmware. (Still running the previous version.) Everything had a full charge including my phone. I’ve had my Mini for a month and it’d been great til today. Can anyone offer any insights? Thanks!

Guitarzan · May 21, 2020

May not be of any help, but I can tell you that after the latest firmware update, I got the same message...can not connect to aircraft (or something to that effect). Discovered the longer aftermarket cable to connect with iPad mini was not fully seated. I blamed it on having a "senior moment".

JV in Philly · May 21, 2020

Thank you. My controller cable is ok. I discovered that when I remove the SD card, then I can pair just fine. When I re-insert the card, the Mini unpairs. I attempted to reformat the card in the Mini, however that failed. Should I assume a suddenly bad SD card?

Guitarzan · May 21, 2020

Wow! I don't understand how the SD card can prevent pairing to quad, but it sure sounds like the culprit. Most definitely try another!

CarstenB · May 21, 2020

SD card has been blamed a few times for such issues.

Florida Drone Supply · May 21, 2020

I have heard of this before. Not sure why a bad SD card or a card it doesn't like would prevent it from pairing, but it has happened. Perhaps try another SD card and hopefully you will not get the same problem.

JV in Philly · May 22, 2020

Florida Drone Supply said:
I have heard of this before. Not sure why a bad SD card or a card it doesn't like would prevent it from pairing, but it has happened. Perhaps try another SD card and hopefully you will not get the same problem.

JV in Philly · May 22, 2020

Thanks for the responses. Just to update, I picked up a new SD card today and put it in the Mini and it instantly paired with no apparent problem. That brightened my day up considerably. So it seems like the card was at fault in some way. Yesterday, in the process of trying to get it to connect I was prompted to update the firmware and I did. I’m not sure what if anything that had to do with resolving my pairing issue. Since I got my Mini I’ve been hyper sensitive to prop placement in the case, so I’ll now be curious to see if I get that motor speed error. Thanks again for the responses.

Arnu69 · May 23, 2020

I had this problem couple of weeks back. To cut a long story short it was related to SD card. I ended up formatting the SD card and all was fine. Drone worked without SD card which I thought was odd. Then when I put SD card back in drone wouldn't pair. I did a thread at the time . Quite why the SD card should effect this is still a mystery to me. I wonder if the SD card doesn't sit in its place correctly every time?

JV in Philly · May 23, 2020

I did a forum search and came across a thread from December where a guy in Mexico also solved the problem by removing and reformatting the SD card.

So if you format your card on a computer which format do you use, FAT32, exFAT or NTFS? Mavic doesn’t make this obvious at all.

In searching around, I found this really informative post: How to Format the SD Card Within the DJI GO 4 App - Let Us Drone
...but I still don’t know what format the MM prefers.

ff22 · May 23, 2020

JV in Philly said:
I did a forum search and came across a thread from December where a guy in Mexico also solved the problem by removing and reformatting the SD card.

So if you format your card on a computer which format do you use, FAT32, exFAT or NTFS? Mavic doesn’t make this obvious at all.

In searching around, I found this really informative post: How to Format the SD Card Within the DJI GO 4 App - Let Us Drone
...but I still don’t know what format the MM prefers.

I think if you format the card in the drone and then move it to a computer, you can check its properties and find out what format scheme was used.

CarstenB · May 23, 2020

JV in Philly said:
I did a forum search and came across a thread from December where a guy in Mexico also solved the problem by removing and reformatting the SD card.

So if you format your card on a computer which format do you use, FAT32, exFAT or NTFS? Mavic doesn’t make this obvious at all.

In searching around, I found this really informative post: How to Format the SD Card Within the DJI GO 4 App - Let Us Drone
...but I still don’t know what format the MM prefers.

from the manual, not sure if that's relevant here

JV in Philly · May 23, 2020

Looks good to me. Thanks

JV in Philly · May 25, 2020

JV in Philly said:
Thanks for the responses. Just to update, I picked up a new SD card today and put it in the Mini and it instantly paired with no apparent problem. That brightened my day up considerably. So it seems like the card was at fault in some way. Yesterday, in the process of trying to get it to connect I was prompted to update the firmware and I did. I’m not sure what if anything that had to do with resolving my pairing issue. Since I got my Mini I’ve been hyper sensitive to prop placement in the case, so I’ll now be curious to see if I get that motor speed error. Thanks again for the responses.

To follow up - did a couple flights this morning with the updated firmware and all was fine; no motor speed error at all. This strongly suggests to me that prop placement in the FlyMore case really IS the culprit. Anyway I’m just relieved I don’t have to fuss with changing the props. (Now hoping I haven’t jinxed myself.)

alopeznj · Nov 6, 2020

I cannot pair. Tried.
Tried manual pair.
Software pair.
About to send it back.

New drone.

JV in Philly · Nov 6, 2020

Remove the SD card and then try again. I had the same issue a while back. I re-formatted the card and all was well after that.

alopeznj · Nov 6, 2020

Got it folks. My case was a bad cable from iphone to controller. Was paired all the time, but phone was not communicating with the controller. Problem solved.
Be careful with cheap cables.

Arnu69 · Nov 7, 2020

JV in Philly said:
Just a perfect day to fly and I took my MM out, powered up the rc and the Mini and launched the app. It always connected immediately, but not this time. No camera view, just a black screen and a message that the aircraft is not connected. I went thru the manual pairing steps as directed in the app but the pairing timed out. I rebooted everything including my phone but got the same result - no connection - each of three tries. I’m running the latest version of the dji Fly app, but I’ve been reluctant to update the mini firmware. (Still running the previous version.) Everything had a full charge including my phone. I’ve had my Mini for a month and it’d been great til today. Can anyone offer any insights? Thanks!

Arnu69 · Nov 7, 2020

Format your SD card in the drone. It will work fine after that. Don't ask me why. Mine does this if I've used windows to change info on the SD card like name of file etc. Don't use Windows to change info on your SD card, always format in drone.