New Mavic Pilot need help

[BamaRider]

Been flying a PS3 (the "Catbird") almost a year, many missions, never crashed or stuck in a tree.

New Mavic pro (the "Jaybird") for Christmas. So far so good. I really like the Mavic. I decided to take it slow and not fly the Jaybird on any serious missions till more familiar with the unit. Good thing too.

While flying over the familiar fields near my neighborhood the app crashed and my screen went blank. I new where he was, but could not see him. From the video feedback he was only 500 hundred feet from home, and 180 ft high.

I scanned the cloudy skies, but failed to see him. Battery was still good (65%) according to the remote. I walked in the direction I knew him to be and still no dice. "I should be able to hear him from here." But no.

Battery was now down to 50%. "Gonna quit fooling around and just call him home RTH." I hit the rth on the controller, but nothing happened. Or at least from what I could tell. The iphone did light up with the RTH slide bar. I executed the slide bar but nothing.

By now I was a little concerned. I took the Iphone off the control and cancelled the app, and came back in. Still no screen. For some reason I had visions of it just flying away, even though I knew with no input from me, Jaybird was just gonna hover.

Battery was now down to 40%. My next thought was to just land him in the familiar territory I knew he was over. He was clear of any trees, but over really high grasses and shrubs, I'd find him but not without some effort, if the battery got down to 20, that was my next move. But I really wanted to get him home.

I kept walking around looking for him in the sky, "he should be easy to spot in these overcast skies, he's not that high up." My son was home from Christmas, and walked the 100 yds to me and asked what was going on. "I can't find Jaybird." His young eyes spotted him quickly and he directed me to him. "He's right there." I was looking to far.

From there I flew him visually back home.

I was thankful Jaybird was not further away. If I flew the Catbird out of sight, it was always over familiar territory, where if I had to, I could get to him quickly and land him.

I have no idea why my app crashed. No nothing, it just went dark.

These maybe dum questions but the manual is well, lacking.

Must the Iphone be plugged to fly? Maybe mine pulled out?

What did I do wrong when I executed the RTH function on the controller? I only pressed it, was I suppose to hold it 10 seconds or something?

RTH was set and confirmed by the software.

I've never had it happen with the catbird, but if a bird loses RC he's suppose to RTH forthwith, without being told?

Thanks for y'all input.

 

[WillyWonka]

Too many unknowns to have a clear answer. Firmware? App version? which phone/pad? Did you get a confirmed RTH position at launch? Flight mode? Logs?..... etc

 

[BamaRider]

I updated the firmware Christmas Eve when I unboxed it. App version came straight off the Apple Store same.

I did get a confirmed "Home Point is set, please mark it on the map"

Flight mode was GPS

5 mph winds

 

[Flawless]

Take a torch and inspect your iPhone's lightning port. Notice the gold contacts on one side, and the dirt/lint packed into the bottom.

Use a toothpick and a toothbrush, and clean that out, paying special attention with the toothpick not to damage the contacts. You can pretty much go HAM with the toothbrush bristles, though.

Phone charging ports collect dust etc. and any time you plug in a cable to charge it, that all gets compacted down. Eventually, it's enough to cause disconnects on some of the pins.

Is it definitely what caused the issue? No. But there's no harm in doing it anyway.

 

[Simmo]

Take a torch and inspect your iPhone's lightning port. Notice the gold contacts on one side, and the dirt/lint packed into the bottom.

Use a toothpick and a toothbrush, and clean that out, paying special attention with the toothpick not to damage the contacts. You can pretty much go HAM with the toothbrush bristles, though.

Phone charging ports collect dust etc. and any time you plug in a cable to charge it, that all gets compacted down. Eventually, it's enough to cause disconnects on some of the pins.

Is it definitely what caused the issue? No. But there's no harm in doing it anyway.

Its like a day old, cant be dust/dirt etc eh????

I run Android but I've heard there has been some problems with the IOS needing to be updated to the latest.

 

[Flawless]

Its like a day old, cant be dust/dirt etc eh????

I run Android but I've heard there has been some problems with the IOS needing to be updated to the latest.

The iPhone is new, too?

 

[dbyantis]

Been flying a PS3 (the "Catbird") almost a year, many missions, never crashed or stuck in a tree.

New Mavic pro (the "Jaybird") for Christmas. So far so good. I really like the Mavic. I decided to take it slow and not fly the Jaybird on any serious missions till more familiar with the unit. Good thing too.

While flying over the familiar fields near my neighborhood the app crashed and my screen went blank. I new where he was, but could not see him. From the video feedback he was only 500 hundred feet from home, and 180 ft high.

I scanned the cloudy skies, but failed to see him. Battery was still good (65%) according to the remote. I walked in the direction I knew him to be and still no dice. "I should be able to hear him from here." But no.

Battery was now down to 50%. "Gonna quit fooling around and just call him home RTH." I hit the rth on the controller, but nothing happened. Or at least from what I could tell. The iphone did light up with the RTH slide bar. I executed the slide bar but nothing.

By now I was a little concerned. I took the Iphone off the control and cancelled the app, and came back in. Still no screen. For some reason I had visions of it just flying away, even though I knew with no input from me, Jaybird was just gonna hover.

Battery was now down to 40%. My next thought was to just land him in the familiar territory I knew he was over. He was clear of any trees, but over really high grasses and shrubs, I'd find him but not without some effort, if the battery got down to 20, that was my next move. But I really wanted to get him home.

I kept walking around looking for him in the sky, "he should be easy to spot in these overcast skies, he's not that high up." My son was home from Christmas, and walked the 100 yds to me and asked what was going on. "I can't find Jaybird." His young eyes spotted him quickly and he directed me to him. "He's right there." I was looking to far.

From there I flew him visually back home.

I was thankful Jaybird was not further away. If I flew the Catbird out of sight, it was always over familiar territory, where if I had to, I could get to him quickly and land him.

I have no idea why my app crashed. No nothing, it just went dark.

These maybe dum questions but the manual is well, lacking.

Must the Iphone be plugged to fly? Maybe mine pulled out?

What did I do wrong when I executed the RTH function on the controller? I only pressed it, was I suppose to hold it 10 seconds or something?

RTH was set and confirmed by the software.

I've never had it happen with the catbird, but if a bird loses RC he's suppose to RTH forthwith, without being told?

Thanks for y'all input.

From page35: Press and hold the RTH button to start the Return-to-Home (RTH) procedure.

 

[WyoMav]

Had same thing happen several times, which I don't believe was the Dji Go4 app, was More so the IPad IOS just completely powering off and or resetting (iPad mini 4 wifi/cellular in my case) I ended up doing hard reset on iPad by holding home&power/wake button till power cycles off then back to apple icon which then buttons can be released at that time and allow normal boot up. (May want to google search to get exact sequence.) Anyhow, In my case when my incident happened(2-3x to be exact) I used the RTH button on the RC long pressed 2-3 sec. till RTH activated (go home displayed on RC) hope this helps! The first time it happened I think I pooped a little
,heart sank, pooped a little more, heart sank some more, listened, listened, listened, no visual, tried to remain calm the whole time still without app mind you and not giving any input to sticks on RC (let it do its thing RTH) then low and behold a faint buzzing could be heard coming from afar in the distance then auto landed flawlessly right where she launched from. Make sure you have acquired gps home point before departing away from launch and have plenty-o-Sat's, compass Cal was done prior to launch (I always do and don't care what others say), stay calm or try to when loose app or device running app in my case. Also one more tip put phone to airplane mode to prevent calls and other notifications from interrupting mid flight and overtasking ios. Make djigo4 app priority without any extras chiming in!

 

[Callum]

I'm going to make the assumption you had it set to return to home and not hover in the following advice.

You need to press and hold the RTH button on controller not just press.

Sounds like the app crashed but controller remained connected. It would have reacted to your commands, just without the video feed.

Would only return to home on loss of remote signal.

You also have the telemetry on the controller display.

It shows altitude and distance from home point. If the app crashes you can use this data to get back within sight.
Move forward or back and look for the numbers decreasing.

A lot of people have trouble with the included micro usb to lightning cable. Personally I use an apple cable and plug directly in to the bottom usb on controller.

Hope your next flight is less stressful.