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New tablet won't stay connected.

naiku

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Earlier today i picked up a new tablet to use with my drone, its a Samsung Galaxy Tab A, SM-T290. I'd read a few people using the tablet and since my phone is awkward to fit in the controller arms (note 10+) decided to pick one up.

Removed everything I didn't need, installed DJI Go 4, powered everything on and the tablet simply connects and disconnects about every 2 seconds. Restarted the tablet, tried again and it connected. Turned drone and controller off, went outside for a test flight, powered everything up and its doing the same thing. Connect disconnect non stop.

Plugged the tablet into a wall outlet to confirm it stays connected, which it does, tried 3 different USB cables, and with them all out does the same disconnect every 2 seconds. I've looked through all the settings, verified multiple users with the same tablet working fine. No clue. Here's a video.


Anyone experienced this? I'll return the tablet if I need to, but the tablet itself is fully functional. I only bought it to use with the drone and nothing else.

Thanks.
 
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When first plugging it in, I left it at whatever the default was, in fact, I don't recall seeing the pop up. After that i set it to "charge only" via developer settings for a test and it still just did the same thing. What should it be set as? I'd assume file transfer.

Also just to rule it out, I plugged the tablet into a PC USB port and it stays connected.
 
When first plugging it in, I left it at whatever the default was, in fact, I don't recall seeing the pop up. After that i set it to "charge only" via developer settings for a test and it still just did the same thing. What should it be set as? I'd assume file transfer.

Also just to rule it out, I plugged the tablet into a PC USB port and it stays connected.

It looks like the tablet has to be turned on last after both the RC and AC have been powered up and connected
 
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Bottom, and nothing plugged into side port. That's one more thing I can try though, side port to see if that will work.
 
Bottom, and nothing plugged into side port. That's one more thing I can try though, side port to see if that will work.

Try turning on the Tablet last after both the RC and AC have been powered up and connected.
Check if a certain start up sequence needs to be followed, you said previously that you restarted the tablet and it connected.
I suspect the tablet needs to start up from being off to recognise the data feed
 
When first plugging it in, I left it at whatever the default was, in fact, I don't recall seeing the pop up. After that i set it to "charge only" via developer settings for a test and it still just did the same thing. What should it be set as? I'd assume file transfer.

Also just to rule it out, I plugged the tablet into a PC USB port and it stays connected.
Yes, file transfer.
 
Try turning on the Tablet last after both the RC and AC have been powered up and connected.
Check if a certain start up sequence needs to be followed, you said previously that you restarted the tablet and it connected.
I suspect the tablet needs to start up from being off to recognise the data feed

Tried that, made no difference. This is bloody maddening.

So, one thing I noticed was that the little pop up appeared on the tablet saying device charging slowly, check cable or something to that effect. It's a pretty standard message if you are plugged into a USB port (I get the same message when plugged into the PC). This time I checked the box on that message saying "Don't show this again" and the tablet remained connected! The message was not always displayed, not sure if the remote is sometimes able to provide enough power to charge and other times not or what actually triggered me seeing the pop up this time, but not previously. Excellent I go into DJI Go 4 and change a couple settings just to make sure it stays connected, which it does. So far so good. I then decide OK, I better power everything off and then back on again to see if it stuck.

Power back on, same thing. Refuses to stay connected.

I'm leaning towards a factory reset on the tablet (although it is literally brand new, took it out of the box, uninstalled as much as I could from it and set up DJI Go).

Found a post here Tablet issues that said to enable USB debugging, enabled that, still not working.

One more test I have tried is using the small USB that connects to the side of the controller, that does stay connected. The problem with using that though is that the short USB that connects to the side is not long enough to reach to where the tablet needs to go and I am not sure how reliable the connection would be if I added an extension (assuming I could find a micro-USB extension, which I am sure they are available).

Oh and just to rule it out, if I use for example my phone connected to the bottom USB port it remains connected. So the bottom USB port is working correctly. The tablet works correctly, controller works correctly, they just don't like each other when connected via the bottom USB port.
 
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Tried that, made no difference. This is bloody maddening.

So, one thing I noticed was that the little pop up appeared on the tablet saying device charging slowly, check cable or something to that effect. It's a pretty standard message if you are plugged into a USB port (I get the same message when plugged into the PC). This time I checked the box on that message saying "Don't show this again" and the tablet remained connected! The message was not always displayed, not sure if the remote is sometimes able to provide enough power to charge and other times not or what actually triggered me seeing the pop up this time, but not previously. Excellent I go into DJI Go 4 and change a couple settings just to make sure it stays connected, which it does. So far so good. I then decide OK, I better power everything off and then back on again to see if it stuck.

Power back on, same thing. Refuses to stay connected.

I'm leaning towards a factory reset on the tablet (although it is literally brand new, took it out of the box, uninstalled as much as I could from it and set up DJI Go).

Found a post here Tablet issues that said to enable USB debugging, enabled that, still not working.

One more test I have tried is using the small USB that connects to the side of the controller, that does stay connected. The problem with using that though is that the short USB that connects to the side is not long enough to reach to where the tablet needs to go and I am not sure how reliable the connection would be if I added an extension (assuming I could find a micro-USB extension, which I am sure they are available).

Oh and just to rule it out, if I use for example my phone connected to the bottom USB port it remains connected. So the bottom USB port is working correctly. The tablet works correctly, controller works correctly, they just don't like each other when connected via the bottom USB port.

Just get a longer cable for the side port, 1 foot should be enough
 
That might be the simplest option at this point. Is the side port also micro USB? It looks like it is more rectangular shaped, but I believe you can use a micro USB in there? I'd prefer that route than an extension.

There is part of me though that wants to figure out why the bottom port refuses to work!!
 
That might be the simplest option at this point. Is the side port also micro USB? It looks like it is more rectangular shaped, but I believe you can use a micro USB in there? I'd prefer that route than an extension.

There is part of me though that wants to figure out why the bottom port refuses to work!!

It's actually a micro-A port but a micro usb plug fits, you have to be careful and orient the plug correctly as the tab in the port is low down
 
Of course, I have an abundance of USB-A to micro USB, but no micro USB to micro USB! Even have a few USB-C to USB-C, but alas, none that will work so I'll need to order something.

Edit: Tried a factory reset and as expected, it does the same thing. But, the pop up message about "Device Charging Slowly" appeared again, if I select OK on that message then it stays connected to the controller. The problem is though that the message does not always pop up or if it does it does so in a blink and you'll miss it type of way, before I was able to select OK I saw it appear and disappear a couple times, it only eventually remained on the screen because a message about automatically launching DJI Go appeared at the same time.

Sort of progress, but does not really get me any closer to it working.
 
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Of course, I have an abundance of USB-A to micro USB, but no micro USB to micro USB! Even have a few USB-C to USB-C, but alas, none that will work so I'll need to order something.

Edit: Tried a factory reset and as expected, it does the same thing. But, the pop up message about "Device Charging Slowly" appeared again, if I select OK on that message then it stays connected to the controller. The problem is though that the message does not always pop up or if it does it does so in a blink and you'll miss it type of way, before I was able to select OK I saw it appear and disappear a couple times, it only eventually remained on the screen because a message about automatically launching DJI Go appeared at the same time.

Sort of progress, but does not really get me any closer to it working.

As it's not a cable problem, since you tried 3 different ones, it must be an issue with one of the ports
I assume the the bottom usb port on the controller works with your Note 10+

It really looks like a port problem on the tablet, is the connection loose when you plug the micro usb in ?
Can you get it to stay connected if you angle the micro usb plug a certain way
 
Yep, bottom USB port works fine with the Note 10+ (as well as with another Samsung tablet I have, that while nice, is a little too large to use with the drone).

I'm not so sure it's a port problem either, the same port connects and stays connected to a PC. The tablet port also works fine when using the side port on the controller. It's strange. I'm just trying to find a suitable cable to use the side port at this point.
 
Yep, bottom USB port works fine with the Note 10+ (as well as with another Samsung tablet I have, that while nice, is a little too large to use with the drone).

I'm not so sure it's a port problem either, the same port connects and stays connected to a PC. The tablet port also works fine when using the side port on the controller. It's strange. I'm just trying to find a suitable cable to use the side port at this point.


Remember to pick micro usb to micro usb

Somebody had this fix

Settings> Apps> Show System Apps> USBSettings> Storage> Clear Cache then Clear data then restart.

Could it be a dirty usb port on the Tab A
 
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Tried that fix, no dice. The odd thing is that if it were a dirty USB port I would think it would have issues when connected to a PC, or using that side port on the controller, but anything else I have plugged the tablet into has remained reliably connected to it.

Ordered the micro cable.
 
The longer micro cable to use with the side port arrived today, plugged it in, nothing. As far as the controller is concerned, there is nothing plugged in. Using the small DJI cable to test using the side port works, but the longer cable does not. Used the bottom port fine yesterday with my phone.

At this point, I give up. Going to return this tablet. For whatever reason it and my Mavic 2 simply do not want to get along.
 
There's no point, it's a brand new tablet, if i tear it down, I lose being able to return it. The chances of there being any corrosion are virtually nil.

Especially since it works perfectly with every USB cable and device combination I've tried.

Except the 1 reason I bought it for in the first place, and that's working with the controller.

Even then it works using the side controller port and DJI supplied cable.

Just doesn't work using a longer cable and the side port.

So it's going back to the store tomorrow.
 
There's no point, it's a brand new tablet, if i tear it down, I lose being able to return it. The chances of there being any corrosion are virtually nil.

Especially since it works perfectly with every USB cable and device combination I've tried.

Except the 1 reason I bought it for in the first place, and that's working with the controller.

Even then it works using the side controller port and DJI supplied cable.

Just doesn't work using a longer cable and the side port.

So it's going back to the store tomorrow.

So the tablet works with the shorter DJI Cable and the side port ?

So it must be the new longer cable that is the problem, did you get a OTG data cable, was it the Amazon cable I listed ?
 
Yep, works fine with short DJI cable and I ordered the exact cable you linked to.
 
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