NFZ Limit Cannot Take Off After .600 Firmware

[Insideout]

i had an issue where by 4.0.3 apk would not install on my S7 till after removing the previous DJIGO4 app version i had intalled and then performing a reboot on the device. Then i installed the 4.0.3 apk again and it worked. have u tried that? just in case.

That worked! Thank you

 

[gregw]

can someone confirm with facts that DJIGO4 adroid app 4.0.3 was the version that was out during FW .0400?

Firmware .400 was released on 14 Feb 2017 (DJI Mavic Pro: Ongoing Release Notes Archive | Jamie Brightmore)

DJI Go 4 v4.0.3 was released 9 days later on 23 Feb 2017 (DJI updates DJI GO 4 app with offline maps and Mavic Pro auto focus)

DJI Go 4 v4.0.4 was released in early March, and it also coincides with the release of firmware .500 which increased the NFZ in China..

 

[Mr Spock]

Firmware .400 was released on 14 Feb 2017 (DJI Mavic Pro: Ongoing Release Notes Archive | Jamie Brightmore)

DJI Go 4 v4.0.3 was released 9 days later on 23 Feb 2017 (DJI updates DJI GO 4 app with offline maps and Mavic Pro auto focus)

DJI Go 4 v4.0.4 was released in early March, and it also coincides with the release of firmware .500 which increased the NFZ in China..

u r a star! cheers.

 

[Flycat]

If I had to guess, it would seem that until GPS is locked, the MP now defaults to NFZ. In the past, if you were in a genuine NFZ (say, at Walt Disney World), you could fire up and even fly until the GPS established your location, then lights out. Now, it would appear you're grounded until the GPS says it's clear. That would really suck for indoor use.

GPS lock doesn't make sense to me as indoors I have 7 satellites according to the controller, as soon as I step out on my porch just a few feet from the living room I can fly. Somehow it seems to know that I'm indoors????

 

[Malavic]

As I continue to read the threads about lost Mavics, the first main error is insufficient RTH height. The second issue is taking off before a solid GPS lock. While clunky in its implementation, .600 will clearly prevent a number of lost Mavics. Newer pilots start the motors, hit that ole sport switch and off they go...with 3 sats locked. When they inevitably fly the Mavic behind something that doesn't pass RF, the bird flies home...elsewhere. The NFZ limit is a dual benefit as far as DJI is concerned...it prevents a newbie mistake and they can show they are trying to prevent flights in legitimate NFZ zones.

 

[Robbyg]

As I continue to read the threads about lost Mavics, the first main error is insufficient RTH height. The second issue is taking off before a solid GPS lock. While clunky in its implementation, .600 will clearly prevent a number of lost Mavics. Newer pilots start the motors, hit that ole sport switch and off they go...with 3 sats locked. When they inevitably fly the Mavic behind something that doesn't pass RF, the bird flies home...elsewhere. The NFZ limit is a dual benefit as far as DJI is concerned...it prevents a newbie mistake and they can show they are trying to prevent flights in legitimate NFZ zones.

The downside of .600 is that you can be flying over water and it decides your in a NFZ and starts to land the craft. The other major down side is that you can travel to any location and it's like throwing dice. Will my Mavic fly or will it for some unknown reason tell me this is a NFZ.

The first issue you mention about insufficient RTH height I am not sure how .600 helps you with that?

The second issue you bring up as problem with .400 is only a mistake that happen if you do not have a proper checklist or ignore procedures. Always listen for the Home point set before flying. It's that easy.

Rob

 

[KiterTodd]

I don't know at what point you guys will realize you should be rushing back to .400
I assume the big oh crap moment will be when DJI removes that version and people are stuck.
Ask yourself what features does .600 have that .400 does not have?

Rob

Robby, I took your advice today and .400 got rid of the false NFZ restriction I delt with. So at least I can fly.

So, how can we save off .400 so we can upload it once DJI no longer offers it as a downgrade? Today it only gave three options to me (.400, 550, .600). Is .400 going to disappear at the next update?

 

[Robbyg]

Robby, I took your advice today and .400 got rid of the false NFZ restriction I delt with. So at least I can fly.

So, how can we save off .400 so we can upload it once DJI no longer offers it as a downgrade? Today it only gave three options to me (.400, 550, .600). Is .400 going to disappear at the next update?

I don't know, I hope people are working on it. I wish I had a better answer.

Rob

 

[BorisTheSpider]

I don't know, I hope people are working on it. I wish I had a better answer.

Rob

I've also asked about this before, but never got an answer - I did my downgrade using the android app, then afterwards realised that if I'd done it on a PC with the assistant it probably would have cached the firmware files in one of the temporary folders where they could be located and backed up. Whether that would then work offline with no connection to the dji servers I don't know, but if someone has downgraded on a PC and can spare the time to look through their temp folders it's worth a try.

 

[ge0kas]

Great idea.
I just downloaded DJI Assistant2 and fw .400 Here are the contents:
C:\Program Files (x86)\DJI Assistant 2\Assistant folder Link
C:\Users\ge0kas\AppData\Roaming\DJI Assistant 2 folder Link
C:\Users\ge0kas\AppData\Roaming\DJIAssistant2 folder Link

I will now try an offline installation in a clean PC. Let's get ready for the new era!

update: It's not that simple, program asks for internet to get the available list of firmware files. (Even if you have them on disk)
No internet, no listed firmwares.
We need in-depth knowledge of the firmware files

 

[BorisTheSpider]

Thanks a ton ge0kas, even though this might not be the whole solution having those firmware files cached certainly can't help. At the worst it would be necessary to spoof the traffic between the assistant program and the DJI servers, presumably someone who's good with wireshark could figure out how to record and replay that traffic to trick the program into thinking it has communicated with the dji server.

 

[hotelzululima]

Great idea.
I just downloaded DJI Assistant2 and fw .400 Here are the contents:
C:\Program Files (x86)\DJI Assistant 2\Assistant folder Link
C:\Users\ge0kas\AppData\Roaming\DJI Assistant 2 folder Link
C:\Users\ge0kas\AppData\Roaming\DJIAssistant2 folder Link

I will now try an offline installation in a clean PC. Let's get ready for the new era!

update: It's not that simple, program asks for internet to get the available list of firmware files. (Even if you have them on disk)
No internet, no listed firmwares.
We need in-depth knowledge of the firmware files

hint both the p4 and the mavic are reportedly Android devices...ie dalvik byte code etc..linux underneath
you COULD setup wireshark(osx) to capture the complete update as dji assistant 2 downloads same

hzl

 

[BorisTheSpider]

OK I had another idea which I'm in the middle of testing. Create a virtual machine, download assistant. Plug in the Mavic RC whilst connected to the Mavic, but with the battery below 50% - that way, the firmware downloads but then the assistant stops immediately prior to flashing the firmware, once all the files are already downloaded and cached.

When it stopped, I snapshotted the VM.

I'm thinking it should then continue from that point on, without an internet connection, and apply the firmware - I'm currently charging the RC to above 50% to try it.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

OK I had another idea which I'm in the middle of testing. Create a virtual machine, download assistant. Plug in the Mavic RC whilst connected to the Mavic, but with the battery below 50% - that way, the firmware downloads but then the assistant stops immediately prior to flashing the firmware, once all the files are already downloaded and cached.

When it stopped, I snapshotted the VM.

I'm thinking it should then continue from that point on, without an internet connection, and apply the firmware - I'm currently charging the RC to above 50% to try it.

It works. Flashing .400 now with no internet connection.

When I restored the VM state with the Mavic and remote control connected, but the network disconnected, at the "update failed" screen due to less than 50% battery, I did have to restart the RC a couple of times and plug/replug to get the assistant to recognise everything as connected.

Eventually it worked and I got a "retry" button in the assistant. When I clicked that it said "downloading - 100%" for a while, and I thought it wasn't going to work, but I waited a couple of minutes and sure enough I'm now at 34% through the flashing process.

I'll post back in a while, hopefully to confirm that it's completed.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

It works. Flashing .400 now with no internet connection.

When I restored the VM state with the Mavic and remote control connected, but the network disconnected, at the "update failed" screen due to less than 50% battery, I did have to restart the RC a couple of times and plug/replug to get the assistant to recognise everything as connected.

Eventually it worked and I got a "retry" button in the assistant. When I clicked that it said "downloading - 100%" for a while, and I thought it wasn't going to work, but I waited a couple of minutes and sure enough I'm now at 34% through the flashing process.

I'll post back in a while, hopefully to confirm that it's completed.

Job's a good 'un - it did hang at 99% for a couple of minutes which I was concerned might mean it wasn't going to complete but I just waited and it completed.

I haven't flashed to a different firmware then back to .400 using this method - I just refreshed .400, so as a final confirmation if someone would try that I'd like to hear their results, but I've no reason to expect it wouldn't work.

 

[Robbyg]

Very cool work Boris.
I am going to have to give this a try. I have VMware on some machines at work. I am not the guy who deals with them so my familiarity level with VMware is low. I will show a tech this post and see if he can duplicate it for me on a laptop with VM installed.

 

[Robbyg]

Job's a good 'un - it did hang at 99% for a couple of minutes which I was concerned might mean it wasn't going to complete but I just waited and it completed.

I haven't flashed to a different firmware then back to .400 using this method - I just refreshed .400, so as a final confirmation if someone would try that I'd like to hear their results, but I've no reason to expect it wouldn't work.

Boris instead of going battery low you can try what I did when I got the files. Just let it download to 100% then as it hits 100% unplug the USB cable. The software will display a message saying you need to plug back in the Mavic.
This will keep the software in a state ready to update the craft.
I had this method in hand but never had the **** to try it because I figured it would brick my Mavic. Your braver than me.

Hats off to you.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

Boris instead of going battery low you can try what I did when I got the files. Just let it download to 100% then as it hits 100% unplug the USB cable. The software will display a message saying you need to plug back in the Mavic.
This will keep the software in a state ready to update the craft.
I had this method in hand but never had the balls to try it because I figured it would brick my Mavic. Your braver than me.

Hats off to you.

Yeah unplugging USB did occur to me as well - my guess is, if you did that once the download had started, but before it was anywhere near 100%, the download would then continue since there's no reason for the assistant to be monitoring the USB state at that point.

I think it would just need a connected drone at the start to decide what firmware to display and download, then during flashing to push it to the device, but during the download it shouldn't matter.

I'd imagine disconnecting USB during the download would also result in the pause you need at the point when the download is complete so you can snapshot the VM at that point.

I personally wouldn't try pulling it right at the 100% point since like you said if you were a little bit too late you could possibly brick the RC. I actually doubt it, since I've never heard of a single bricked drone during a FW update I think DJI are doing it in a resilient way where the RC must receive and validate the entire new firmware file prior to ever starting to overwrite anything, but I still don't think it's worth the risk since there's other ways to produce a pause at the necessary point in the process.

 

[looopson]

Well, I just got the "NFZ Limit" message on the remote controller when I fired up my drone and it will not fly whatsoever. This is strange because it was working great today! I flew it several times and have never seen this message.

One thing I noticed is that I did download an offline map of my state between the last time I used my drone earlier and now when I turned it on and got the "NFZ Limit" message. I wonder if that could have triggered this glitch? I deleted the offline map of that state but it didn't remove the message from the remote controller.

It sounds like people are downgrading from the .600 firmware to .550. Will this relieve the issue? Are people downgrading the controller firmware as well or just the drone firmware?

 

[ge0kas]

Well, I just got the "NFZ Limit" message on the remote controller when I fired up my drone and it will not fly whatsoever. This is strange because it was working great today! I flew it several times and have never seen this message.

One thing I noticed is that I did download an offline map of my state between the last time I used my drone earlier and now when I turned it on and got the "NFZ Limit" message. I wonder if that could have triggered this glitch? I deleted the offline map of that state but it didn't remove the message from the remote controller.

It sounds like people are downgrading from the .600 firmware to .550. Will this relieve the issue? Are people downgrading the controller firmware as well or just the drone firmware?

Don't be afraid, go for the .400 while you can. No issues, no NFZ