Phone freezes with black screen, Mini 2

[richandhiscat]

Hello everyone

Just got my first drone, the Mini 2, very impressed, but I'm having a problem with the phone appearing to go into sleep mode (its turned off) and having to be switched back on (awkward) at random - I then have to press connect again and it resumes. Control is not lost, just the Fly app, and the connection isn't loose. Phone is a Huawei P20 Lite.

Anyone had this problem please?

 

[Exphantomflyer]

Hello everyone

Just got my first drone, the Mini 2, very impressed, but I'm having a problem with the phone appearing to go into sleep mode (its turned off) and having to be switched back on (awkward) at random - I then have to press connect again and it resumes. Control is not lost, just the Fly app, and the connection isn't loose. Phone is a Huawei P20 Lite.

Anyone had this problem please?

There is an updated list here of phones/tablets that have been tested

Best Tablets and Phones for DJI GO & DJI Fly (Updated Daily) | Phantom Help

Phantom Help is a site for help with DJI Phantom drones. Find the latest fixes, how-tos, guides, accessories, modifications, and more.

www.phantomhelp.com

 

[richandhiscat]

The P20 is on the list, so that shouldn't be a problem?

 

[Kilrah]

Sure you don't have the phone clamp pressing on the power button?

 

[richandhiscat]

Sure you don't have the phone clamp pressing on the power button?

Don't think so, if the phone is dead centred it isn't on it, and I've been placing it off centre so that I can switch it on again. Could it be that the action of recording a photo (DNG) to the phone is overloading it and causing it to switch off? (I don't actually want it recorded on the phone, how do I switch it off please?)

 

[Kilrah]

DJI's apps are pretty resource-intensive, but that shouldn't be an issue in normal cases. It however can lead to shutdowns particularly if the phone's battery is old/dying or the phone is extremely cold.

 

[eaglesurfing]

This is one of the reason I switched to an iPad mini 5.
You will have to do an intense Google search to find if anyone else has this problem.
With DJI always improving the software, you will never know when it will cause a problem with a phone.

 

[Brewbottle]

Just purchased a mini 2 after using an Air and Phantom 3 for some years. Had same problem ie the black screen of death after flying for a few minutes, the app then recovers after several seconds and you can reconnect to drone. Control is never lost and if flying VLOS there should be no real safety issues. Used two different Samsung tablets (8" A and 10" S), with same fault on each, but it did tend to run longer on the S than the A before the black screen appeared.
Clearly a software fault somewhere. I have some sympathy with DJI here as an ex-software engineer before retiring. DJI have a large app running across five Android versions on over 25 phones/tablets, each of which has its own set of other apps etc. installed, so no hope of much in depth testing with this. Obviously easier to test with iOS devices.
In my experience software faults are often coding/specification bugs and with these every time you put the drone into a particular situation that uses the faulty code it will fail. However, this fault seemed random and difficult to reproduce exactly so I thought unlikely to be this type of fault. Another common type of fault relates to the apps interface with the O/S (Android 10 in my case), especially with shared resource management such as memory or processor power. I think that is what is happening here. Cant do anything about the processor so tried the memory, aiming to give as much as possible to the Fly app. (I only had 2G to start with and much of that was lost to Android , Samsungs apps etc. leaving less than 1G.) So, removed ALL unused and unwanted apps and cleared memory from settings, turned caching off in the Fly app. Set into Airplane mode. Shut off all notifications and as much background, automatic stuff as possible. Result, a lot more free memory and the last two full batteries were used for a full 30 minutes flying each, lots of photos, videos etc but with no black screens. Will keep testing but fingers crossed. Worth trying something like this. Otherwise, rather liking the Mini 2 especially Ocusync so much better than the wi-fi used with the Air.

 

[richandhiscat]

Just purchased a mini 2 after using an Air and Phantom 3 for some years. Had same problem ie the black screen of death after flying for a few minutes, the app then recovers after several seconds and you can reconnect to drone. Control is never lost and if flying VLOS there should be no real safety issues. Used two different Samsung tablets (8" A and 10" S), with same fault on each, but it did tend to run longer on the S than the A before the black screen appeared.
Clearly a software fault somewhere. I have some sympathy with DJI here as an ex-software engineer before retiring. DJI have a large app running across five Android versions on over 25 phones/tablets, each of which has its own set of other apps etc. installed, so no hope of much in depth testing with this. Obviously easier to test with iOS devices.
In my experience software faults are often coding/specification bugs and with these every time you put the drone into a particular situation that uses the faulty code it will fail. However, this fault seemed random and difficult to reproduce exactly so I thought unlikely to be this type of fault. Another common type of fault relates to the apps interface with the O/S (Android 10 in my case), especially with shared resource management such as memory or processor power. I think that is what is happening here. Cant do anything about the processor so tried the memory, aiming to give as much as possible to the Fly app. (I only had 2G to start with and much of that was lost to Android , Samsungs apps etc. leaving less than 1G.) So, removed ALL unused and unwanted apps and cleared memory from settings, turned caching off in the Fly app. Set into Airplane mode. Shut off all notifications and as much background, automatic stuff as possible. Result, a lot more free memory and the last two full batteries were used for a full 30 minutes flying each, lots of photos, videos etc but with no black screens. Will keep testing but fingers crossed. Worth trying something like this. Otherwise, rather liking the Mini 2 especially Ocusync so much better than the wi-fi used with the Air.

I uploaded the latest version of Fly, and turned off the option (forget what it is) that saves pictures to the phone - I don't need it, certainly not at the moment. Only flown once since (only so much you can do above and around your own house!), but put it through its paces taking shots, was in the air about 5 minutes and it didn't lock up once. Whether it's the latest software or the photo saving I can't be sure, but my bet is that it's the photos.