Range issues- Mavic never returned home

[Mavic23]

I had a similar situation and was a bit of a freak out to me. What I realized is instead of initiating return to home, I imitated automatic landing and the drone began to land where I flew it. Luckily I saw it go down and ran forward to grasp some signal and noticed it was in automatic landing mode and cancelled it, quickly proceeding with the RTH option.

Could you have happen to press the wrong automated command by mistake?

Yeah once I saw that return home was landing in the wrong place I canceled flipped to sport mode and tried to take over manually, but I was flying blindly

 

[Mavic23]

Yep, this will become a regular occurrence if you fly beyond LOS. And you cannot always expect to know the exact distance that you might just lose signal because there are so many variables. The most important thing is to be aware of your surroundings and your flight path to ensure that a safe Return to Home can occur when you have no visual identification of the Mavic. The exact scenario you described has happened to be dozens of times (not just with the Air, but with my previous Phantom 3 Standard as well). If your Return to Home height is set high enough to avoid all obstacles AND you don't fly under anything that it could hit when the Air flies to its set RTH altitude, then you should always be fine if this happens.

I had the rth set to the factory specs

 

[jedburgh01]

Drone unable to return home, I was capturing footage of a castle that was about 100 yards away from me as I was panning around the building I intermittently received a warning-Loss connection I glanced at battery life about 60% , I had just purchased the drone less than a month ago so like most newbies I didn't feel comfortable flying my drone after a warning of that importance (ohh sht $800). So as I'm turning the aircraft around to fly back, another out of range failure fault only this time for brief few seconds the screen freeze, as the feedback returned and the low battery warning comes on, I'm thinking this is strange I just had more than half battery life (the warning is set to the factory default ), at this point my heart starts to pound and I just want the aircraft back in my hands so I select the return home button, I can see the aircraft going up and ready to return home, the screen freezes then goes black again I'm looking up hoping to see the drone, about a minute or two later feedback returns I can see the aircraft is descending but is nowhere near where it's original launched location another warning aircraft unable to land (it's trying to land on water) I quickly exit the land command and I take over switched the drone to sport mode as its low in battery I start to climb again the screen goes black and the drone is never to be seen again. I tried to contact DJI not to get a free replacement but to see if they would work with me on the purchase of new drone, after all I have battery's controller props charger that are less than a month old."we can't help you our product is too new for discounts " Not bashing DJI products the few images I was able to capture are really good, I just think that as a leading company they could do a better job at taking care of their customers. Be ware they don't work well with their customers

When you took off did you note that the home point was recorded?
This is critical EVERY time you fly.

 

[Photo Booth]

Yeah once I saw that return home was landing in the wrong place I canceled flipped to sport mode and tried to take over manually, but I was flying blindly

Always keep your drone within visual line of sight.

Mark

 

[gjohnson3344]

I had a similar situation and was a bit of a freak out to me. What I realized is instead of initiating return to home, I imitated automatic landing and the drone began to land where I flew it. Luckily I saw it go down and ran forward to grasp some signal and noticed it was in automatic landing mode and cancelled it, quickly proceeding with the RTH option.

Could you have happen to press the wrong automated command by mistake?

Agree i accidentally hit the land instead of RTH. Luckily it was only 100 ft away in anbbn open field. I was just practicing and am glad i did. Personally i think the auto land on the screen needs to either not be there or somewhere else on the screen. Too easy to fat finger the wrong button since it and RTH is right next to one another.

 

[MavicCF]

Yeah, I don’t know that any information is stored in remote or back to the phone

The txt. flight logs are stored on your phone.
If you're an Apple guy, you can plug your phone into iTunes to access the files in the phone. There should be a DJI option with several sub-folders inside, your looking for the sub-folder with a bunch of flight logs with txt. in the name. Once you've found the correct file, you just need to find the txt. log with the correct date, if there are several from that day, look at the time. You can than upload that to DJI (and this forum).

 

[jedburgh01]

And you can avoid that by using the return to home physical button on the remote controller. That and the Pause button are my best friends when flying.

 

[jedburgh01]

And you can avoid that by using the return to home physical button on the remote controller. That and the Pause button are my best friends when flying.

True dat, the pause can get you out of all sorts of trouble

 

[BD0G]

When occurrences such as this happen. Time is of the essence and after searching the area if the drone is not able to be found one should immediately post thier fight log here on the forums so that other more knowledgeable members can offer assistance with determining where the drone should be located.

Lots of shared knowledge here has helped recover many a Mavic Pro.

Many of the details and data in the flight log allow very educated guesses that more often than not turn out to be the very spot to search that turns up the lost drone.

 

[Starz]

BD0G speaks the truth.I lost my Mavic and need help finding out what happened - FOUND BY STARZ!

 

[condor12]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I have around 200 flights on my 17 month old Mavic, and 80% of those are out to ranges of 3.5klm. I do most of my flying in outback Oz, in and around ranges / mountains. I have only lost RF signal twice and found that the auto RTH works as advertised. In both cases, signal returned within about 10 seconds. My rule is to fly the outbound leg upwind, stay aware of the topography between me and the position of the Mavic (which can mean flying up to 900meters to keep the signal path clear), and bring the bird back at 60% battery. Having said that, I know that, due to its age, one day it won't come home. Still, it's worth it due to the videos it produces. Still much better than my many FW aircraft, which have a life span of around 50 flights!! BTW, I fly with an iPad mini 4 (cellular) fitted with a full Hoodman 'bucket'. This combo is excellent out in v. bright clear sunny skies.
Your next one will last much longer, I'm sure. All the best.

 

[William Ball]

Drone unable to return home, I was capturing footage of a castle that was about 100 yards away from me as I was panning around the building I intermittently received a warning-Loss connection I glanced at battery life about 60% , I had just purchased the drone less than a month ago so like most newbies I didn't feel comfortable flying my drone after a warning of that importance (ohh sht $800). So as I'm turning the aircraft around to fly back, another out of range failure fault only this time for brief few seconds the screen freeze, as the feedback returned and the low battery warning comes on, I'm thinking this is strange I just had more than half battery life (the warning is set to the factory default ), at this point my heart starts to pound and I just want the aircraft back in my hands so I select the return home button, I can see the aircraft going up and ready to return home, the screen freezes then goes black again I'm looking up hoping to see the drone, about a minute or two later feedback returns I can see the aircraft is descending but is nowhere near where it's original launched location another warning aircraft unable to land (it's trying to land on water) I quickly exit the land command and I take over switched the drone to sport mode as its low in battery I start to climb again the screen goes black and the drone is never to be seen again. I tried to contact DJI not to get a free replacement but to see if they would work with me on the purchase of new drone, after all I have battery's controller props charger that are less than a month old."we can't help you our product is too new for discounts " Not bashing DJI products the few images I was able to capture are really good, I just think that as a leading company they could do a better job at taking care of their customers. Be ware they don't work well with their customers

Boy does that stink. Sorry you had that happen. Hope all gets sorted out for you.

 

[Rover1]

I am also a newbee and in four months I have crashed in water and have had an RTH problem. All my own doing. My confidence is now shot and reading these threads is painfull. The problem as I see it is that The Mavic Pro is so easy to fly that we do not practice enough for emergency situations and panic when things go wrong.
- Had a 10 day decharge problem starts with 80% loses power in 10min. Will recharge before every flight.
- Panic missed RTH function. Start every flight with take off and RTH just to make sure I have got it.
- Take it easy with baby steps. The worst feeling is not finding yout drone and close second is when you get it can it be repaired.
- Practice till flying is second nature.

GB

 

[Kevjones777]

When setting the return to home RTH make sure you have actually set it, dont expect that it has set itself. Also remember to set it either for the current ground position of the aircraft or from the controller position. Then obviously if you walk away with the controller in your hand, dont expect it to land where you were if controller position is set as the RTH option.

 

[Rodkat]

Very sorry to hear of your lost Mavic, everyone's worst nightmare! I've only had signal loss once, screen froze, heart rate doubled. I forgot the phone screen (HTC10) and just focussed on the actual remote control data using the right stick in each direction to reduce the distance from home figure till my mavic was directly above me. By that time I had my screen back but landed anyway, changed batteries, checked everything and had no further problems - but - every time I read a post like this I wonder if I'll be making the next one.

 

[mryeje]

Sorry to hear. I know that feeling all to well, the seconds seem like minutes. I lost my drone deep in the forest, and after 5 months of never giving up i was able to locate it. It still flies just fine only one of the feet was broken. My point is never give up hope, these birds are very well built and you just might get it back.

 

[larrythedirtbag]

What about a compass malfunction Or calibration issue?

 

[Mavic23]

Sorry to hear. I know that feeling all to well, the seconds seem like minutes. I lost my drone deep in the forest, and after 5 months of never giving up i was able to locate it. It still flies just fine only one of the feet was broken. My point is never give up hope, these birds are very well built and you just might get it back.

I was on vacation in Switzerland, (last known location was in the water)

 

[Mavic23]

What about a compass malfunction Or calibration issue?

Not sure what the problem was,

 

[Mavic23]

The txt. flight logs are stored on your phone.
If you're an Apple guy, you can plug your phone into iTunes to access the files in the phone. There should be a DJI option with several sub-folders inside, your looking for the sub-folder with a bunch of flight logs with txt. in the name. Once you've found the correct file, you just need to find the txt. log with the correct date, if there are several from that day, look at the time. You can than upload that to DJI (and this forum).

Thnx, the last few days of the month of March not the best in my life, the laptop used to backup my phone was my nephews who lives in Switzerland. In the car going to the airport my 3 yr old nephew locked my phone (Fk) and if my luck wasn't shty enough, when I got back to the states I unlock my phone but rather than saving and restoring I selected restore from factory WTF!!!
there is however some light at the end of the tunnel as that the laptop that has the files will be here in July.