Serious bug in the Mavic's "Home Point Me" function - caused loss of drone!

[CaliChris]

Hi All...a bit of a Newbie so excuse my ignorance...
What and where is 'Home Point Me'. I never have heard of it before. Is this different than 'Return to Home'. Whenever I take off the Mavic records my home point and I confirm it on the map. I'd like to earn from this.
A comment above notes "it's a SAFE idea to go to ur map and update device home point and drone homepoint prior to take off". How would I do that as I thought the Mavic does it automatically. How and when (why) does one update the DEVICE home point (assume this is the controller) as well as DRONE home point?
Sorry if these are basic questions!
-Doug

Home Point Me is an option only when in the Follow Me automated flight mode, it won't show up in normal mode.

 

[Oingo Boingo]

And I suspect by reading your post that you're new to reading and/or forums. Comments like these are what happens when you fail to read the rest of the thread, especially flight log analysis.

I look forward to your next gem.

Drones don't fly off. 90% of flyaways are pilot error. So the next gen would be RTFM

 

[CaliChris]

I don't really have a 'contact' at DJI; however, my case is (supposedly) currently being analyzed and investigated. My initial posts on forum.dji.com didn't go through. (I'm not sure why; it might have been because my posted title contained the word "bug".) But a subsequent post - Why are my posts not showing up? - showed up OK. In that thread, someone from DJI asked me to go to this link: DJI Support - Here for You , and use the "Email" support option. I did this, and (after syncing my flight records with DJI) got a case number. I suggest that you do the same. It'll be good to have as many people as possible getting their logs investigated by DJI. I'm scared that we may have trouble getting DJI to understand that the problem may be with the DJI GO 4 app; not with the Mavic itself.

I think that points to DJI trying to cover up a known issue. They are certainly monitoring and sensoring their forums as no Mavic hack info can get posted, also mavic-pilots censors posts as all of our old firmware downgrade posts have been deleted. For some reason they didn't want your post on their site, likely so that others with the same issue can't point to your post and say see others are having this issue.

 

[Kelloggss]

I have had my mavic pro for about a month. I have read a lot about fly aways,etc and have been terrified of the same thing happening. I always calibrate my compass and IMU, set the return home point and check all my limits, never had any problems so far.

 

[CaliChris]

Drones don't fly off. 90% of flyaways are pilot error. So the next gen would be RTFM

Your comment is self contradicting... Drones don't fly off, but your own fake made up stats would say that 10% of fly aways are not pilot error. With how many Mavics alone are out there, 10% would be a huge number of non-pilot error fly aways. Sure a lot of people screw up and don't want to admit they did, but when the drone does something unexpected and incorrect, that's not pilot error. If a self driving car drove you into a lake, you would blame yourself for not taking control in time to save the malfunctioning car?

 

[ZUCSTA]

There is no question that the RTH and the "Home Point" issue is serious. I have already lost two Mavic's due to the failure of RTH. After spending well over a month dealing with DJI; sending them the flight logs they are sending me a new Mavic under warranty. But, for all of you with Mavic Pro's beware! DJI refuses to admit there is something amiss with their firmware and that "fly aways" can occur at anytime. All the speculation on this forum for the reasons that this is happening is a waste to everyone's time. If you own a Mavic Pro and it is more than one year old and therefore not under warranty, I wish you all the best of luck. Sort of like cars that have recalls. Some will crash and others will never have a problem. I will say this - my first one fly off and I blamed myself for flying it in an area with a lot of interference. It was only 2,500' away but RTH failed and off it went. I was able to find it using latitude and longitude on the flight log but it was completely smashed. Insurance covered it. The second one was within 200' and I hit RTH and off it went, never to be found. I wish you all luck![/QU
Well ,truly you saying working out any pilot error is a waste of time ,says it all mate. It's not a toy.and FFS you don't go flying the fkg thing outside your limits to start with. Find another hobby if you can't take responsibility for incompetence. SMH

 

[ZUCSTA]

Out of LOS , especially when new is just ridiculous , I would never of let my Mavic 20metres away when I first got it. To assume a drone is fail safe is a Fallacy,Hence ,for me alot of homework and Utube tutorials Made all the difference in knowing this craft inside out and still I am always learning. Just frickin amazes me, how much blame game goes on, true stat is 97% pilot error ..that stat comes from uavair ,when I finally got my Cert III UAV License.

 

[Billyboy72]

DJI Care will not replace a lost drone. You have to send whatever is left to them or no dice.

oh **** thats right! I didn't even think about that.

 

[Obbie]

I have very clear evidence of a serious bug in the Mavic Pro’s "Home Point Me” function (initiated from the DJI GO 4 iPhone app). To summarize: When I did “Home Point Me” (on three separate occasions), the Mavic Pro set its home point not to the location of the controller, but instead to the location of the previous flight’s home point - which, in my case, was more than 7000 feet (2000m) away from the controller. Not realizing what had happened, I then did a “Return to Home’ - which caused my Mavic to fly away.

I have uploaded the flight log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

The cached flight video (from my controller) is here:

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I would be happy to provide additional flight data - from my controller - if necessary to help resolve/fix this bug. (Unfortunately, because my Mavic was lost, I don’t have any video or data from the Mavic itself.)

Here is a summary of key events from the flight log and/or cached controller video:

Flight time Time in cached video Event
0:02 n/a Takeoff (GPS mode); Home Point recorded at [36.608828,-121.711527]
0:56 0:00 Video starts
1:31 0:35 Follow Me mode enabled
7:07 6:11 Error: "Satellite Signal Lost. Acquire signal and retry." (This is a confusing message; I’m guessing that it refers to the loss of GPS coordinates of the *controller*, not the GPS coordinates of the Mavic (because the Mavic was seeing 18 satellites).)
7:10 6:14 Speed drops to zero; Mavic’s GPS location: [36.613579,-121.700561]
~8:40 ~7:44 I stop riding, and realize that my Mavic has stopped following me. I (and the controller) are at [36.61499,-121.69624]
9:26 8:30 Break in downlink (& cached video)
9:39 8:30 Downlink (& cached video) resumes
9:45 8:36 Break in downlink (& cached video)
11:01 8:36 Downlink (& cached video) resumes
11:15 8:50 I use “Home Point Me” to reset the home point, supposedly to the Remote Controller (i.e., my) position, which is at [36.61499,-121.69624]. But instead, the ‘home point' gets set to [36.607533,-121.724625], which was my home point of my *previous* flight - more than 1.6 miles (2.6 km) away from me! (Find My Drone also reports this as the “Aircraft Missing Coordinates”)
11:22 8:57 Without realizing what has actually happened to the home point, I do a RtH
11:49 9:24 Mavic finishes ascending, and starts moving ‘home’. In reality, it’s moving away from me, at a speed of 22 miles per hour (35 km/h)!
12:05 9:40 Confused and concerned about what’s happening, I did “Home Point Me” once again. But the home point remained unchanged; it’s still the home point of my *previous* flight; and my Mavic is still flying away from me at 22 mph!
12:17 9:52 The Mavic switches from “Go Home” mode to P-GPS mode. (I think I may have pressed the “Pause” button here; I’m not sure)
12:20 9:55 Speed drops to zero
12:29 10:04 Forward speed resumes
12:34 10:09 I get a “Weak Signal” warning
13:06 10:41 I do “Home Point Me” once again. But the home point is still wrong (but unfortunately I don’t realize this)!
13:12 10:47 I do a RtH once again (this turned out to be a fatal mistake, because I didn’t appreciate that the home point was wrong, and I’m now near the edge of transmission range)
13:15 10:50 The Mavic starts returning ‘home’ once again. But yet again, it’s moving away from me
13:21 10:56 The cached video ends
13:42 n/a I lose connectivity. The Mavic is moving away from me at 22 mph!

Comments:

• There’s unquestionably a bug in “Home Point Me”. Why did it reset the ‘home point’ to a point that was far away from the controller, and why did it choose the point that happened to be the home (starting) point for my *previous* flight?

• The RtH speed of around 22 mph (35 km/h) seems unusually large. There weren’t strong winds, and I was not in ‘sport mode’. This behavior appears similar to some ‘fly aways’ that have been reported by other people.

• Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find my Mavic. It didn’t return to what it thought was the ‘home’ point (nor to the actual ‘home’ (i.e., starting) point of this flight). I searched along the line from its last known position to its assumed ‘home’ point (and beyond, in case it ended up overshooting this point). Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to do an exhaustive search, because the area is filled with long grass, thick chaparral, large oak trees, and 'poison oak'.

The bottom line: Do not use the “Home Point Me” function until DJI fixes this bug.

(I have also posted this report to DJI’s forum, but I’m also posting it here, in case DJI ignores or deletes it.)

 

[Obbie]

I have tried to reset my home point to the controller location and it always resets to the original takeoff location. I think this is a bug. Fortunately, I discovered this within 100 feet of the takeoff point.
I can empathize with you. Butterfly's in your stomach as the drone does exactly opposite of your commands.

 

[Albatross]

OP...thanks for calling awareness to this issue. Has this problem been a common thread with the iOS only so far? Have there been any android devices with this issue?
For added insurance I would suggest a third party tracking device such as Trackimo. I use a gps tracker with my old school plane kits. I actually had a friend that recovered a stolen phantom with his.

 

[Obbie]

Confirming that I have an iphone 7 / ios. Perhaps the Home Point Me going to the take off location is an IOS only issue.

 

[Sky-Scraper]

Super Newbie here.
Rcvd my MP just before Irma. Nothing like getting it and life gets in the way.
I learned a lot from this thread, Pause being big amongst other tid bits.

I have watched a lot of vids and have been making my own pre-flight list. I have added ck map for RTH and to force quit DJI each time after, turn off front sensors, fly backwards home etc. I learn so much from threads like this that I'm sort of glad Irma interfered.

I have great cellular coverage and have a Trackimo attached. Hopefully that will help some too. I also put my phone number/Reward on my MP just in case someone finds it

A bit off the original thread but looking for a pre-flight list link to help avoid this.

Sorry about your loss - expensive and that hurts

 

[JeepDSL]

A bit off the original thread but looking for a pre-flight list link to help avoid this.

Here are a couple of threads:
An Airline Pilot's Checklist for Mavic Pro
Military Aviation style Mavic Pro operators checklist

Search "checklist" and you'll find a lot more.

 

[Sky-Scraper]

Thanks so much.
I did a search first but didn't use checklist

 

[lolitsjoel]

Only read first page, but I'm glad this issue is found and I wasn't the only one to almost lose my mavic due to it. Here's my screenshot of when it decided to lose itself. I could also only control vertical and oscillation and couldn't even manually bring it to me/over a safe area to land... not that there was any. I ended up losing full connection and once I regained I set home point to mavic and was able to control it again. I'll read through the rest of the thread later however

 

[ZUCSTA]

Yeah sure seems like there should be logic programmed in to prevent ever setting a home point from another day or if the location is impossible, ie would never make it with available battery time etc. This should be fairly easily fixable and I don't think you can blame the pilot. Sure there may be things you could have done to save it, but the liability should be on DJI, they can't expect every pilot to be able to react properly at times of emergency. Your nerves calm with experience but when it starts flying away it's like you're a newb. Many road accidents could be prevented if the other driver is defensive and reacts correctly to an out of control car, but we would never blame them for not being able to correctly counter in an emergency situation...

Thing is not many people let go of the steering wheel in a car and just hope it will go where u want it. No.1 rule is pre flight checks ..No.2 Rule is never relinquish total control ,hand on sticks ,just in case.

 

[ZUCSTA]

You didn't know that you were among much better pilots that instantly react to any situation in the best possible way so as to avoid any accidents or issues 100% of the time?

People need to lighten up on this forum. The pilot should never have been in this position in the first place. This is 100% DJI's fault, especially if it is a known issue. NEVER should the drone use the prior RTH location and NEVER should the pilot have to remember some arcane system of force-closing apps and powering down their device in between flights.

What about actually keeping control of your own drone.? What about preventing B4 it happens. These things are not meant to just be left to their own devices. Putting a controller in ones back pack while riding is just stupid ,Dangerous and shows how much many misunderstand the danger it puts others in. Simple really

 

[finlayson]

Self-righteousness is more dangerous than drones

 

[ZUCSTA]

Self-righteousness is more dangerous than drones

Self-righteousness is more dangerous than drones

I mean wtf would put there controller in their Back pack ???? Hmmmmmm?