Flew my
m2z at the family farm for the first time today. I had full bars on my cell phone but my drone kept getting disconnected. Initially it said my RC needed to be updated but it's already on the latest (same with the drone itself). When I finally was able to have it take off the gray screen of death kept appearing and luckily it was able to RTH. Just curious if anyone has had this happen and how you fixed it. I suspect that it was the lack of satellite s but then again my phone had no issue getting reception throughout so I don't know what's causing this.
Sounds from how you describe it that you are having problems with your 'phone' as a display.
The request to do firmware updates was probably linked to your battery, as a new flyer you may may not realise that each flight battery has firmware in it too, it is sometimes updated when the aircraft or remote is updated, not always. After you update the firmware its a good idea to put each battery in, reboot and see if they need an update too.
In your description, its not clear which type of device you are using, but to clarify, it does not need a cell service to operate the drone. Unfortunately to help you further we need to know what device you are using, its fair to say that Android devices are not all equal and some just don't work well with the drone. Apple devices tend to be less trouble because its effectively one OS closely tied to the hardware, like it or not that's the way it is.
'Grey screen of death' tells us very little without some additional info, as already discussed, if you have 'CONNECTING_' displayed on the controller you have indeed lost connection to the drone, if you have telemetry then you have lost connection to your display. Either scenario has a different set of fixes.
Its quiet apparent that you have not really read through the manual, maybe you read the quick start but not the full one? Sounds dull but you need to read it thoroughly, then come back with the things we have asked you for and we should be able to assist you better.
Flying on a farm should not give you the connection challenges that urban flying does, unless you have a lot of radio/tv masts near it.