Smart Controller Intermittent camera feed to screen

[DougMcC]

At least 50% my current SC and MP2 startups I end up with a Gray screen and no camera image. All of the aircraft data is displayed and I have complete gimbal control and the camera shutter and video works with stored images on the card. Often a restart of the whole system corrects this and I can fly - but often it doesn’t. Despite attempts to refresh my DJI GO 4 it states I am running 4.3.28. I have a Mac running Catalina and DJI Assistant 2 never seems to complete a refresh or update. Currently:
App 4.3.28
Aircraft 1.00.0510
Remote controller 01.00.0650

I would appreciate some ideas. The Smart Controller worked perfectly and I did update it (I thought) in January. All was well after that until now. Frustrated! I have searched and found threads on this subject from a year ago and have tried the many suggestions there. Thanks in advance. I do have access to an older windows laptop if necessary.

 

[V2Rotate]

Same issue !

 

[Walt]

Same issue here as well. Had no trouble with this issue until a day after I installed the latest version of the Smart Controller firmware on March 19, 2020.

 

[V2Rotate]

Diddo, mine corresponds to the .650 upgrade as well. It's not hard to fix...just cycle the SM but I bought a SC because its quick and easy to use. Having to cycle it sucks for $1100aud!

 

[Deleted member 114292]

Diddo, mine corresponds to the .650 upgrade as well. It's not hard to fix...just cycle the SM but I bought a SC because its quick and easy to use. Having to cycle it sucks for $1100aud!

On the rare occasions this has occurred I found that just exiting Go 4 and restarting it fixes it.

 

[DougMcC]

Well an update. I persisted with a Mac refresh on the SC which finally took. I also reformatted the 128GB SD cards in the SC and the aircraft.
At this time I have had 5/5 clean startups with normal camera image. Perhaps my SC software memory management was corrupted or ???
When I searched on this subject there were numerous problems like this with the SC and it seemed DJI was aware last spring but nothing definitive was done-I’m not sure.
Currently the Assistant 2 software plays well on Mac Catalina-at least it did last night...

 

[DougMcC]

Another update. Two flights early this AM with clean startups with camera imaging. The camera has been reset and a successful SC update on my Mac seems to have worked.
However, I fear that even writing this will awaken a software gremlin. I’m Interested if the other pilots have tried this and what results were noted. Thanks

 

[V2Rotate]

I had a horrible time getting my SC to update to .650. I gave up an android altogether and eventually got my IMac to get it done after 7 or 8 attempts (yes, using DJI Assistant 2 Mavic). It plain pissed me off watching youtube clips of people doing it in 2 mins. Reality is I don't dare touch it at this stage so I'm stuck were I am at .650. I have a brand new SD card for the SC which I formatted and I will re-format the sd card on the AC and see if that helps. Other than that, I will just put up with it !

 

[Deleted member 114292]

FWIW my app is at
I was wrong. That was from my IPad.
4.3.28
On my sc

 

[DougMcC]

So after 4 or 5 boots and access to the camera image I thought I was done. Not quite. I then descended back into the gray screen of no camera image. Tried 4 reboots of the SC and three of the aircraft - no change. I then went into the SC settings and did a force stop of the DJI Go 4 App and trouble stopped - for now.
I would suggest to others try that simple move to “reset” and then reboot the SC and see if it then connects as expected.
This may be solved by trial and error - or by someone who really understands memory use in the Go 4 app. That’s my best guess so far.

Edit I just saw the observation that my Go 4 being only 4.3.28 may be an issue. I will tray another update. Thanks for that observation.

 

[V2Rotate]

DougMcC thanks for the update. I'm getting to the point where I'm pretty sure you can fix this with a hammer! (lol).

 

[DougMcC]

Update
I have now settled into a pattern. If I boot the SC and the M2P and get the gray screen of no video I use the “back” key to get back to the drop down SC settings menu. I then scroll to the Applications tab hit that find the DJI Go 4 app and FORCE STOP. I Then restart DJI Go4 and all is well - for another 4-5 starts. The gray screen has never happened while flying the drone.
This little dance has allowed me to keep flying. It would seem that there may be some memory management issues with the DJI Go 4 app presently.

 

[Peregrine]

I guess it’s reassuring to learn that I’m not alone with this problem. At least 50% failure rate so far, using a Smart Controller. I’ll try the Force Stop suggestion next time I fire the drone up. Bit of a poor do though.

 

[mintakax]

I also have this problem occasionally. It seems that I don't have it if I turn on SC, wait for it to give the first connect prompt, then turn on M2P. Or that could just be coincidence ? SC and M2P are on most recent firmware.