Unlocking DJI controller in locked geo zones manually on DJI site

[Paul Stocum]

Short point to this thread: I know this has been brought up a few times, but I'm posting this to give pilots who have never had to go through the process a heads up to familiarize yourself with "how to" before you need to unlock directly from DJI website. Luckily my client was patient and understanding during my 30+ minutes of trying to unlock a specific area.

Long Point: I mentioned in another thread that I was able to get approval to fly very near an international airport - Half a block from a busy landing/takeoff runways. I was approved for 90', 300' radius. Not ideal to photograph a large commercial building/warehouse, but I could make do. Onsite, I was expecting the usual, "locked area, are you permitted to fly here etc.?" message. Where I would proceed to enter my info, submit and await a code to unlock my flight area.

Being my first time fly this close to the airport, I was surprised to see, "Restricted area. Locked". And no way to enter my data. My client is patiently waiting for me to solve this issue, I had already told her I will have to go through some hoops once we are ready to fly. I quickly googled and found instructions on how to manually unlock geo zones.

• Log into DJI
• Go to DJI.com and scroll to bottom
• click on the "Fly Safe" link
• scroll down to find a link to "Unlock a zone"
  • there is even a helpful video right here
• From here you will have to enter in your Flight controller SN, Your name, email, phone (I think) and Drone model
• Once you have above bullet point finished, you can click on "New Unlock Request"
  • Fill out accordingly
  • attach/upload pdf file of your approved FAA clearance document when you submit
  • Make sure you draw or circle enough area to accomplish your flight plan. I cut one side of the building a little too close and couldn't back up as far as I wanted.
    • curiously, my location services didn't help. It started me out in DC, and I had to zoom out, scroll over to Nevada, zoom in, find and highlight my flight area.
• Approval came within 5 minutes
• After approval, you will need to go into your controller under "unlock Geo Zone" and click on the approved request and sync.
  • Then you have to go into "Aircraft" tab and click the desired request to "On"

I've kind of paraphrased some of the above. Be sure to google and look up for your specific DJI Fly app, and further instructions. But this should give you an idea what you need to do if you are in such a zone. If I've errored in any of these instructions, by all means correct me.

Also, it seems the DJI site was not very smart phone friendly (I used an iPhone 11 pro max). I couldn't see entire page horizontally or vertically. Just enough to get the job done.

Good luck out there!

 

[jimlips]

Short point to this thread: I know this has been brought up a few times, but I'm posting this to give pilots who have never had to go through the process a heads up to familiarize yourself with "how to" before you need to unlock directly from DJI website. Luckily my client was patient and understanding during my 30+ minutes of trying to unlock a specific area.

Long Point: I mentioned in another thread that I was able to get approval to fly very near an international airport - Half a block from a busy landing/takeoff runways. I was approved for 90', 300' radius. Not ideal to photograph a large commercial building/warehouse, but I could make do. Onsite, I was expecting the usual, "locked area, are you permitted to fly here etc.?" message. Where I would proceed to enter my info, submit and await a code to unlock my flight area.

Being my first time fly this close to the airport, I was surprised to see, "Restricted area. Locked". And no way to enter my data. My client is patiently waiting for me to solve this issue, I had already told her I will have to go through some hoops once we are ready to fly. I quickly googled and found instructions on how to manually unlock geo zones.

• Log into DJI
• Go to DJI.com and scroll to bottom
• click on the "Fly Safe" link
• scroll down to find a link to "Unlock a zone"
  • there is even a helpful video right here
• From here you will have to enter in your Flight controller SN, Your name, email, phone (I think) and Drone model
• Once you have above bullet point finished, you can click on "New Unlock Request"
  • Fill out accordingly
  • attach/upload pdf file of your approved FAA clearance document when you submit
  • Make sure you draw or circle enough area to accomplish your flight plan. I cut one side of the building a little too close and couldn't back up as far as I wanted.
    • curiously, my location services didn't help. It started me out in DC, and I had to zoom out, scroll over to Nevada, zoom in, find and highlight my flight area.
• Approval came within 5 minutes
• After approval, you will need to go into your controller under "unlock Geo Zone" and click on the approved request and sync.
  • Then you have to go into "Aircraft" tab and click the desired request to "On"

I've kind of paraphrased some of the above. Be sure to google and look up for your specific DJI Fly app, and further instructions. But this should give you an idea what you need to do if you are in such a zone. If I've errored in any of these instructions, by all means correct me.

Also, it seems the DJI site was not very smart phone friendly (I used an iPhone 11 pro max). I couldn't see entire page horizontally or vertically. Just enough to get the job done.

Good luck out there!

Hi Paul! Nice summary, thank you.

I've been doing this for quite some time. The only differences (that happen to me) are the approval happens within seconds, not minutes.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, the DJI site seems to have a problem "selecting" the zone you wish to unlock? Like you, the map always "opens up" in Washington DC for me. If I type in "Sacramento, CA" in the search box, a big list of zones in Sacramento pop up on the drop-down list. But it won't let me select any of them. When I click on one, nothing happens. I've found if I manually drag the map all the way over to California, then zoom in and find Sacramento, the areas appear. Then, I can click the particular zone I wish to unlock on the map, click it, and the zone then appears in the selection box.

The other discrepancy I've found in doing this, is when you go to unlock the aircraft in the app, the date listed is not accurate. There is typically only one item to click on (even though it has a date next to it that is way in the past). I select that item, then go to the AIRCRAFT category, and "import" it, and another screen comes up (that is VERY hard to see in the sunlight outdoors) where you have to check the two little boxes that say you agree and have permission to do this. Finally, exit out and your header will turn GREEN shortly which means your aircraft is ready to take off. At least this is the way it works on my Mavic Pro with the Go4 app on my iPad.

Don't forget that you still need to use ALOFT (or another program) to get authorization from the FAA for your flight(s) as well. The aircraft will fly fine without it, but if you crash and damage anything or anyone, you will be in a heap of trouble for not notifying the FAA beforehand. ALOFT is pretty easy to use once you figure it out.

 

[Drbobk]

Short point to this thread: I know this has been brought up a few times, but I'm posting this to give pilots who have never had to go through the process a heads up to familiarize yourself with "how to" before you need to unlock directly from DJI website. Luckily my client was patient and understanding during my 30+ minutes of trying to unlock a specific area.

Long Point: I mentioned in another thread that I was able to get approval to fly very near an international airport - Half a block from a busy landing/takeoff runways. I was approved for 90', 300' radius. Not ideal to photograph a large commercial building/warehouse, but I could make do. Onsite, I was expecting the usual, "locked area, are you permitted to fly here etc.?" message. Where I would proceed to enter my info, submit and await a code to unlock my flight area.

Being my first time fly this close to the airport, I was surprised to see, "Restricted area. Locked". And no way to enter my data. My client is patiently waiting for me to solve this issue, I had already told her I will have to go through some hoops once we are ready to fly. I quickly googled and found instructions on how to manually unlock geo zones.

• Log into DJI
• Go to DJI.com and scroll to bottom
• click on the "Fly Safe" link
• scroll down to find a link to "Unlock a zone"
  • there is even a helpful video right here
• From here you will have to enter in your Flight controller SN, Your name, email, phone (I think) and Drone model
• Once you have above bullet point finished, you can click on "New Unlock Request"
  • Fill out accordingly
  • attach/upload pdf file of your approved FAA clearance document when you submit
  • Make sure you draw or circle enough area to accomplish your flight plan. I cut one side of the building a little too close and couldn't back up as far as I wanted.
    • curiously, my location services didn't help. It started me out in DC, and I had to zoom out, scroll over to Nevada, zoom in, find and highlight my flight area.
• Approval came within 5 minutes
• After approval, you will need to go into your controller under "unlock Geo Zone" and click on the approved request and sync.
  • Then you have to go into "Aircraft" tab and click the desired request to "On"

I've kind of paraphrased some of the above. Be sure to google and look up for your specific DJI Fly app, and further instructions. But this should give you an idea what you need to do if you are in such a zone. If I've errored in any of these instructions, by all means correct me.

Also, it seems the DJI site was not very smart phone friendly (I used an iPhone 11 pro max). I couldn't see entire page horizontally or vertically. Just enough to get the job done.

Good luck out there!

Hi Paul, thanks for the summary, but I have a couple of questions. This has also happened to me where the unlocking license is nowhere to be found in the settings. I have a COA to fly in my local area and the unlocking license was usually available in settings, but then it disappeared. In another thread, they mention signing in to DJI (in the app?) to restore the license.

Your first step says log into DJI. Login where? At home on a PC? On the smart controller? Because your second step says to go to dji.com, so where am I logging in prior to going to dji.com?

Thanks.

 

[Paul Stocum]

Hi Paul, thanks for the summary, but I have a couple of questions. This has also happened to me where the unlocking license is nowhere to be found in the settings. I have a COA to fly in my local area and the unlocking license was usually available in settings, but then it disappeared. In another thread, they mention signing in to DJI (in the app?) to restore the license.

Your first step says log into DJI. Login where? At home on a PC? On the smart controller? Because your second step says to go to dji.com, so where am I logging in prior to going to dji.com?

Thanks.

I did it on my phone on site. Once on dji.com, log in then scroll to the bottom and click “fly safe “ link. if my description is unclear, there are help videos and articles that will help. I googled for a solution on site to get project area unlocked.

 

[Heavydpj]

Short point to this thread: I know this has been brought up a few times, but I'm posting this to give pilots who have never had to go through the process a heads up to familiarize yourself with "how to" before you need to unlock directly from DJI website. Luckily my client was patient and understanding during my 30+ minutes of trying to unlock a specific area.

Thanks for this! I used it to do my first custom unlock here in Papua New Guinea, and the process worked flawlessly. I'll be doing some aerial imagery at a fairly remote and uncontrolled airstrip that has both a red restricted zone and blue authorization zone. I submitted for the authorization zone first, then realized that some of what I needed to shoot may take me into the red zone, so I submitted for that as well as a second request for a custom zone. Everything was approved and uploaded to the controller.

I do have one thought - do subsequent requests cancel out the previous ones? My thought is that i should be good for the entire blue authorization zone AND my purple custom. Any thoughts? I'm going to shoot/operate from two different locations, one in the purple and one in the blue (from a boat).

 

[vindibona1]

That's a nice summary Paul. But I have one thing to add based on (more than one) experience. PLAN AHEAD. UNLOCK AHEAD... and GO TO THE SITE AND TEST BEFORE THE JOB DATE!!!!!

I had more than one experience where I did everything that I was supposed to do to film a job not far from a local airport. I applied to DJI flysafe and got an unlocking code for two drones. I wasn't sure that how I was going to approach the job, so wanted to rehearse a bit to create a flight plan. So, after unlocking, which was supposed to be 500 meters, I went to the site to practice and was unlocked for 123 feet (37meters)! I had to go back to DJI to advise them that they did not unlock the zone properly. One "job day", one of my drones was able to back up enough distance for the shoot, but the other was land locked, still at 123 feet.

I was lucky because at least one of my drones was fully operative. But had I not done a dry-run I'd have been totally screwed on job day. I like my DJI drones, but my next drone may have to be an Autel, if only so I don't have to deal with DJI's geofencing hoop-jump. JMO

 

[Faster]

Is not easy just paying $45.00 for an unrestricted, never expiring license? Just follow the local rules and regulations without any other hassle? Just wondering.

 

[Paul Stocum]

That's a nice summary Paul. But I have one thing to add based on (more than one) experience. PLAN AHEAD. UNLOCK AHEAD... and GO TO THE SITE AND TEST BEFORE THE JOB DATE!!!!!

Great advice. I’m still new enough that this was this first time I had to unlock in this manner. I was only aware of the system where you submit information through app and wait for a code to be texted to unlock. This is what I was expecting here. Lesson learned.

 

[Paul Stocum]

Is not easy just paying $45.00 for an unrestricted, never expiring license? Just follow the local rules and regulations without any other hassle? Just wondering.

Not sure what this “unrestricted” license is?! Please explain further.

 

[Paul Stocum]

Hi Paul! Nice summary, thank you.

I've been doing this for quite some time. The only differences (that happen to me) are the approval happens within seconds, not minutes.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, the DJI site seems to have a problem "selecting" the zone you wish to unlock? Like you, the map always "opens up" in Washington DC for me. If I type in "Sacramento, CA" in the search box, a big list of zones in Sacramento pop up on the drop-down list. But it won't let me select any of them. When I click on one, nothing happens. I've found if I manually drag the map all the way over to California, then zoom in and find Sacramento, the areas appear. Then, I can click the particular zone I wish to unlock on the map, click it, and the zone then appears in the selection box.

The other discrepancy I've found in doing this, is when you go to unlock the aircraft in the app, the date listed is not accurate. There is typically only one item to click on (even though it has a date next to it that is way in the past). I select that item, then go to the AIRCRAFT category, and "import" it, and another screen comes up (that is VERY hard to see in the sunlight outdoors) where you have to check the two little boxes that say you agree and have permission to do this. Finally, exit out and your header will turn GREEN shortly which means your aircraft is ready to take off. At least this is the way it works on my Mavic Pro with the Go4 app on my iPad.

Don't forget that you still need to use ALOFT (or another program) to get authorization from the FAA for your flight(s) as well. The aircraft will fly fine without it, but if you crash and damage anything or anyone, you will be in a heap of trouble for not notifying the FAA beforehand. ALOFT is pretty easy to use once you figure it out.

I had to get authorization through drone zone.FAA.gov. And upload the pdf document to unlock the area. It was not an available laanc area.

 

[Faster]

Not sure what this “unrestricted” license is?! Please explain further.

A web search of Drone-Hacks.com would give you the answer. Also you can request access to the Mavics Software Mods subforum here.

 

[Heavydpj]

Is not easy just paying $45.00 for an unrestricted, never expiring license? Just follow the local rules and regulations without any other hassle? Just wondering.

NFZ and Alt Limit Remover doesn't work with the M3 or smart controller. You also need a Windows computer.

 

[zippsoftwarr]

A web search of Drone-Hacks.com would give you the answer. Also you can request access to the Mavics Software Mods subforum here.

Where can we request access to the Software Mods forum?

Thanks.

 

[KevinD]

A scenario where the unlock license may fail to appear in DJI equipment.
Once upon a time, I did successfully request unlock from DJI FlySafe unlock but the license never appeared. Eventually I figured out why. Technically, when using the Fly app, we are logged-in to DJI but tend not to think about it. When I requested unlocking via the FlySafe site, I mistakenly logged-in using a different email account. My equipment couldn't find the unlock simply because I wasn't logged-in as the same user.
.
Unfortunately, my client was standing next to me as I shook my head and said "I don't understand it." He graciously agreed to postpone 24 hours and I did complete the job. Avoid horrifying embarrassment by double-check and triple-check this stuff in advance of the flight.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

If a flight is important, check the night before for flysafe Geo map restrictions and unlock in the comfort of home.

 

[Jiker69]

Short point to this thread: I know this has been brought up a few times, but I'm posting this to give pilots who have never had to go through the process a heads up to familiarize yourself with "how to" before you need to unlock directly from DJI website. Luckily my client was patient and understanding during my 30+ minutes of trying to unlock a specific area.

Long Point: I mentioned in another thread that I was able to get approval to fly very near an international airport - Half a block from a busy landing/takeoff runways. I was approved for 90', 300' radius. Not ideal to photograph a large commercial building/warehouse, but I could make do. Onsite, I was expecting the usual, "locked area, are you permitted to fly here etc.?" message. Where I would proceed to enter my info, submit and await a code to unlock my flight area.

Being my first time fly this close to the airport, I was surprised to see, "Restricted area. Locked". And no way to enter my data. My client is patiently waiting for me to solve this issue, I had already told her I will have to go through some hoops once we are ready to fly. I quickly googled and found instructions on how to manually unlock geo zones.

• Log into DJI
• Go to DJI.com and scroll to bottom
• click on the "Fly Safe" link
• scroll down to find a link to "Unlock a zone"
  • there is even a helpful video right here
• From here you will have to enter in your Flight controller SN, Your name, email, phone (I think) and Drone model
• Once you have above bullet point finished, you can click on "New Unlock Request"
  • Fill out accordingly
  • attach/upload pdf file of your approved FAA clearance document when you submit
  • Make sure you draw or circle enough area to accomplish your flight plan. I cut one side of the building a little too close and couldn't back up as far as I wanted.
    • curiously, my location services didn't help. It started me out in DC, and I had to zoom out, scroll over to Nevada, zoom in, find and highlight my flight area.
• Approval came within 5 minutes
• After approval, you will need to go into your controller under "unlock Geo Zone" and click on the approved request and sync.
  • Then you have to go into "Aircraft" tab and click the desired request to "On"

I've kind of paraphrased some of the above. Be sure to google and look up for your specific DJI Fly app, and further instructions. But this should give you an idea what you need to do if you are in such a zone. If I've errored in any of these instructions, by all means correct me.

Also, it seems the DJI site was not very smart phone friendly (I used an iPhone 11 pro max). I couldn't see entire page horizontally or vertically. Just enough to get the job done.

Good luck out there!

Do you have a clue why it says aircraft disconnected