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Using Google Maps on DJI Go 4 (Android Non-rooted)

lildevilx

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Hey guys, Found this thread on the DJI Mavic Forum, figure i share it here since i haven't seen it yet. I haven't tried it myself yet as its quite late.... give it a shot! :D

This is clearly an at your own risk & proof of concept post/method.

I'm not responsible if you crash your drone, etc., etc., etc.

Once you are familiar with the procedure you have to do it all fairly quickly to get it to work.

This works on a non-rooted Galaxy S7 Edge with only DJI GO 4 installed, and may work on other Android devices -- YMMV

With that said ..


If it is not enabled already, enable "Developer options" on your phone/device:

How to enable Developer Mode on the Samsung Galaxy S7

After that is enabled you will have the new option 'Developer options' in your Settings.

Procedure:

1. Reboot your phone

2. Make sure nothing else is running. So Close all open/running apps. Use Recent button (bottom left button with the 2 windows) + "CLOSE ALL"

3. Open DJI GO 4 and "Enter Device" or "Go Fly" ::: make sure the Here map is open and on bottom left window. You can test this out without connecting to your drone by just using "Enter Device" while not connected to the drone.

4. While DJI GO 4 is open :: Pull down the top notification bar, go to phone Settings, tap Developer options, then tap "Running services"

You will now see all the currently running services on the phone, notice at least 3 "DJI GO 4" entries .....each with 1 process and x number of services.
Tap the first one, it will open and show an option to "STOP" the service connected to this process. Tap STOP.
Now, go Back to the list of Running services, and keep going through each "DJI GO 4" entry and tapping every "STOP" you see until ALL of them are GONE from the Running services list.

Note: This will take a few times of tapping on DJI GO 4 process and tapping STOP on the connected service. Going back, and doing the next one, next one, next one, etc.
Some DJI GO4 entries will have 5 or 6 sub services that must be stopped, so scroll down and keep hitting STOP on each, and go back to Running services list.
Eventually, they will not come back to the list of Running services.

Once you are sure you are back on the Running services list, and you see no more DJI GO 4 processes listed here, then you are ALMOST there.

5. So here's the trick, Go to "More" on the top right corner, then "Show cached processes", and tap each DJI GO 4 listed here and "STOP" - There should be 2 DJI GO 4 processes in cached processes to stop.

Once they are gone from the cached processes list, tap your Recent button (bottom left button with the 2 windows) and switch back to the currently open/running DJI GO4 app.

The screen will go black for about a second or so, then reappear, but with Google Maps instead of Here
smile.gif


Remember, this was tested/works on my S7 Edge, so some variation for your device may need to be done, but at least you now get the concept.

Hope you get it to work. DJI may patch it eventually.
Credit and source: Use Google Maps on Android (NO ROOT REQUIRED)

Good luck!
 
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It works for my Galaxy Tab S2. Very simple. Google apps are so much better. Stopping GO4 and restarting and you're back to HERE maps So you will have to do this every time you start GO.
 
Guess I found a solution working on unrooted Android devices and with GO4 4.1.3, too.
I have installed this firewall app: NoRoot Firewall - Android Apps on Google Play
There I added two app-specific rules for DJI GO for blocking access to all ports (enter *) of:
- download.vcdn.nokia.com
- version.hybrid.api.here.com
Then GO4 must run for a while, so the firewall app can log all internet access. After that go back into the firewall app, select the GO 4 app and allow all network accesses except for servers ending into "amazonaws.com". This is quite a bit of work, as the GO4 app connects to doozens of servers...

The first change you will then find on the GO4 main screen when opening the options menu. Entry for downloading offline maps is gone.
When entering into the flight screen there is the satellite map by default with "Google" written into.
I have cached my region within Google Maps. Not sure if necessary but maybe a good idea anyways.
 
Guess I found a solution working on unrooted Android devices and with GO4 4.1.3, too.
I have installed this firewall app: NoRoot Firewall - Android Apps on Google Play
There I added two app-specific rules for DJI GO for blocking access to all ports (enter *) of:
- download.vcdn.nokia.com
- version.hybrid.api.here.com
Then GO4 must run for a while, so the firewall app can log all internet access. After that go back into the firewall app, select the GO 4 app and allow all network accesses except for servers ending into "amazonaws.com". This is quite a bit of work, as the GO4 app connects to doozens of servers...

The first change you will then find on the GO4 main screen when opening the options menu. Entry for downloading offline maps is gone.
When entering into the flight screen there is the satellite map by default with "Google" written into.
I have cached my region within Google Maps. Not sure if necessary but maybe a good idea anyways.
Nice find. Do the google maps remain after a restart? Is any other functionality affected besides the map? I imagine that DJI is using the amazon servers for other things as well. Can you isolate the HERE map service port? I'll have to give this a go.
 
Did not extensively test yet, but as long as the rules are active with the firewall, the Google map will be there after resarts. Just ensure the firewall is running after a restart and prior to starting GO4.
The Here maps don't depend on a single port, they are using all mentioned server connections. In the first approach I thought it would be sufficient blockiing download.vcdn.nokia.com and version.hybrid.api.here.com, but Here maps came back.
 
I have further experimented with the firewall settings and found a highly simplified rule set.
 

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GerdS, I tried this and it works. Thumbswayup Google maps stay after a restart. It seems like it takes some time to download the maps though. Thanks for figuring this out.
 
Maps for the app are stored in .djiHereMap under the DJI folder. I wonder if we can replace these offline maps with Google downloaded maps? If the app already understands how to read Google maps... We may be on to something!
 
Maps for the app are stored in .djiHereMap under the DJI folder. I wonder if we can replace these offline maps with Google downloaded maps? If the app already understands how to read Google maps... We may be on to something!
I can't find this
Can you say where it is specifically
Thanks
 
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