Failed to Start the Mission

elphtrooper · May 6, 2022

Hi everyone. New to the Autel but been flying full time for almost 7 years. Our company just bought an Enterprise Bundle and the separate RTK module and will be using it for topographic surveys and planimetrics. It has been a long drawn out process of a day dealing with Smart Controller to AirCraft connections, firmwares and tablet software. Our unit was rushed so apparently it didn't go through all the the QC it should. The SC was not paired to the AC and SC software was at least 3 versions behind. Finally broke down and loaded the latest AC F/W via mSD card and got everything connected. TIP for anyone out there that needs to sideload the aircraft firmware with an mSD card that you will still get prompted by the software to update even though it is the same version on OTA that is already loaded and it will break it. Then you have to do what is starting to seem like a default for the setup and Android reset the tablet to get them to talk to each other again. After hours and hours of reboots, setting up the interface, finding several ways to break to connections I finally got it to where it is pretty solid but there are a couple of problems remaining.

First, when I compare the F/W versions to what I got to work the individual component version do not exactly match what is shown on the table on Autel's site that is the "official" list. No consequence for right now as it will fly but

Second but more importantly we cannot fly a mission. Planning is easy and it appears to upload to the AC fine but when it gets ready to launch it says "Failed to Start the Mission". Happens with and without RTK.

Sérgio · May 7, 2022

Acontece-me o mesmo.
tento de diversas formas, faço o plano e gravo, re-inicio o smart contrller, crio o plano na hora e sempre . . . "falha ao iniciar a missão".
depois de varias tentou e desesperado, sem saber como. . . a missão carrega e. . . voa!
é desesperador!

elphtrooper · May 7, 2022

Sérgio said:
Acontece-me o mesmo.
tento de diversas formas, faço o plano e gravo, re-inicio o smart contrller, crio o plano na hora e sempre . . . "falha ao iniciar a missão".
depois de varias tentou e desesperado, sem saber como. . . a missão carrega e. . . voa!
é desesperador!

I'll second the desperation! We have two projects that have been waiting on this drone and I am not seeing much experience out there which basically means that we are going to essentially be beta testers. All we can do at this point is hope they reply to my request Monday. I'll definitely update if I figure it out before then. At this point though I am almost certain it is a firmware issue. The more I dig into their system the more inconsistent it is.

jmason702 · May 7, 2022

This is my boy1 please help him out on the enterprise end. @Dave Pitman

elphtrooper · May 7, 2022

jmason702 said:
This is my boy1 please help him out on the enterprise end. @Dave Pitman

Well this is a troublesome trio...

jmason702 · May 7, 2022

@Dave Pitman, I know you know how to get this drone up and doing what its is supposed to do, please help this guy out on the same.

We been down that long road of testing this beast with great results, thank you sir

jmason702 · May 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Well this is a troublesome trio...

LOL, these guys will get you up and going, sorry I have the RTK version... it's a different bird ( firmware altogether)

Dave Pitman · May 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Second but more importantly we cannot fly a mission. Planning is easy and it appears to upload to the AC fine but when it gets ready to launch it says "Failed to Start the Mission". Happens with and without RTK.

My kit is working reliably. I am on 2 firmware versions behind current and likely 2 versions back on SC App as well.
NTRIP connection is stable and no problem flying missions. I can hook you up with the versions I am using if you want to try that?

fw: v.2.1.77
SC App: v.1.0.67

elphtrooper · May 7, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
My kit is working reliably. I am on 2 firmware versions behind current and likely 2 versions back on SC App as well.
NTRIP connection is stable and no problem flying missions. I can hook you up with the versions I am using if you want to try that?

fw: v.2.1.77
SC App: v.1.0.67

Those are different than anything I have seen so far so why not, lol. Thanks! That is one thing I was going to ask about the aircraft firmware... Is there supposed to be a visible queue as to when it is actually completed? I attempted to flash via the mSD card and could not tell that anything had happened.

Dave Pitman · May 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Those are different than anything I have seen so far so why not, lol. Thanks! That is one thing I was going to ask about the aircraft firmware... Is there supposed to be a visible queue as to when it is actually completed? I attempted to flash via the mSD card and could not tell that anything had happened.

DM sent

Dave Pitman · May 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Is there supposed to be a visible queue as to when it is actually completed? I attempted to flash via the mSD card and could not tell that anything had happened.

Sometimes when it completes, it will say so on the controller screen. Other times it doesn't say and the update % stops in the 90's but the craft LEDs change to green if I remember correctly. The craft will reboot multiple times, but it is not obvious like on DJI craft.

There are some Enterprise users that have other problems with the most recent FW ( V2.3.8 ). Specifically, that the .obs and .mrk files are whacked.

Dave Pitman · May 7, 2022

Also, when it completes loading the FW, you should reboot everything again before operation.

elphtrooper · May 7, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
Sometimes when it completes, it will say so on the controller screen. Other times it doesn't say and the update % stops in the 90's but the craft LEDs change to green if I remember correctly. The craft will reboot multiple times, but it is not obvious like on DJI craft.

There are some Enterprise users that have other problems with the most recent FW ( V2.3.8 ). Specifically, that the .obs and .mrk files are whacked.

Yeah the whole reason I started looking at different firmwares was because the smart controller did not come bound so I had no way to know what versions I was on or how to update them. I downloaded 2.3.8 and flashed it with the mSD card but only trusted that it had completed after letting it sit there for 5 minutes. It added the imagery folders so I assumed it had done something. Once I got the smart controller on 1.0.77.1 I was able to get video feed.

elphtrooper · May 8, 2022

Fingers crossed and banging my head on a wooden desk I think I got it. I kind of think that I never fully flashed the aircraft so I may have been on the firmware that the drone came with this whole time. The Smart Controller has been on several different firmwares but I have no way of saying for sure whether the drone hopped through the firmware that I thought it had. Regardless, something changed after I installed the 1.0.771 SC firmware and a slightly different prompt came up for 2.3.8 AC. This is the part that makes me think I never really flashed successfully before because it took just over 15 minutes to complete the process and there were three distinct beeps from the aircraft. I think going back to the firmware that Dave provided and then updating to the latest is what worked. I never really saw it reboot but it could have. All this said I just flew a test mission so tomorrow is looking pretty good. Bang my head on the wood to some more...

jmason702 · May 9, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Fingers crossed and banging my head on a wooden desk I think I got it. I kind of think that I never fully flashed the aircraft so I may have been on the firmware that the drone came with this whole time. The Smart Controller has been on several different firmwares but I have no way of saying for sure whether the drone hopped through the firmware that I thought it had. Regardless, something changed after I installed the 1.0.771 SC firmware and a slightly different prompt came up for 2.3.8 AC. This is the part that makes me think I never really flashed successfully before because it took just over 15 minutes to complete the process and there were three distinct beeps from the aircraft. I think going back to the firmware that Dave provided and then updating to the latest is what worked. I never really saw it reboot but it could have. All this said I just flew a test mission so tomorrow is looking pretty good. Bang my head on the wood to some more...

Let us know how it goes!

elphtrooper · May 9, 2022

Headed out, wish me luck!

elphtrooper · May 9, 2022

Looks like we're good to go on this topic. On to the next list. Thank you All!

jmason702 · May 9, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Looks like we're good to go on this topic. On to the next list. Thank you All!

Awesome! post what you can about your accuracy please

elphtrooper · May 9, 2022

jmason702 said:
Awesome! post what you can about your accuracy please

I would ignore Hycrest because of the wind gusts (Camera Optimization) and the big gap of pictures I had to take out but still pretty amazing. Harvest did have the issue and is balls. Let me know if this doesn't work and I can put it somewhere else. Next time i'll put in some checkpoints.

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