Heck of a scare situation yesterday

[30plusretlaw]

Yesterday while recording a video of a lighthouse from the penthouse area, an open area with no obstruction. I lost total connection with my drone. The Sky app went gray and no “return to home” message. I waited like a minute and nothing. So I started closing the App and opening the app again and the drone connected to the app for a sec and gray screen again. So I kept closing and opening the app and try to direct the drone on my direction a second at a time.
There were time when I closed the app and opened and nothing. At one time while far away it updated the home point to were it was flying and my heart dropped even more. So I kept trying to fly towards me a sec at a time until I-was able to fly back. In the picture you can see how far I was. I was positioned over the light house so I think that might have cause the disconnecting. What do you guys think?

 

[gophcc]

Sounds like the app crashed for some reason, was that an Android phone ? When I flew DJIs with Android devices ( including DJI Smart Controller ), GO4 app crashed all the time.

Normally, when the connection was lost, RTH button should still be available on the app.

 

[DARKSeifer]

It's a bug in the software/firmware, happened to me once in the first days of flying it and never happened again after 50 hours of flightime. At some point I paired the controller and the drone again, so idk if that solved it, or it will happen again.

I lost connection and the controller/drone didn't reconnect the video signal again, got the grey screen and the drone initiated the RTH. I wasn't able to recover the video feed by restarting the app up and the home point updated midflight to the drone's current location (I saw it afterwards in the app). Despite that, the drone returned home (the real takeoff point) by itself. The log only recorded till the disconnection, I checked it in Airdata but it didn't show anything apart from a signal disconnection.

There's a bunch of situations where this might end up with the drone lost, so always set the RTH point properly before takeoff.

These things doesn't scare me anymore, coming from DJI drones I got used to random bugs like these. That exact same thing happened to my DJI Mini 2 the fourth time I flew it and never happened again after 100+ hours of flightime. But with every DJI firmware update always came new problems, till I just switched to dronehacks to unlock FCC and never update the firmware again. Fix one thing, break tow things, sadly that's how it is nowadays with everything software related.

 

[gophcc]

When the signal is reconnected. that 'Home point has been refreshed' message is confusing and scary. DJI doesn't give this message at such condition.

In my last flight, after signal reconnected and HP freshed, I hit RTH and Lite+ turned around and flew towards me. I entered the menu wanting to make sure, and the three buttons are white( see pic attached), so I tapped ME to ensure.

When the signal is lost the drone is expected to return to the last home point set, be it default (lauch pad) or 3rd point set previously, it just cannot be aircraft position at that moment. I hope it is just a wrong and unnecessary message that needs a fix, otherwise it is a big issue.

 

[DARKSeifer]

Yep... I was like ok, the drone is returning... let's not touch anything till it's closer just in case that 1700€ flying camera decides to turn around and land in the middle of nowhere

I had some disconnections since that, but the Lite+ has always been able to reconnect just as expected so idk what triggered the malfunction.

Always say goodbye to your drone when you take off, you never know if you will ever see it again

 

[OldBlueHeron]

When the signal is reconnected. that 'Home point has been refreshed' message is confusing and scary. DJI doesn't give this message at such condition.

In my last flight, after signal reconnected and HP freshed, I hit RTH and Lite+ turned around and flew towards me. I entered the menu wanting to make sure, and the three buttons are white( see pic attached), so I tapped ME to ensure.

When the signal is lost the drone is expected to return to the last home point set, be it default (lauch pad) or 3rd point set previously, it just cannot be aircraft position at that moment. I hope it is just a wrong and unnecessary message that needs a fix, otherwise it is a big issue.

Yeah that message freaked me out as well after a disconnect. It did end up returning to the original home point, but there was some pucker factor. That message needs to be fixed.

 

[gschulzuio]

As others mentioned, had it happen once a long time ago, unplugged the app/device from the controller, continued flying via the controller (EVO II) and its display initiating an RTH from the controller vs. the app/device.

 

[quinn karter]

Yep... I was like ok, the drone is returning... let's not touch anything till it's closer just in case that 1700€ flying camera decides to turn around and land in the middle of nowhere

I had some disconnections since that, but the Lite+ has always been able to reconnect just as expected so idk what triggered the malfunction.

Always say goodbye to your drone when you take off, you never know if you will ever see it again

You might want to consider a new connection cable between your phone or tablet and the remote. It may be faulty.

 

[kenautelevo2pro]

two words: autel care

 

[30plusretlaw]

Sounds like the app crashed for some reason, was that an Android phone ? When I flew DJIs with Android devices ( including DJI Smart Controller ), GO4 app crashed all the time.

Normally, when the connection was lost, RTH button should still be available on the app.

I have an apple 13. Once the app crash I can’t do nothing

 

[gschulzuio]

I have an apple 13. Once the app crash I can’t do nothing

Can you use the RTH button on the controller (e.g. not the one on the app).

 

[30plusretlaw]

I flew the drone 4 times around my house and didn’t have any problems. I flew to PR and brought the drone with me. Now in 2 days I have gotten the gray screen 4 times. I went to a great area from videos and pictures and the drone kept disconnecting. It disconnected once while I was hovering before the flight, something I always do before taking off so I can see how the drone is flying and responding to the control. I try to do an hyper lapse and it disconnected and just kept taking the same pic over and over again and the times that it got disconnected 2 times I was able to fly it back and 3 times the drone just sat there and didn’t return to home. This is very frustrating. This is a brand new drone that now I lost trust to fly it. I drove 2:30 hours to get to this place and it was a waste of time. I’m going to reinstall the app use a new cable and see what happen tomorrow. Thanks for the input.

 

[30plusretlaw]

Can you use the RTH button on the controller (e.g. not the one on the app).

I was so nervous I didn’t even try that.

 

[BlairAir]

When the signal is reconnected. that 'Home point has been refreshed' message is confusing and scary. DJI doesn't give this message at such condition.

In my last flight, after signal reconnected and HP freshed, I hit RTH and Lite+ turned around and flew towards me. I entered the menu wanting to make sure, and the three buttons are white( see pic attached), so I tapped ME to ensure.

When the signal is lost the drone is expected to return to the last home point set, be it default (lauch pad) or 3rd point set previously, it just cannot be aircraft position at that moment. I hope it is just a wrong and unnecessary message that needs a fix, otherwise it is a big issue.

Just FYI - In "Autel Speak" - Homepoint "Aircraft" - means where you took off from. "ME" means controller position and "Custom" means, well... custom. So many folks think "aircraft" means the CURRENT position of the drone. I thought so at one time as well. Test this if you doubt me.

 

[gschulzuio]

I was so nervous I didn’t even try that.

No worries, its one of those things if you have never done or practiced it, not something you think about doing when things are chaotic. Likewise on the EVO IIs regular controller its easy to forget that you can use the built in display if the app & its device stop working, just unplug.

 

[surenmunoo]

I had a similar issue. Homepoint was updated on takeoff, flew out 500 meters doing an Orbit HyperLapse and drone disconnected, I waited for over 5 minutes for it to RTH and nothing, lucky it was not far so I went there and drone reconnected when I was under the drone, brought it down. This happened only once and no one could answer me as to why, also the flight logs don't register every flight in the app so I could not exculpate this with Autel support. This drone is very concerning and looks to be worse than the M3 with issues.

 

[johnmartin]

Yesterday while recording a video of a lighthouse from the penthouse area, an open area with no obstruction. I lost total connection with my drone. The Sky app went gray and no “return to home” message. I waited like a minute and nothing. So I started closing the App and opening the app again and the drone connected to the app for a sec and gray screen again. So I kept closing and opening the app and try to direct the drone on my direction a second at a time.
There were time when I closed the app and opened and nothing. At one time while far away it updated the home point to were it was flying and my heart dropped even more. So I kept trying to fly towards me a sec at a time until I-was able to fly back. In the picture you can see how far I was. I was positioned over the light house so I think that might have cause the disconnecting. What do you guys think?

Remember you can control your drone even if you lost connection of video. If you have that situacion again try gain height or fly the aircraft to the opposite route that you had when you lost imagen transmission.

My ideas to help you

 

[surenmunoo]

I finally got a response from Autel saying they will replace my drone with a new kit. Hopefully the new drone works better.

 

[DARKSeifer]

I finally got a response from Autel saying they will replace my drone with a new kit. Hopefully the new drone works better.

I bet it'll be the same (wandering gimbal, random disconnections, etc), as they seem to be caused by software, sadly it's the end of March, and they haven't released a new firmware since January and there are a lot of things to fix.

 

[gschulzuio]

also the flight logs don't register every flight in the app so I could not exculpate this with Autel support. This drone is very concerning and looks to be worse than the M3 with issues.

Keep in mind you can upload your logs to a tool/service such as airdata where you can see much more than what the app shows, including virtual replay of the missions, what the sticks were doing and more.