Finally got the Inspire out today to try it's maiden flight, after waiting on prop locks, batteries, etc.

Well, I went through everything / preflight. Dual controllers are mated up, completed compass calibraton and IMU calibration, app says safe to fly. I try starting the motors with the sticks and "ESC Error, Cannot take off" comes on the screen. Over and over no matter what we do, same error, and Inspire sits there quiet. It has to be something we're missing. Any ideas?

Are the motors running? Is there a yellow light on front LED?

Motors won't even start up, manually or automatic mode. The green LED just flashes, no yellow. Everything appears fine, it just won't do anything.

It's a defect, there have been a few of these reported. You will need to send it in for repair.

Correct.. The Inspire ESC are bidirectional. The ESC are either not able to talk with the motor or fc. Contact support

Ugh. Brand new and already a defect. I contacted support via the live chat and they said they'd "get back to me". So now I get to wait to ship it back to who knows where, then wait for it to come back from who knows where. I'm guessing weeks.

So much for ready to fly. A $3,500 boat anchor.

I have the same issue with my new i1 took it for one flight and seemed ok although it took a few times hitting the stick commands to get the motors to start. took it for another flight same thing although i noticed one of the green lights on the back of the rear motors wasn't on. This evening went to take a flight and now it says "ESC Error, Cannot take off" message in the app and the motors won't start at all. any ideas?

I've reached out to DJI support twice now and the response/support is laughable. I waited a week after they said they'd be in touch. Now i'm on them again and it's like copy/paste responses in broken engrish.

This is very Sad to hear, I am very sorry, at least the ESC didn't fail while it was not in flight when the ESC failed.