I was out having a nice cruise yesterday. Battery level was getting low. I have it set for 30% Warning and 20% Critical. I was already bringing it home and it was within 100 feet or so hovering right above me. It hit the 30% Warning and I got NO SIGNAL in red on the screen.

I still had visual control of the P4P. But the Screen was frozen, could not turn off the video, and the gimbal was frozen. I was able to land with no problem but I had never experienced this before and had let the battery go down much further in the past. I let it hover there for a couple minute to see if it would regain signal but it did not. I was out near the road with no buildings or trees around and a clear line-of-sight.

Anyone have this happen? Fluke or problem? I'll go out again today later and try it but was curious if other's experienced this.

Thanks

Very unusual. I've flown over 200h and this has never happened as close as 100 feet.

Could it be your app/device crashed / froze?  

Mark The Droner Posted at 2017-3-18 05:46
Could it be your app/device crashed / froze?

The controller and screen are all one - P4P+ - but I still had stick control just no control over video functions and the screen was working (NO SIGNAL)  but had no other control or info.

"Lost Signal within 100 Feet? Wazzup?"

Welcome to the club!
I constantly have the frozen screen problem, not mentioning the app crashing etc.

There are so MANY threads in different forums that it will take you a day to read them and figure out if they might be of any help:
CLICK HERE:
And these are only the English speaking forums.
You don't want to know how much this and other issues are being discussed in three different German forums.

Most official advices recommend all sorts of calibrations.
When you figure out that doesn't help, you dig into your app version and what problems are beeing reported about it.
Then you start wondering about your tablet...
Then you wonder about the SD card...
Then you are searching for obstacles causing magnetic interference...
Then you...

It's an endless effort and I haven't found the solution yet.

Hopefully you will not have the TILTING HORIZON problem.
That is just one more problem and you can do research 24/7 without ever getting bored ;-)

Eric13 Posted at 2017-3-18 07:01
"Lost Signal within 100 Feet? Wazzup?"

Welcome to the club!

Thanks for the panic attack .

I've been out three times since. My 2nd controller came (Besides the P4P+ with the 5.5" Android integrated I bought a 2nd controller using with my IPad Mini 2 or iPhone 7+). Since that day I have had no problems. It has only occurred that one time but it was a little jolt to the senses.

Will keep an eye on it though. I did firmware updated all around today and that always makes me nervous as well. I do hope that fixes the "twitch" in filming I was having occasionally.

Thanks

I had the same thing happen to me 2 days ago. My first flight with my brand new P4P in Beginner mode. Luckily I was able to land it and restart it.

The clue is in your first paragraph " the drone was hovering right above me" ,  presumably you had the RC at the usual attitude, therefore you were only sending out a small signal from the very tip of the antenna, and you drone was outside of the radio transmit window of your RC. if you had tilted the RC so that the antenna had the long axis pointing towards the sky i.e parallel to the ground , you may have regained control.

SPIKE_151 Posted at 2017-3-28 01:29
The clue is in your first paragraph " the drone was hovering right above me" ,  presumably you had the RC at the usual attitude, therefore you were only sending out a small signal from the very tip of the antenna, and you drone was outside of the radio transmit window of your RC. if you had tilted the RC so that the antenna had the long axis pointing towards the sky i.e parallel to the ground , you may have regained control.

SPIKE_151 has nailed it, the worst position for the aircraft, signal wise, is directly overhead.

Had the same thing happen to me once too, but I lost video signal _AND_ GPS, but luckily not the stick control. Meaning I had to visually locate my drone and land it without video. If I had lost the stick as well, I'm not sure what would have happened, since RTH relies on GPS.

Unfortunately since then (happened several months ago) I've had the chance to fly maybe a grand total of 5 minutes, and I have no idea if it was a one-time fluke, or defect in the drone, or something that's been fixed in the last couple firmware updates.

I was flying overhead, BTW, so that makes sense to have lost radio signal, but losing GPS is not explained by that, and besides, if you re-point the remote properly at the drone, it should re-connect right?

SPIKE_151 Posted at 2017-3-28 01:29
The clue is in your first paragraph " the drone was hovering right above me" ,  presumably you had the RC at the usual attitude, therefore you were only sending out a small signal from the very tip of the antenna, and you drone was outside of the radio transmit window of your RC. if you had tilted the RC so that the antenna had the long axis pointing towards the sky i.e parallel to the ground , you may have regained control.

Thank you for the tip. That may have been it as I have not had an issue since and have flown a couple hours since with two different controllers.

Thanks

This may help ,

I find this graphic confusing. Who holds the RC like that?
Note that the antennas are vertical! It's only a 60° angel towards the remote since the remote is being held in a strange manner.
I don't have signal issues anymore since I keep the antennas vertical unless the AC is above me.