Had a very frustrating experience yesterday on a commercial shoot: I was in Class G airspace ~1.5 miles from a rural airport (WESTOVER FIELD AMADOR COUNTY) that the DJI app considered a No Fly Zone. I requested and received an unlocking authorization that morning for 10/27/17 - 10/30/17. But when I went to fly on 10/27, I could not take off. No amount of restarting worked, and I even applied for and received a second authorization that was also not honored.
(I have flown in this exact spot before with an authorization, so I know it can work.)


Needless to say this was highly frustrating for both me and my client.

What happened and how do I avoid this in the future?

On the few occasions I have used the NFZ unlock, I made sure the unlock was synced to DJI Go - ie. whilst still connected to the internet.
You can check in DJI go/Me/More....

PaulSouthport Posted at 2017-10-28 07:39
On the few occasions I have used the NFZ unlock, I made sure the unlock was synced to DJI Go - ie. whilst still connected to the internet.
You can check in DJI go/Me/More....

Thanks -- I actually tried that. Opened the app from home, and saw the authorization. Went online on-site, too, and verified the app had the authorization and that it was valid. So the app had the authorization, but it wasn't applying it to the Equipment screen when I was trying to fly.

Peregrine Posted at 2017-10-28 08:43
Thanks -- I actually tried that. Opened the app from home, and saw the authorization. Went online on-site, too, and verified the app had the authorization and that it was valid. So the app had the authorization, but it wasn't applying it to the Equipment screen when I was trying to fly.

You're not the first with problems, unfortunately not the last.
https://forum.dji.com/thread-116377-1-1.html

In my opinion DJI shouldn't be allowed at all to control when and where people from other countries are allowed to fly!
Best of luck to you.

Had you contacted this case to the flysafe team? Please send an email to flysafe@dji.com for a further help.

Welcome to big brother DJI...your friendly neighborhood redundant airspace control authority located right down the street in China...
I'm no fan of this system or process!

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-29 03:21
Had you contacted this case to the flysafe team? Please send an email to  for a further help.

I haven't -- thanks for the email.

I had a similar problem this weekend. I had a Mavic and a P4P to do a shoot a half mile from Class D. (I did contact the airport before my flight).
The P4P worked fine with the unlock. The Mavic did not.

Going back to see what had happened I realized that the controller serial number did not match in the DJI Go 4 app versus what was labeled on the back.

Not sure if it helps, but recommend you look at the controller serial number in the software rather than relying on the back of the controller.

Regards!

Avi8tor0 Posted at 2017-10-30 06:18
I had a similar problem this weekend. I had a Mavic and a P4P to do a shoot a half mile from Class D. (I did contact the airport before my flight).
The P4P worked fine with the unlock. The Mavic did not.

Do you mean you brought the wrong Mavic RC?
Clever thought, thanks for the suggestion.

Same problem! And I have my FAA license. Talk about overstepping...

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-29 03:21
Had you contacted this case to the flysafe team? Please send an email to  for a further help.

How about if they respond to the thread and actually actively help?!

OK, solution found. (Went back-and-forth a couple times with flysafe@dji.com a couple times and they were no help at all -- didn't even seem to understand the problem I was having. I figured this out for myself.)

Turns out there's an option in the Remote Controller settings you have to turn on in order for the unlocking authorization to work. I never had to do this before, so it's either new or now turned off by default.

With both the RC and aircraft on, go to Main Controller Settings > General Settings (...) > Unlocking List. This will (theoretically) show you a list of your currently valid unlock authorizations. You then have to "turn on" your authorization for it to work.

Why in Heaven's name you have to go in and do this manually I don't know, but it's cumbersome after already jumping through the hoops to get it in the first place and unnecessary, and EXTREMELY frustrating to have to dig through and find this stuff.

SO  leaning about the yellow zone my self.
  I used a PC  and the link below to get authorization for a zone.  Then pulled up all and synced and it shows on my app... then I go to the zone, and tried to fly it told me NO.  I have to walk through all the live check boxes and stuff to get it to fly.  then when done. I happen to check my app for my unlocked zones, and Now I have 2 for that same zone... the 3 day pass I did on PC, and a 24 hour pass I did on my phone.

SO is this still the case there is some menu when the bird is connected to tell your controller, HEY I have already unlocked said zone?  Guess I will go hunting in the app when I fly next time  I know this is a old thread so anyone that knows about this in august of 2018 a replay would be great.



EDIT:  found this menu only shows when controller and bird are connected.  

Second Edit..found the issue.

First when I did it online I used my RC serial number not the Flight Controller....... this was part of the issue.  that's why when all connected it only sees the 24 hour one. as its was the only valid one, but the DJI app sees the other as it was done using my account so they show even though they are not good to any aircraft.  I read flight controller and my brain read controller.....

So once your have the right serial number....
Then once connected you can see the menu for unlocking License,
Then hit sync... which pulls the authorization from the other side of the DJI app that has all the accounts authorizations in it...
Then you can hit import to aircraft your connected to, to send them to the aircraft side of the menu....

And THEN you can select the aircraft button and slide the green button to turn on that authorization zone you need.

I tried to authorize the same zone for 6 days,(3 days, and then 3 days after thatone) and all it did was cancel the first 3 days and make it the last 3... so then I did it again to make it the first 3 days.  I guess you can't have multiple authorization dates for the same zone.  You can have multiple zones at the same time, but not multiple planned dates for the same Zone. Not sure if you can slide the green button on for 2 zones at once or not yet.