Hi all, MA received last Monday.  Around 9 flights so far, loving it and cautiously getting to learn its behaviours!  Previously I spent many hours flying a £14 Hubsan Nano Q4 so I've had a good grounding on how to fly a drone.

I have noticed that while flying in sport mode, on a few occasions the MA has refused to respond to stick controls until I flip it back to P-mode.

On one occasion I was hovering and carefully lowering the drone down over a beach, looking for the VPS reading to confirm a few meters of height.  The drone was nowhere near hitting the ground.  At some point as I got closer to the ground, it refused to respond to any stick movements until the moment I flipped back to P-mode and control was resumed immediately.  Video feed was good the whole time and the drone was only about 50 meters away.  No prior warnings about interference or anything else.

On another occasion, it was when I was lowering the drone in front of me, such that the front sensors would probably have seen a fence about 4 meters away (if they were operating, I am aware in S-mode they are disabled).  I was in the process of trying to start a live facebook feed.

On another occasion, I was probably 20 meters up over a beach, around 500 meters away from the controller with some tree branches about mid way in line of sight.  I think the video got a bit choppy but it continued rolling.  Again the MA froze and refused to move until the exact moment I flipped back to P-mode.

I do not see any reference to any kind of fail safe mode in the manual where in S-mode the drone freezes in situations of getting close to something in front / behind / below, or experiencing weak signal.

Anyone experience the same?  Thoughts?

I will carry out some controlled tests to reproduce.

Andrew

Aloha Andrew,

     This is interesting.  Is everything up to date?  Do your tests and let us know how it goes.  Below are the release notes for May 3, 2018.  When you come across your firmware and app numbers compare them.  If there is an interesting combination, that may explain the unusual behavior and it will help us when we try to help others with this problem.  Mahalo for the information!

Aloha and Drone On!

Hey djiuser,
I think I have a similar issues:
https://forum.dji.com/thread-147265-1-1.html?mobile=2

Hi Andrew, I'm sorry to hear about the issue that you are experiencing. As Cetacean mentioned, please update the firmware to the latest one and try it again, if there is any further issue or update, please feel free to let us know. Thank you in advance!

I afraid you didn’t enable multiple mode on DJI Go 4. So even you switch to S mode the aircraft still fly in P mode. That’s why it stop when sensor detected something on the way.

Hi, I have not yet had chance to carry out some tests, however I can confirm that I am getting no firmware update messages.  Last checked on Saturday, from memory the MA is on *.0400 and controller on *.0100.

I see that a number of people have experienced loss of ability to control the MA in sport mode.  User GDL reports that he had to initiate RTH then was able to resume stick control.  Another user DJIFlo2 reports the MA stoved into a fence of its own accord.  The common factor being that they all occurred at low altitude, within VPS range.

This is quite concerning!  My suggestion to DJI would be to attempt to repro this by manoeuvring a MA slowly at low altitude in S-mode.  Offer it up to an obstacle in range of the forward facing distance sensors.  Alternatively fly high up and cause loss of signal by taking it say 600m away, with a tree between MA and controller.  Pan the video left and right while the signal is poor, it will immediately be apparent when the MA stops responding to sticks.  Flip back to P-mode and immediately it becomes responsive again.

Hope this helps.

I have to ask, if I try to reproduce this myself and the MA destroys itself in the process, where do I stand with replacement?  The report from DJIFlo2 about their MA flying full speed under loss of control makes me feel nervous to use it until this issue is understood.  Not just for the sake of the MA, for other people and property.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,
Please keep me in the loop in case you hear anything from DJI. As you know I am having a very similar issue. Will also keep you and everyone else posted... I really think this is an issue with the MA in combination with sport mode.

DJIFlo2 Posted at 2018-5-7 07:04
Hi Andrew,
Please keep me in the loop in case you hear anything from DJI. As you know I am having a very similar issue. Will also keep you and everyone else posted... I really think this is an issue with the MA in combination with sport mode.

Absolutely.  Whatever got MA into that state was for me, immediately recovered every time by throwing the switch back to P-mode.

I will be flying mine in the next hour and will try some stuff out in sport mode slowly at low altitude to see if I can get it to freeze again.  Away from people of course.  Finger ready on the S-mode > P-mode button!!

Just as additional info: that never happen on MP (I have never had to switch to P-mode because events like those)

I just flew a battery and attempted to repro the issue in sport mode at low altitude ~1m and near some bushes ~1m.  Negative repro, remained responsive in sport mode at all times.

Definitely no firmware update notifications.

By chance was the sun directly shining on the bottom/front sensors?  were you flying over water when this happened?  It can/will stop dead in its track if it thinks it is near hitting something and can be a false positive if sun shining directly on sensor and or reflection from something like water.  

SparksBird Posted at 2018-5-7 08:39
By chance was the sun directly shining on the bottom/front sensors?  were you flying over water when this happened?  It can/will stop dead in its track if it thinks it is near hitting something and can be a false positive if sun shining directly on sensor and or reflection from something like water.

No direct sunlight in three of my the S-mode loss of stick control events that I can remember.  I understand that in S-mode the optical collision avoidance is disabled.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Update, 3 flights carried out today, not a single problem in S-mode.

Quick summary from my end:
Just a few other users who seem to have the same problem, MA intermittently unresponsive after last firmware update:
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=147538
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=146987
Also, user GDL seem to have similiar issue in my post:
https://forum.dji.com/thread-147265-1-1.html

Update: DJI send me a new drone. So definitely something not right with latest firmware.

Update: I have flown about 40 times since first experiencing the problem, it has not happened again!  No change to any configuration.