Just powered up my P4P 2.0 within wi-fi range and got that message.

Who's been using the new firmware and how does it behave? Any problems? Any new flight restrictions?

Is it possible to continue flying without updating?

Will it fire up, without the update?

What version of firmware/software are you using presently?


RedHotPoker

You are (normally) not forced to update anything. So you should still be able to fly as you were before. However, while aircraft and RC updates are your choice, the Go 4 app is another story. It can from time to time update automatically and then require you to update the aircraft and RC unit. To stop this hapenning, disable auto updates of the Go 4 app on your phone or tablet.,

Hi. Looking at the thread for each firmware release announcement is typically a good place to start to have your question answered: https://forum.dji.com/thread-154139-1-1.html

From what I read, the update is harmless and fixes some bugs. My only suggestion is to update, reset to factory default, then refresh again. I haven't ever had an issue when installing new firmware this way.

Punchbuggy Posted at 2018-7-4 18:35
Hi. Looking at the thread for each firmware release announcement is typically a good place to start to have your question answered: https://forum.dji.com/thread-154139-1-1.html

From what I read, the update is harmless and fixes some bugs. My only suggestion is to update, reset to factory default, then refresh again. I haven't ever had an issue when installing new firmware this way.

I was running current firmware being the version just before this new one came out.

I'll check out that thread and see what people's experience is like. A couple days ago, there was no one who had reported having updated to this new version.

Less than a month to my wife's taking this drone overseas, so I don't want to screw it up with a botched update.

I’m running the 1.00.15.00 firmware on my P4P V2.0 and haven’t had any problems.

Uschi’s Phantom Posted at 2018-7-4 20:35
I’m running the 1.00.15.00 firmware on my P4P V2.0 and haven’t had any problems.

When you updated the firmware this month, did you have to update all your batteries too?

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-5 06:28
When you updated the firmware this month, did you have to update all your batteries too?

I only have the 1 battery right now.  I'll be getting more batteries in soon and we'll see if I have to update the firmware on them too.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-5 06:28
When you updated the firmware this month, did you have to update all your batteries too?

Yes each battery has to be updated, also if you have any older P4 batteries they as well.

ATJ Posted at 2018-7-5 13:49
Yes each battery has to be updated, also if you have any older P4 batteries they as well.

I did the update this evening. It all seemed to go well. I did notice an abnormal IMU after it rebooted along with a calibration prompt, so I did that and then all readings were nominal on the next boot.

When I powered it on to take off later on, I noticed the camera gimbal up/down didn't work. I re-calibrated the controller sticks and gimbal control and restarted the AC. Seemed to work okay after that. So I took it up for a short flight.

As the AC behaved nominally, I decided to go for a little excursion about 2500' and come back. I noticed that at the edge of the signal coverage zone, I got the red warning about weak video transmission, but the video feed was not breaking up. I turned the AC around and started to return, but he weak transmission message didn't go away like it normally does when I start to return or raise altitude. It remained on until I got within 1400' of the takeoff location.

The other thing I noticed is more pop up warnings about wind, air space, etc. Usually, these would clear on their own after a minute or so, but not this time. They started to become so numerous that they obstructed my screen view and I had to manually cancel them one by one.

Other than I don't like that hysteresis on the weak signal warning (that should go away as soon as signal returns) I noticed no serious issues. I used to use the weak signal warning as a means of determining my safe flying radius, but now it just gets stuck on once it triggers, so I have no idea if I returned to a strong signal area or not.
Oh, one other thing... it took MUCH longer than usual to acquire enough satellites to fly. After a minute, usually it has 12-13. This flight, under blue skies, it only had 6 satellites after a minute. 3 minutes passed before 11-12 and the status went green. I've never seen it take this long to acquire GPS. Usually it takes 30 -40 seconds to get to 11-12 and ready status. That's annoying for those quick deploy by the side of the road and fly situations where you want to get airborne as quick as possible. Having to set there 3 minutes as the battery drains down, until you get GPS is not all that good.

And one last item: the unit boots up with the red head lights on. Even though the switch is in the off position. It is necessary to toggle it to shut off the arm LEDs.

Upgraded my Firmware on my P4P V2.0 and haven’t had any problems. It was flawless before the update and remains so now.

Updated my P4P last week and  after 14 flights haven’t experienced any problems.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-5 16:12
I did the update this evening. It all seemed to go well. I did notice an abnormal IMU after it rebooted along with a calibration prompt, so I did that and then all readings were nominal on the next boot.

When I powered it on to take off later on, I noticed the camera gimbal up/down didn't work. I re-calibrated the controller sticks and gimbal control and restarted the AC. Seemed to work okay after that. So I took it up for a short flight.

"And one last item: the unit boots up with the red head lights on. Even though the switch is in the off position. It is necessary to toggle it to shut off the arm LEDs."

An observation on my P4P (not v2), is the red lights go out when I start video, and come on when I turn off video.

Tearuup Posted at 2018-7-6 06:28
"And one last item: the unit boots up with the red head lights on. Even though the switch is in the off position. It is necessary to toggle it to shut off the arm LEDs."

An observation on my P4P (not v2), is the red lights go out when I start video, and come on when I turn off video.

That's the expected behavior when the arm LEDs are turned on. But in my case, the toggle was in the OFF position and the arms were lit.

It was only one flight. I'll do more flights shortly.. fireworks is coming up Saturday. It's raining hard today, so I can't do anymore testing for now.

Today I took the second flight with the new firmware. This time the head LEDs were off on takeoff, like they should be.

We noticed that the camera had reverted to 4K 30 mode again, despite my setting it to 4K 24 after the firmware update.

The alarming part was that while my wife was setting up Active Track, the AIRCRAFT DISCONNECTED.  Battery was at about 53% when it happened. It was about 40' away at the time. She handed the RC to me and I found that I could still control it, but not completely. For instance, I pull back on the right stick and the AC would not go backward. I tried rebooting the Crystal Sky, but it never reconnected. Then I tried shutting off both the CS and the RC and restarting both, but again, it never reconnected. Had the drone been a mile or two off in the distance, I can see how a pilot would lose the drone.

I was finally able to manually land it, but the inability to go backwards to line up with the landing pad was disturbing.

We rebooted the drone and the RC/CS and finished up our training for the day on the remaining 45% battery.

I'm planning to shoot the fireworks tomorrow night in town, with a ground camera that is recording sound, plus the P4P 2.0 in the air for an alternate angle, but this disconnecting problem has me debating whether to ground the aircraft until the cause is found and corrected.
Looking at the log, there's no hint of a problem. The last entry is P-GPS, 16 satellites IMU alt is 22.3' VPS is 24' speed 0mph, home distance 81.6', battery 64%, no messages. So the AC disconnected and the log on the CS ends there with no hint of trouble.

Interesting.  I've had about 6 flights since the firmware update.  3 of them brought the batter down to 30% or less.  I haven't experienced any disconnects or inability to fly backwards.  Also it takes about 30 seconds to acquire 10+ satellites.  Are you going to contact DJI to try and get to the bottom of your problems?  They don't sound normal.

Uschi’s Phantom Posted at 2018-7-6 17:56
Interesting.  I've had about 6 flights since the firmware update.  3 of them brought the batter down to 30% or less.  I haven't experienced any disconnects or inability to fly backwards.  Also it takes about 30 seconds to acquire 10+ satellites.  Are you going to contact DJI to try and get to the bottom of your problems?  They don't sound normal.

I'm trying to determine what the problems are and if they are due to random accident or the new firmware. I will soon start relating these to DJI tech, although they don't seem to do anything (I have a ticket open from last month on another issue that they haven't followed up on).

The bad part about the disconnect is that there's no reconnection by rebooting the Crystal Sky. That could be disastrous if the drone were a mile or two out.

Seems to have settled down.. I flew three batteries worth tonight with the fireworks and zero glitches. Seems when I do the more dangerous stuff, it's reliable. It's when the drone is hovering in front of my face that it does peculiar things. Go figure. Got a fantastic fireworks show tonight.......  

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-6 20:40
I'm trying to determine what the problems are and if they are due to random accident or the new firmware. I will soon start relating these to DJI tech, although they don't seem to do anything (I have a ticket open from last month on another issue that they haven't followed up on).

The bad part about the disconnect is that there's no reconnection by rebooting the Crystal Sky. That could be disastrous if the drone were a mile or two out.

'That could be disastrous if the drone were a mile or two out.'

The aircraft should still be under full control via the RC unit. Phantoms have never made it an absolute necessity to have the display device functioning in order to fly the aircraft. You can always hit the RTH button.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-7 22:11
Seems to have settled down.. I flew three batteries worth tonight with the fireworks and zero glitches. Seems when I do the more dangerous stuff, it's reliable. It's when the drone is hovering in front of my face that it does peculiar things. Go figure. Got a fantastic fireworks show tonight.......  Fireworks in DCI 4K

Glad to hear things went smoothly for the fireworks show.  Here's hoping they continue to work without flitches.

And nice fireworks video.

Uschi’s Phantom Posted at 2018-7-8 11:54
Glad to hear things went smoothly for the fireworks show.  Here's hoping they continue to work without flitches.

And nice fireworks video.

I also should note that it was in the low 60s and dry, under clear skies. My display worked a charm. I could even see that I needed to switch to manual focus and was able to focus the Phantom's camera to infinity by remote control and see that it came into focus on the Crystal Sky. Meanwhile the 2" screen on my DSLR completely missed the fact that it was grossly out of focus. So I used only the drone footage.

I was somewhat relieved to see I was in good company, too. Saw at least three other drones in the sky over various parts of the park. Thanks to all the lighting on our drones, I was able to see and navigate to empty airspace and maintain a good distance. I was the only one that remained for the finale. My wife noted that the others started flashing their red lights about 10 minutes into the fireworks and soon vanished from the sky. I was up there over 23 minutes in addition to the time waiting on the ground for the show to begin. It all worked out perfectly. Almost better than my best hopes.

It seems like the kinks worked out after that second flight.

I do realize RTH is a last resort, but I don't like to rely on that either, because of the non-zero possibility something could go wrong with GPS reception. But yes, RTH would be my choice if contact were lost on the display. Also, if you know the last heading and it's away from your HP, just pulling back on the right stick should bring the AC into view shortly. But you have to be certain that the AC is pointing away from you and that you haven't applied any yaw at the last part of the trip.

What was your battery percentage when you brought it home? 23 minutes is a good long flight - it certainly makes us appreciate the long battery life the P4P gives us.

I've had nothing but problems since updating the firmware. I also updated the GO4 AP, so I'm not certain which is causing the problems, but I NEVER had disconnect issues before and now GO4 on my iPad mini constantly disconnects. What's weird is although the AP says AIRCRAFT DISCONNECTED, I can still control it; at least when it's in my line of sight. When it's not, I've waited up to 5 minutes before it finally connected again; luckily.  Oddly I do not have these same issues if I use my iPhone, but I have not updated the AP nor the IOS since updating the firmware, so my guess is something is amiss with the new firmware and the AP or IOS version.

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-8 21:37
I've had nothing but problems since updating the firmware. I also updated the GO4 AP, so I'm not certain which is causing the problems, but I NEVER had disconnect issues before and now GO4 on my iPad mini constantly disconnects. What's weird is although the AP says AIRCRAFT DISCONNECTED, I can still control it; at least when it's in my line of sight. When it's not, I've waited up to 5 minutes before it finally connected again; luckily.  Oddly I do not have these same issues if I use my iPhone, but I have not updated the AP nor the IOS since updating the firmware, so my guess is something is amiss with the new firmware and the AP or IOS version.

Which iPad is it? The GO4 App is demanding more and more resources as new versions come out.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-6 17:35
Today I took the second flight with the new firmware. This time the head LEDs were off on takeoff, like they should be.

We noticed that the camera had reverted to 4K 30 mode again, despite my setting it to 4K 24 after the firmware update.

Same disconnect keeps happening to me all the time now. Oddly you can still control the aircraft even though it says it's disconnected. Very disturbing though when the craft is out of sight and you need to wait for it to reconnect. The other odd thing I found is if you simply press the home button on the iPad and then open the AP back up, it instantly reconnects for a minute but then disconnects again. UGH!!! Now I'm afraid to fly any distance where I can't actually see the drone. Hope DJI fixes this soon. I'm going on vacation in less than a month and was planning on bringing this of course.

Geebax Posted at 2018-7-8 21:43
Which iPad is it? The GO4 App is demanding more and more resources as new versions come out.

iPad mini Version 11.4

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-8 22:05
iPad mini Version 11.4

Yeah, I don't know what that is. Generally speaking, people talk about having and iPad Mini 2 or 3 or 4.

Uschi’s Phantom Posted at 2018-7-8 14:46
What was your battery percentage when you brought it home? 23 minutes is a good long flight - it certainly makes us appreciate the long battery life the P4P gives us.

I was down around 20% as I was bringing it back. I also flew it about 2 miles (going backwards to get the town in the foreground then going toward the fireworks launch site and hovering for the remaining 18 minutes. I was still 6 minutes from mandatory RTH as I brought the AC to within hand catching distance.

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-8 21:37
I've had nothing but problems since updating the firmware. I also updated the GO4 AP, so I'm not certain which is causing the problems, but I NEVER had disconnect issues before and now GO4 on my iPad mini constantly disconnects. What's weird is although the AP says AIRCRAFT DISCONNECTED, I can still control it; at least when it's in my line of sight. When it's not, I've waited up to 5 minutes before it finally connected again; luckily.  Oddly I do not have these same issues if I use my iPhone, but I have not updated the AP nor the IOS since updating the firmware, so my guess is something is amiss with the new firmware and the AP or IOS version.

Which version of Go 4 are you running? I heard that 4.2.20 has a lot of problems. Supposedly the release notes claim they fixed something to do with flight zones, but if the code got much bulkier, that would not be good.
I'm staying with 4.2.16 until I hear otherwise.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-9 07:02
Which version of Go 4 are you running? I heard that 4.2.20 has a lot of problems. Supposedly the release notes claim they fixed something to do with flight zones, but if the code got much bulkier, that would not be good.
I'm staying with 4.2.16 until I hear otherwise.

Go 4 version 4.2.22

Geebax Posted at 2018-7-8 22:34
Yeah, I don't know what that is. Generally speaking, people talk about having and iPad Mini 2 or 3 or 4.

iPad Mini 2

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-9 08:34
Go 4 version 4.2.22

Where did you find that version? Play Store has 4.2.20 as of last night.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-9 06:58
I was down around 20% as I was bringing it back. I also flew it about 2 miles (going backwards to get the town in the foreground then going toward the fireworks launch site and hovering for the remaining 18 minutes. I was still 6 minutes from mandatory RTH as I brought the AC to within hand catching distance.

That's good battery life considering you were doing more than just hovering!

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-9 09:19
Where did you find that version? Play Store has 4.2.20 as of last night.

That's the newest IOS version:

Eric13 Posted at 2018-7-9 09:47
That's the newest IOS version:

[view_image]

I'm using Android-based Crystal Sky Ultra. So I guess the version difference is due to different O/S.

Mark Weiss Posted at 2018-7-9 10:57
I'm using Android-based Crystal Sky Ultra. So I guess the version difference is due to different O/S.

Is it true that the CrystalSky Go4 app is a different version from the Android Play Store one?
I have read that this one gets updates way later than the 'regular' Android Go4.

I was thinking about buying a CrystalSky. But by reading about it in this forum only it is quite discouraging.
The only advantage seems to be the super bright screen.

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-9 08:49
iPad Mini 2

I am sorry to tell you this, but the iPad Mini 2 is now too slow to cope with the increased demands of the Go4 App. The minimum is generally agreed to be a Mini 4 nowadays.

Geebax Posted at 2018-7-9 14:15
I am sorry to tell you this, but the iPad Mini 2 is now too slow to cope with the increased demands of the Go4 App. The minimum is generally agreed to be a Mini 4 nowadays.

It's odd it worked without a glitch perfectly until I updated the AP and the Firmware. Looks like I'll be using my iPhone to fly from now on.

Drone Coach Posted at 2018-7-9 15:02
It's odd it worked without a glitch perfectly until I updated the AP and the Firmware. Looks like I'll be using my iPhone to fly from now on.

Yes, that is what people are finding. As DJI releases new versions of the Go App, it is requiring more and more resources to run, and the devicves are running out of horsepower. You can of course use Litchi, it is a much lighter weight application, and works very well.

Geebax Posted at 2018-7-9 15:07
Yes, that is what people are finding. As DJI releases new versions of the Go App, it is requiring more and more resources to run, and the devicves are running out of horsepower. You can of course use Litchi, it is a much lighter weight application, and works very well.

Especially when you look at an app which is 422MB for download.
Never seen an app being that big.

Not a specialist about these things but I think while nursing more and more drones while blowing up all these BS kiddy items like editor and live streaming,
that app became some sort of cancer. It's asking all resources but Android and iOS keep refusing.

The modern iOS/Android versions don't allow the Go4 app what it is asking because it's asking way too much.
Just a theory of a 'Don't know' guy ;-)