I was flying over the mountain of the remote area with full battery charge, far away from cities, very small amount of signal interference (i guess).
It reached 1.2 kilometers of distance before signal lost and then RTH successfully without any issues.
While my battery still has enough juice after it came in front of me, so i decided to do quickshot mode (dronie / helix) before i end that flying session.
And after the dronie mode has ended, suddenly "no signal" occured right away when it start to return to the original position which was only few meters in front of me.
This "no signal" triggered the spark's failsafe RTH kicked in since it happened more than 3 seconds with no signal recovery at all.
And since it was less than 20meters distance, so the RTH process has been executed WITHOUT climbing to RTH altitude, and it straight to go landing instead.
So i ran downhill to the spark's position right away in order to catch it before it hit the tree branches, and there was no plain surface under the spark.
Of cource it leave me some "marks" on my right hand using it's spinning props.
So, the main question is :
What was the cause of this BLACKUOT for about 25 seconds?
Even the R/C to A/C connection was succesfully recovered after 25 seconds, but the R/C to cellphone connection was never successfully recovered on that flying session.
I found nothing in the WIFI SSID search on my DJI.Go App or my cellphone WIFI's settings.
Of couse everything back to normal after i had the R/C restarted. But this experience leave me some kind off worries, if this could be happen again someday in the wrong place ....
WOW that's a strange one.. Almost like you switched it off.. Glad you got it back. I would check firmware all loaded to latest versions and re calibrate RC as well as IMU and Compass again. Maybe you did have some sort of Interference. Did you use a OTG cable? MKPSG12 asked that above..
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 00:12
WOW that's a strange one.. Almost like you switched it off.. Glad you got it back. I would check firmware all loaded to latest versions and re calibrate RC as well as IMU and Compass again. Maybe you did have some sort of Interference. Did you use a OTG cable? MKPSG12 asked that above..
I thought i did shut the R/C down by accident, but as you can hear in the video there is no "shutdown" or "booting" tone come out of my R/C's speaker. Even if i did accidentally shut the R/C down, so when did i turn it on again? By accident too?
I have this spark for less then one month, so i did every "unboxing" things (including IMU, compas, vision, joystick calibration) for not very long time ago. And last week i just updated my firmware, and i have confirmed all of the "about" screen status says it is the latest.
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 00:19
I thought i did shut the R/C down by accident, but as you can hear in the video there is no "shutdown" or "booting" tone come out of my R/C's speker. Even if i did accidentally shut the R/C down, so when did i turn it on again? By accident too?
I have this spark for less then one month, so i did every "unboxing" things (including IMU, compas, vision, joystick calibration) for not very long time ago. And last week i just update my firmware, and i have confirmed all of the "about" screen status says it is the latest.
Hopefully the DJI guys & Girls might have an answer for you. I hope it's not a faulty RC or drone.. Maybe just needs firmware reloaded. See what DJI says..
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 00:24
Hopefully the DJI guys & Girls might have an answer for you. I hope it's not a faulty RC or drone.. Maybe just needs firmware reloaded. See what DJI says..
Thank you for your attention sir.... really appreciate it....
Obviously, the LOG was cut at the time exactly when the signal lost occured, as we can see on the video.
So no logs as well... Hmmmm... I'm hoping for your sake it's software related and not a Hardware issue. Safer to get some info from DJI b4 u fly it again just in case it does it further away from you.
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 00:39
So no logs as well... Hmmmm... I'm hoping for your sake it's software related and not a Hardware issue. Safer to get some info from DJI b4 u fly it again just in case it does it further away from you.
Actually, this experience does leave me some worries to do the next flight, but i know this incident doesn't seem to be an absolute probability that would happen again over and over. So, what i can do to prevent same thing happen is to make sure my surrounding has enough space for me to right away run to get it when this happen again... OL
Honestly, i already have experience 3 strange symptoms of my DJI Spark in the very short periode less than a month of using it. I consider those 3 issues is too much compared to my 3 years of droning experiences with no issue at all. i will post a review about my spark issues in my youtube channel soon....
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 01:13
Actually, this experience does leave me some worries to do the next flight, but i know this incident doesn't seem to be an absolute probability that would happen again over and over. So, what i can do to prevent same thing happen is to make sure my surrounding has enough space for me to right away run to get it when this happen again... OL
Honestly, i already have experience 3 strange symptoms of my DJI Spark in the very short periode less than a month of using it. I consider those 3 issues is too much compared to my 3 years of droning experiences with no issue at all. i will post a review about my spark issues in my youtube channel soon....
Yeah I know what you mean. You start to lose confidence in flying the Spark when things go wrong. All you can do is fly in an open area with little interference around. Make sure Firmware is always up to date and calibrate compass and IMU... and set your RTH point.
Well, I had the same exact thing happening to me but in my case I was at home. I was playing around with the setting when suddenly my mobile showed an Aircraft Disconnected status while the RC was on a solid green light. The RC stopped broadcasting any WiFi signal and I think it's a bug in the RC's software.
This same behavior occurred a second time while flying 100meters up. I couldn't see anything on my screen but had full control over the AC. Had to return and reboot everything. Never occurred again after that...fingers crossed :-)
The spark is a platform where you learn to cope with every possible problem you could encounter while flying a drone before you get yourself a real one :-) I'm very lucky that I still have mine, haha
Only thing that would concern me is the fact if the app drops out you can still control the Drone with the RC. In some cases however some people have no control with the controller as well.
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 01:26
Yeah I know what you mean. You start to lose confidence in flying the Spark when things go wrong. All you can do is fly in an open area with little interference around. Make sure Firmware is always up to date and calibrate compass and IMU... and set your RTH point.
MartyTravels Posted at 2018-8-16 01:56
Well, I had the same exact thing happening to me but in my case I was at home. I was playing around with the setting when suddenly my mobile showed an Aircraft Disconnected status while the RC was on a solid green light. The RC stopped broadcasting any WiFi signal and I think it's a bug in the RC's software.
This same behavior occurred a second time while flying 100meters up. I couldn't see anything on my screen but had full control over the AC. Had to return and reboot everything. Never occurred again after that...fingers crossed :-)
I had weird experience too, when i got "no signal" message, video was totally gone, but control still there so i can push my spark further relying on altitude, distance and map information only.
I really need more time to understand this spark behaviour....
I use Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro when this case happened.
But other than that, sometimes i switch to Xiaomi MiA1 and Xiaomi Redmi note 4x.
All of them run smoothly without any lag or jaggy response, and never had any overheating, crash, or device restart which i experienced when i was using older device...
I use them a lot along with my other drones Phantom 4 standard and Mavic Pro.
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 05:04
I had weird experience too, when i got "no signal" message, video was totally gone, but control still there so i can push my spark further relying on altitude, distance and map information only.
I really need more time to understand this spark behaviour....
Just today I had an issue where my Live Video Feed froze but everything in the app was still working. I had full control with the RC but no video feed and the Drone was only 50m away. DJI suggested I re install the app and try with my spare phone.
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 04:15
Only thing that would concern me is the fact if the app drops out you can still control the Drone with the RC. In some cases however some people have no control with the controller as well.
Actually, the main question of this thread is "Why the spark disconnected for about 25 seconds before it re-gain connection by it self?"
So, what you said about "some people have no control with the controller as well" is actually more likely same as this case. Because there was 25 seconds of "no control" even if then recovered by its own, everything seem a little bit too late.
Naaa, I restarted the app and still same behavior...if any I would need to blame the phone (Android) because there was no WiFi signal from the RC...but I heavily doubt that. That was definitely the RC's fault.
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 05:20
Actually, the main question of this thread is "Why the spark disconnected for about 25 seconds before it re-gain connection by it self?"
So, what you said about "some people have no control with the controller as well" is actually more likely same as this case. Because there was 25 seconds of "no control" even if then recovered by its own, everything seem a little bit too late.
I had a flight last week where i had no control for 2-3 minutes and the Spark flew off by itself. My logs showed that I lost GPS mid flight and it went into ATTI mode. The drone came up with Yaw Errors, compass Errors and IMU Errors. ALL I can say it was like it lost it's settings. I was lucky I got GPS back and was able to get the Drone Back. I could only turn drone left or right, nothing else on the Controller worked. I was doing a live feed to Facebook.. You can watch what happened to me.
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 05:26
I had a flight last week where i had no control for 2-3 minutes and the Spark flew off by itself. My logs showed that I lost GPS mid flight and it went into ATTI mode. The drone came up with Yaw Errors, compass Errors and IMU Errors. ALL I can say it was like it lost it's settings. I was lucky I got GPS back and was able to get the Drone Back. I could only turn drone left or right, nothing else on the Controller worked. I was doing a live feed to Facebook.. You can watch what happened to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qau399MEZ4&t=3s
That was definitelly a "fly away", glad it wasn't ended bad.
This video would take me a lot of question to understand.
Is that a video you took from SDCard?
MartyTravels Posted at 2018-8-16 05:21
Naaa, I restarted the app and still same behavior...if any I would need to blame the phone (Android) because there was no WiFi signal from the RC...but I heavily doubt that. That was definitely the RC's fault.
Agreed. This is the time after i catch my spark and leave them as it was.
You can see that my phone's wifi setting can't find RC's SSID.
But the control is actually connected showed by the RC's green led.
MartyTravels Posted at 2018-8-16 05:21
Naaa, I restarted the app and still same behavior...if any I would need to blame the phone (Android) because there was no WiFi signal from the RC...but I heavily doubt that. That was definitely the RC's fault.
Well, what I can say is that after the last firmware update the performance is solid. No problems except the small range outside the USA. The fake GPS trick doesn't work anymore :-( .... but maybe that's what caused the malfunction in the first place...I guess we'll never know :-)
Hi, thanks for reaching DJI Forum. We do apologize for having issues with your DJI Spark. The dronie will only be effective within the maximum of 40 meters the range of Distance is from 10 meters to 60 meters when the aircraft is only connected to DJI GO 4, and that is from 10 meters to 120 meters when the aircraft is connected to the remote controller. Distance refers to the horizontal distance from the location where Dronie is enabled to the location where the shooting mission is complete. The maximum speed is 3 m/s. In Helix, the default Distance value is 40 meters. The range of Distance is from 10 meters to 75 meters when the aircraft is only connected to DJI GO 4, and that is from 10 meters to 150 meters when the aircraft is connected to the remote controller. Distance refers to the distance from the location of the object to be orbited to the location where the shooting mission is complete. The maximum speed is 6 m/s. We're here to help you with this. Thank you.
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 06:11
That was definitelly a "fly away", glad it wasn't ended bad.
This video would take me a lot of question to understand.
Is that a video you took from SDCard?
No it was a live stream to Facebook so the quality is far less. Then it was converted from Facebook so I could post it on youtube and it reduced resolution again.. So it's very poor resolution.
DJI Gamora Posted at 2018-8-16 11:36
Hi, thanks for reaching DJI Forum. We do apologize for having issues with your DJI Spark. The dronie will only be effective within the maximum of 40 meters the range of Distance is from 10 meters to 60 meters when the aircraft is only connected to DJI GO 4, and that is from 10 meters to 120 meters when the aircraft is connected to the remote controller. Distance refers to the horizontal distance from the location where Dronie is enabled to the location where the shooting mission is complete. The maximum speed is 3 m/s. In Helix, the default Distance value is 40 meters. The range of Distance is from 10 meters to 75 meters when the aircraft is only connected to DJI GO 4, and that is from 10 meters to 150 meters when the aircraft is connected to the remote controller. Distance refers to the distance from the location of the object to be orbited to the location where the shooting mission is complete. The maximum speed is 6 m/s. We're here to help you with this. Thank you.
So, what was the cause of that 25 seconds "black out" ?
Greg F Posted at 2018-8-16 15:24
No it was a live stream to Facebook so the quality is far less. Then it was converted from Facebook so I could post it on youtube and it reduced resolution again.. So it's very poor resolution.
Very strange, i can say that the video feed is really smooth.... So you didn't have any problem to watch the FPV did you? You only lost the control not the video.... is that right?
Oracle Miata Posted at 2018-8-16 10:57
I will say that it would be hard to figure this out without using multiple phones to see if it's the RC or the phone. That is stating the obvious.
May be you can look into my detailed review about this incident at 06:38 --->
singgiha Posted at 2018-8-16 19:54
Very strange, i can say that the video feed is really smooth.... So you didn't have any problem to watch the FPV did you? You only lost the control not the video.... is that right?
On that occasion I lost control of the Drone when it was in the air in ATTI mode I didn't lose Video the entire time.. The opposite happened a few days ago Video feed froze but i still had control.. So i have had it do two opposite things..