Yesterday I started the flight from balcony at the 38th floor (out of 39). And about 8 minutes flying at the 115m altitude with 194m distance then the RC suddenly lost the signal with AC which I don't know why. There's no tall building blocking or whatsoever. My GO4 screen was totally greyed out and the RTH on screen was not functioning.

I managed to used the RTH button on RC and I've heard the beep beep sound but I couldn't see my drone. Based on a flight record, it shown that my drone has returned home but what I don't understand here, why I can't get back the signal/connection if it was really closed to my position. The last poistion of the drone was 18m above me, probably stuck on the roof during landing.

Well I've upload the flight log here.
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/IGRZF9ZLDRKPEYJBZO83/

Really appreciate if any of you can help me sharing your opinion about what has happened here. FYI guys I've lost 2 drone within 2 months (previous was on 15th July) and I'm feeling down and lifeless.. seriously it's too heavy to bear. Sorry but I think I'm done with drone .

There are many reports about MA suddenly disconnected and unable to reconnect. DJI didn’t explain why. What you can try is restart the RC when aircraft return closely and hope it can reconnect again.

Flight out from balcony is one of best way to lose your drone.

Hi Kamal Nor, we're sorry to hear the accident. Please kindly contact support@dji.com to start a case. If the unit is under warranty period, we'll offer you a proper solution according to the data analysis result.

When your drone was on Rth how would you expect it to land onto the balcony? That is the best way to lose a drone, do not fly from a balcony and always take off from the ground.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-8-26 20:20
Hi Kamal Nor, we're sorry to hear the accident. Please kindly contact  to start a case. If the unit is under warranty period, we'll offer you a proper solution according to the data analysis result.

Hi DJI Susan, thanks for the email contact. I've sent the report. FYI the drone is just 1 month old

Suren Posted at 2018-8-26 20:35
When your drone was on Rth how would you expect it to land onto the balcony? That is the best way to lose a drone, do not fly from a balcony and always take off from the ground.

Thanks Suren for your comment. FYI I have flown plenty of times from the balcony and never failed to returned before. I have set RTH point outside the balcony. The main problem here is lost signal without any warning or reason during the flight.

To me it looks as if you have crashed it into the building from which you had taken off. Obstacle sensors were not working because you were apparently flying at night. It might be at the bottom of the building or on one of the oher balconies.

GDL Posted at 2018-8-26 20:16
Flight out from balcony is one of best way to lose your drone.

This always amazes me. How many posts are there where people do this. Like someone who never learns from the 1st time they lost / crashed, and then complain they lost it - Again. Sorry but no sympathy at all. Save your money, go on a flying competency course, then buy a drone. Refer to page 47, point 2 of the MA manual.

Hi Kamal,

As more people have said ; flying away from a balcony is not a very wise thing to do.
Your drone had many many compass errors during flight, first one just after takeoff!
But compass errors not big enough to give a low or high warning in the app. (lucky you, so RTH did work)

RTH activated twice by you. First one back from 193 meters to 68. You cancelled RTH.
Second one from 58 meters to 0.4 ; autolanding started. (cancelled by you)
You must have seen the craft beacuse you did cancel autolanding at height of 23 meters, distance within 1 meter of HP.

Pulling down, height from 23 meters to 18 meters.....than nothing. So you was in control but you lost your craft.

Or you had no visual contact and you lowered your craft and it 'landed' somewhere...or you had visual contact and you flew it against something.

Your flight had 4x a disconnect at the end of your flight, all close to your building, guess you lost 'LOS' with the transmission signals.

PS if i want to fly from a balcony i would set the RTH height heigher than the building height above me and let it hover 20 meters in front of me and set there a new HP!So in case of a RTH if will fly back to a point in front of me. Cancel autolanding when its 20 meters close and bring it back manually.
But i will never do that!


cheers
JJB

What a flight location . Sorry to say its people like you that will ruin the hobby for the rest of us .

JJBspark Posted at 2018-8-26 23:19
Hi Kamal,

As more people have said ; flying away from a balcony is not a very wise thing to do.

Thanks a lot JJBspark for your time and effort with the detail explanation and a very smart analysis, I appreciate that very much. Well, I agreed with you flying from a balcony is not such a good idea. Since I’ve been flying so many times from a balcony before so it gives me so much confidence that I’m not gonna lose my drone but I was wrong.
The reason I kept cancelling RTH because I had no idea where my drone was (can’t see with my eyes) but in ‘find my drone’ page it looks like it just 2-3 meters away (exactly like my RTH point 2m away from balcony at 30m altitude).  I had zero visual on screen as it was totally grayed out. So I just pulled down the stick with the hope I could hear or see it. What I don't understand here, if it was really 2-3 meters away from me why I couldn't get back the signal, why my RC indicator stay red instead of green.

Good thing is: The drone is loud. If it was 2-3m away and you couldn't see it - could you hear it being close to you? I mean you can clearly hear the drone from hundreds of meters away and when you come closer it
gets so loud you can almost blindly land it without seeing it because you hear it.

saviour Posted at 2018-8-27 00:22
Good thing is: The drone is loud. If it was 2-3m away and you couldn't see it - could you hear it being close to you? I mean you can clearly hear the drone from hundreds of meters away and when you come closer it
gets so loud you can almost blindly land it without seeing it because you hear it.

Thanks saviour for your comment. Well strangely I didn't hear or seen my drone even though the 'fine my drone' page shown the drone just 2-3 meters away from me. Based on the Flight log, the last position was 1m distance and 18m altitude. It was closed enough for me to see or hear the drone or even get back the connection.

Kamal Nor Posted at 2018-8-27 00:12
Thanks a lot JJBspark for your time and effort with the detail explanation and a very smart analysis, I appreciate that very much. Well, I agreed with you flying from a balcony is not such a good idea. Since I’ve been flying so many times from a balcony before so it gives me so much confidence that I’m not gonna lose my drone but I was wrong.
The reason I kept cancelling RTH because I had no idea where my drone was (can’t see with my eyes) but in ‘find my drone’ page it looks like it just 2-3 meters away (exactly like my RTH point 2m away from balcony at 30m altitude).  I had zero visual on screen as it was totally grayed out. So I just pulled down the stick with the hope I could hear or see it. What I don't understand here, if it was really 2-3 meters away from me why I couldn't get back the signal, why my RC indicator stay red instead of green.

oke, when i said visual contact i ment your eyes to the drone, not to the screen.
Flying down with no idea where the drone is, oops not a very good decision.

If you have a GPS enabled device and only the video signal is lost you can use the little compass in the app. With the use of that its possible to fly back manually to where you are.
Something you can practise, very usefull in situations like you experienced.




cheers
JJB

Sorry to read that mate   the profile picture show your feeling

Kamal Nor Posted at 2018-8-26 20:38
Hi DJI Susan, thanks for the email contact. I've sent the report. FYI the drone is just 1 month old

The designated team will help and guide the further steps. If you encounter any difficulties during the progress, feel free to contact us with your case number, we'll be here all the time.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-8-28 22:13
The designated team will help and guide the further steps. If you encounter any difficulties during the progress, feel free to contact us with your case number, we'll be here all the time.

Thanks a lot DJI Susan. Appreciate that.

Kamal Nor Posted at 2018-8-28 23:52
Thanks a lot DJI Susan. Appreciate that.

You are welcome. Hope we can figure this out soon.

Wish you recover for new flights soon.

Sorry to hear mate.

How do you get flight logs to come up ?

Atlas_Aus Posted at 2018-8-31 00:34
Sorry to hear mate.

How do you get flight logs to come up ?

Hi there @Atlas_Aus. Thanks for your kind word.

Well as for flight logs. For Android mobile devices, connect your mobile device to a computer via a USB cable and go to DJI/dji.go.v4/FlightRecord. Sorry I can't help you if you're on IOS.

Guys this is an update.

  

After over a week I managed to get my drone back. As I said earlier, I believed that my drone did not crashed or flew away, instead it landed somewhere on top of the building. Based on a flight record as well as ‘find my drone’ coordinator, the drone was 18m above and 1m behind the home point. And it was confirmed by DJI in their email and asked me to find that given location.

  

Well the next day (Sunday) I managed to hire somebody to climb onto the roof to find it. Thanks god he found it landed nicely on the roof.  It was there over a week under the strong sun as well as heavy rain.The next day I bring it to test but I received an error ‘Cannot Takeoff : ensure the battery is properly connected’.  It has happened to all 3 batteries. After several attempts finally I managed to get rid the error and bring my drone back to the sky again. Feelings of that moment was indescribable.

  

Well as I said in my earlier post. I’m done with drone. I’ve lost 2 drones due to the lost signals and video feeds in mid-flight without any reason which is too ridiculous to me (maybe I just not good enough). Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for the support and concern. Those who got nothing nice to say as well... A few regular experts that have spent time to find the solutions… you guys are truly amazing.

A brave dude

One brave dude

Found MA

MA found landed nicely on the roof (1m away from the home point)

Diagram

The Diagram of missing drone

Great! Hope you have on;y good moments with it from now on.

Nice you got the MA back! Now have a look at "Mad RC:s" three part video series on Youtube before next flight. I really recomend it. Link to part 1:

Its a tough lesson for you and i hope u learn from it for the rest of your life
And thanks for sharing  so we will never think to fly our drones from balcony

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-9-4 21:16
Its a tough lesson for you and i hope u learn from it for the rest of your life
And thanks for sharing  so we will never think to fly our drones from balcony

Thanks @Amjad1983 for your comment. Not trying to be a smart @ss here but IMO flying a drone from balcony is not the real issue (to me at least) as I've been flying from there for many times before and never fails to return.  The real problem is the lost connection as well as video feed in the middle of the flight without any reason or warning. I lost my first drone also due to lost connection (even just within 800m).

fans5b3f5928 Posted at 2018-9-4 21:04
Nice you got the MA back! Now have a look at "Mad RC:s" three part video series on Youtube before next flight. I really recomend it. Link to part 1: https://youtu.be/g7Id3uZAICk

Hey mate,

Thanks for this video link. Part 2 just explained why I was getting compass errors... I could not figure out why I was getting them, I was not near any metal (so I thought) but of course there are metal rods in concrete reinforcing... Silly me.

You would think by my old age I would know everything, clearly I don't ! hahahahah

Kamal Nor Posted at 2018-9-4 20:22
Guys this is an update.
  After over a week I managed to get my drone back. As I said earlier, I believed that my drone did not crashed or flew away, instead it landed somewhere on top of the building. Based on a flight record as well as ‘find my drone’ coordinator, the drone was 18m above and 1m behind the home point. And it was confirmed by DJI in their email and asked me to find that given location.

Excellent news.

But don't give up droning, watch the videos posted above, it explains a lot and why you were probably more lucky than not that it did not happen more often for you. All that hidden metal on your balcony and you would have no idea it was there.. It all makes sense to me now

Atlas_Aus Posted at 2018-9-4 23:25
Hey mate,

Thanks for this video link. Part 2 just explained why I was getting compass errors... I could not figure out why I was getting them, I was not near any metal (so I thought) but of course there are metal rods in concrete reinforcing... Silly me.

Yep, it's really important to know this, I have not had the least problem since I saw the series, Mad RC is knowledgeable!
Fly safe!  

You can fly from anywhere you want. Hand launch/catch and set the home point away from the building after launch. Make sure rth is higher than all buildings in the area.

All this superstition I think comes from the app. Get a version that works and stick with it. You shouldn't have to deal with crashing while flying.

Check last GPS coordinates on yout DJI GO 4 APP flight record. Drone must be there.

You found it

Kamal Nor Posted at 2018-9-4 22:54
Thanks @Amjad1983 for your comment. Not trying to be a smart @ss here but IMO flying a drone from balcony is not the real issue (to me at least) as I've been flying from there for many times before and never fails to return.  The real problem is the lost connection as well as video feed in the middle of the flight without any reason or warning. I lost my first drone also due to lost connection (even just within 800m).

to solve connection issues i suggest you to switch to FCC mode  so you will lessen video signal disconnects and widen the range of flying as well
Ask mr Alex and he will guide you

I think his decision to give up flying is the right one. For both him and the general public!

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-9-5 03:05
to solve connection issues i suggest you to switch to FCC mode  so you will lessen video signal disconnects and widen the range of flying as well
Ask mr Alex and he will guide you

I was with FCC mode for both tragedies.

fans5b3f5928 Posted at 2018-9-4 21:04
Nice you got the MA back! Now have a look at "Mad RC:s" three part video series on Youtube before next flight. I really recomend it. Link to part 1: https://youtu.be/g7Id3uZAICk

thank you very much
now i understand why  my drone suddenly went from OPTI mode to ATTI mode  without good positioning
so to keep OPTI mode we should not fly beyond 8 meter height

It happend to my drone yesterday as well. The rc lost connection and didn’t reconnect. I was in line of site, and thankfully the drone landed where I took off. I wasn’t more then 50m up and not far away when it happend. Hope DJI can fix this in the firmware somewhere

Hi, I experience lost of live video feed, even the drone was just few meters away,(20-30meters away from me) . i was using a cheap lighting cable , and it was working flawlessly for 2-3 months, and suddenly have problem I have to reconnect overtime I turn on my drone. anyway I found out the problem was the cheap cable, now I used the apple lighting cable , yes its expensive but I never got the disconnect problem, when flying and no more re link the RC-drone again.

I still use the original cable from Dji and I also get the app disconnecting now and then.

All you have to do is switch the RC off and on and restart the app, mine always reconnect no matter how far out the drone is.
It happens so little that I have not yet bothered to try another cable though.