Hello, folks. The poll is below the post.

I didn't find a consistent view on the problem, so here are my observations and questions. I've read several stories, in some cases people did not touch RCs, in some cases they rebooted RCs and that helped. Let's figure out what to do in such cases, as it looks like a common issue.

I've had a disconnect with my new MA followed by a succesful RTH, but the RC and app did not regain signal all the way back. It was red light on RC and black screen in the app. I had a lot of space to land, so it was OK, just scary. I was ascending after flying around the POI at a lower altitude with good wifi signal, and suddenly the connection was broken. In a couple of minutes MA appeared in the sky and landed OK. I did not touch RC or app, as I was unprepared for such event - all other drones always reconnected. RC reboot right after landing restored control and video link. I did not touch AC afer landing. App log is fine (Dropbox link below). In the last frame of the log there's action on the right stick, while going up I wanted to move AC a bit closer to me, but this can't be the reason given other telemetry.

Actually MA takes me back to the days of P2V+ in 2014, which was also WiFi controlled and effective range was 300-400m. However even P2V+ always recovered signal and RC control on the way back. P3P and MP also always acted this way.
Flight log from iPhone: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vck10b775shmgjm/DJIFlightRecord_2018-09-09_%5B14-30-52%5D.txt.zip?dl=0
Setup: MA with current ver .400. GO4 curent ver. iOS current ver. iPhone 6s+ used only with MP/MA.

I have DAT from MA too, but it seems useless now, no tools to decode.

--
P2V+ (2014-2015) -> P3P (2015-2017) -> MP (2017-2018) -> MA (2018) -> next M2P (coming soon)
Instagram: www.instagram.com/visionone_
YouTube:  youtube.com/visionone

Here's the poll:
What happened after Mavic Air connection loss? (RTH, RC light red, app disconnect)

Clarification:
1 - Signal just came back by itself, while MA was still doing RTH and was in the air
2 - Signal DID NOT come back by itself, MA RTH and landed with disconnected RC
3 - Signal DID NOT come back by itself, BUT RC restart helped  while MA was still doing RTH and was in the air
4 - Signal DID NOT come back by itself, BUT DJI GO4 app restart helped  while MA was still doing RTH and was in the air
5 - Flyaway or crash
6 - Other, please explain

Here is your complete flightrecord: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/8T6C7BRGHXWES8FUP1NG/
To me it looks very good indeed until the moment it stops. This is when you suddenly lost connection between aircraft and RC which was not restored as you correctly report. There was no weak signal message either that could have alerted you beforehand. Was your RC always directed towards the aircraft and was there a clear line of sight with no obstacles in between, e.g. the trees? To be honest I am not able to provide you any further explanation on what might have happened but hope that others here can. What should reassure you is the fact that the Mavic Air has done exactly what it is supposed to to in such a situation, it came back to you.

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-9-10 14:03
Here is your complete flightrecord: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/8T6C7BRGHXWES8FUP1NG/
To me it looks very good indeed until the moment it stops. This is when you suddenly lost connection between aircraft and RC which was not restored as you correctly report. There was no weak signal message either that could have alerted you beforehand. Was your RC always directed towards the aircraft and was there a clear line of sight with no obstacles in between, e.g. the trees? To be honest I am not able to provide you any further explanation on what might have happened but hope that others here can. What should reassure you is the fact that the Mavic Air has done exactly what it is supposed to to in such a situation, it came back to you.

Yes, I've checked full log and posted last images from phantomhelp and airdata. RC was directed correctly. Too bad we can't explore DATs from MA...

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-9-10 14:03
Here is your complete flightrecord: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/8T6C7BRGHXWES8FUP1NG/
To me it looks very good indeed until the moment it stops. This is when you suddenly lost connection between aircraft and RC which was not restored as you correctly report. There was no weak signal message either that could have alerted you beforehand. Was your RC always directed towards the aircraft and was there a clear line of sight with no obstacles in between, e.g. the trees? To be honest I am not able to provide you any further explanation on what might have happened but hope that others here can. What should reassure you is the fact that the Mavic Air has done exactly what it is supposed to to in such a situation, it came back to you.

And here's airdata analysis: https://app.airdata.com/share/ZengpK

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-10 14:07
Yes, I've checked full log and posted last images from phantomhelp and airdata. RC was directed correctly. Too bad we can't explore DATs from MA...

In my opinion you have done nothing wrong, just nothing would indicate that. You can always open a support ticket with DJI and let them analyse the blackbox data. Maybe they are able to provide you an explanation.

I had a similar issue with my MPP this weekend, except that it did not RTH when the disconnect occurred. We were flying in a mountainous area, and the screen went black with the red "Disconnected" appearing the top left hand corner about a half second after a weak signal warning popped up. I pressed the RTH, but the signal was already gone and as far as I can tell the flight record stopped recording the second the disconnect occurred. My buddy and I searched for the MPP, but couldn't find it anywhere. The crazy part is it was only about 4800 feet out at the time, which is a distance I have never had problems with. As far as I can tell it didn't even try to RTH when the signal loss occurred (which it was set to do).

I submitted my flight records and video to DJI for analysis that night, but am still waiting for their response. Has DJI given you any word yet?

Here is a link to the flight record if there is anything you might be able to tell me... https://www.phantomhelp.com/logviewer/4HZ61B7SZTSW00RJLQGA/

Note: the "interference" message at the start was because my buddy was still bringing his MP in for a landing at the time, but he was not flying when my loss of signal occurred.

Thanks in advance!

It might be an idea to place a summarised, single sentence question directly above your poll answers - you might get more responses as not everyone will read through your post

InvisibleName 7 Posted at 2018-9-10 22:31
It might be an idea to place a summarised, single sentence question directly above your poll answers - you might get more responses as not everyone will read through your post

Thank you, that's a good idea.

I have encountered with this situation 2 times already on my MA. All of sudden with WI-FI signal strength 3 or 4 bars it says : Aircraft disconnected!
Red light on RC controller, so no connection between RC and AC. It may happen if AC is 100m or 1500m from You. I thought that this is some bug in latest 0400 firmware, but one clever guy advised me, that there might be just a wi-fi channel interference. BTW this always happened to me with a Custom mode selected on WI-Fi settings and always on  one of the channels on 2.4 GHz. Never on 5.8 GHz!
RTH always worked like it should.
I never wait until the AC completely returns back, but reboot both DGI GO4 app and RC! The link is restored successfully in both cases, i cancelled RTH and took over the control of AC.
I have tried to reselect another wifi channel on 2.4GHz after landing AC and flew to the same place and distance, when disconnection occurred before. And it was successful trial.
So there is a question is it possible to avoid such situations in future? My answer is - NO! ( you never know what is the signal distortion ahead)

I voted for nr 1. But that said, I get signal loss on most of my flighs. RTH  will activate. I take manual control back, as soon as it got a signal again. This happens more than it should with MY MA.
RTH once, that came all the way back before signal connected again, and i manually landed the craft.

I am sure that interference and wi fi congested areas and, and and, plays a big role, BUT, out in Namibia, with NO city, town or any other things around for miles, and I mean miles, I had exactly the same problem, on more than one occasion. Disconnection, RTH activated and connection again at some point.
This happened at any distance, 100m, 800m nothing about it was consistent. That is how i fly it now, if it disconnects, i hope it stays in the air, wait for connection, and fly again. Not ideal, but not holding my breath for anyone to fix or get the issue to be better.

Charissa Posted at 2018-9-11 00:09
I voted for nr 1. But that said, I get signal loss on most of my flighs. RTH  will activate. I take manual control back, as soon as it got a signal again. This happens more than it should with MY MA.
RTH once, that came all the way back before signal connected again, and i manually landed the craft.

Did You try to change channels manually?

nixuspix Posted at 2018-9-11 01:30
Did You try to change channels manually?

Yes. I used FCC, CE, 2.4, 5.8 in all combinations, no luck. I honestly thought FCC would let me fly further than the 100 to 800m mark, but no.......

reider Posted at 2018-9-10 19:49
I had a similar issue with my MPP this weekend, except that it did not RTH when the disconnect occurred. We were flying in a mountainous area, and the screen went black with the red "Disconnected" appearing the top left hand corner about a half second after a weak signal warning popped up. I pressed the RTH, but the signal was already gone and as far as I can tell the flight record stopped recording the second the disconnect occurred. My buddy and I searched for the MPP, but couldn't find it anywhere. The crazy part is it was only about 4800 feet out at the time, which is a distance I have never had problems with. As far as I can tell it didn't even try to RTH when the signal loss occurred (which it was set to do).

I submitted my flight records and video to DJI for analysis that night, but am still waiting for their response. Has DJI given you any word yet?

Mavic Pro is quite different. Unlike Mavic Air (which is all-WiFi for control and video) MPP uses DJI's OcuSync for video on a separate (AFAIK) channel. There was a good post on that a couple years ago:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35826345&postcount=333.

I can't see problems with your flight, here's a more detailed log analysis from Airdata:
https://app.airdata.com/share/FTiyMJ

However, looking at google 3D map of your last known position I have to note that it looks like your MPP was already behind the ridge, out of VLOS. I don't know how high the ridge is, with your last height of 394.0 ft. https://goo.gl/maps/fuLTTJnc2UG2

In theory RTH with obstacle avoidance works, but that depends in such conditions - could be flying straight back into the mountain, or hovering until battery drain in front of an obstacle being unable to gain more height above 400 ft, that really depends on the algorightms. If it moved left to avoid obstacles - it worsened the case, as all we have is the mountain on the left and opening on the right... But that's a broad guess only...

nixuspix Posted at 2018-9-10 23:15
I have encountered with this situation 2 times already on my MA. All of sudden with WI-FI signal strength 3 or 4 bars it says : Aircraft disconnected!
Red light on RC controller, so no connection between RC and AC. It may happen if AC is 100m or 1500m from You. I thought that this is some bug in latest 0400 firmware, but one clever guy advised me, that there might be just a wi-fi channel interference. BTW this always happened to me with a Custom mode selected on WI-Fi settings and always on  one of the channels on 2.4 GHz. Never on 5.8 GHz!
RTH always worked like it should.

Forgot to mention that I was in FCC, 5.8, manual channel.
So you restart your RC while MA is flying?

Charissa Posted at 2018-9-11 00:09
I voted for nr 1. But that said, I get signal loss on most of my flighs. RTH  will activate. I take manual control back, as soon as it got a signal again. This happens more than it should with MY MA.
RTH once, that came all the way back before signal connected again, and i manually landed the craft.

You are lucky that connection restores in mid-air. My connection did not restore at all, even at 1 m after landing. Only after I restarted the RC.

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-11 03:20
You are lucky that connection restores in mid-air. My connection did not restore at all, even at 1 m after landing. Only after I restarted the RC.

I am lucky yes, but have to say, this irritates me a lot. This happens 2 out of 3 flights, disconnection, RTH and then reconnecting. One of these days, the drone will not return, or not connect.....................
It is like driving a car with a severely cracked windscreen, that NO one can or want to fix. You do it, you hate it, but you are also stuck with it....

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-11 03:17
Forgot to mention that I was in FCC, 5.8, manual channel.
So you restart your RC while MA is flying?

No no. Never. Only after it was landed

Charissa Posted at 2018-9-11 03:23
I am lucky yes, but have to say, this irritates me a lot. This happens 2 out of 3 flights, disconnection, RTH and then reconnecting. One of these days, the drone will not return, or not connect.....................
It is like driving a car with a severely cracked windscreen, that NO one can or want to fix. You do it, you hate it, but you are also stuck with it....

With WiFi control and video transmission it's always like that. That's the price we  have to pay right now for the weight/size in Spark and MA. All other drones use Lightbridge and Ocusync proprietary tech and have better range. Maybe DJI will fix this in the Air 2.

Actually, if the signal comes back that's not a big deal, back in 2014 with Phantom 2 his was the only way to fly, as range was really small.

The worst case it no signal reconnect at all and automatic landing, which is risky.

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-11 03:58
With WiFi control and video transmission it's always like that. That's the price we  have to pay right now for the weight/size in Spark and MA. All other drones use Lightbridge and Ocusync proprietary tech and have better range. Maybe DJI will fix this in the Air 2.

Actually, if the signal comes back that's not a big deal, back in 2014 with Phantom 2 his was the only way to fly, as range was really small.

Hmmm, don,t know if the video feed should always freeze, lag or not work, with this kind of drone. Maybe the cheapies with the cheap cameras. One would think that DJI won,t ask a half of a arm and leg, for something that they know would disconnect, reconnect, freeze and lag.....
If you want a toy drone, with poor connection etc, there is cheaper options available. We went for the hype, the stable, the distance we can fly, the good camera, and all the things they advertised.
Most people get it, lots don,t.

It happened to me for the first time last week. I was about 500m or 600m away and kind of 70 or 90m up. Signal losses are commom but this time it simply disconnected. I was using the googles, changed position, lifted my arms, disconnected it and nothing changed. Restarted the app and nothing changed also. Thought maybe something hit my drone and I could have lost it because I have done that several times before in the same place and nothing bad happened. It only came back when I restarted the RC. I think it was already returning home but I was too focused on the other things to bring it back immediately then checking if RTH was in action.
Definitely a bug. Likely with the RC. Others have reported the same before. Untill DJI gets some shame and acknowledge this issue and fix it, please RESTART YOUR REMOTE MIDFLIGHT to recover control.

Charissa Posted at 2018-9-11 04:27
Hmmm, don,t know if the video feed should always freeze, lag or not work, with this kind of drone. Maybe the cheapies with the cheap cameras. One would think that DJI won,t ask a half of a arm and leg, for something that they know would disconnect, reconnect, freeze and lag.....
If you want a toy drone, with poor connection etc, there is cheaper options available. We went for the hype, the stable, the distance we can fly, the good camera, and all the things they advertised.
Most people get it, lots don,t.

Video over Wifi is always like that, several hundred meters, freeze, lag and so on. It's a bad decision by DJI, they should be clear that Spark and MA can't really fly more than several hundred meters.

That's why Mavic Pros and Phantoms 3 and 4 use a different technology for video and really can fly. If a heavier larger drone is not an issue - I definitely recommend Mavic Pro or Mavic 2.

I was ready for the short range when swapping my MP for MA, but I was't ready for total signal loss with no recovery. MA will serve as my second highly portable drone, and the main one will be M2P, in a month or so, when DJI will fix initial problems.

Ulysses Paiva Posted at 2018-9-11 04:32
It happened to me for the first time last week. I was about 500m or 600m away and kind of 70 or 90m up. Signal losses are commom but this time it simply disconnected. I was using the googles, changed position, lifted my arms, disconnected it and nothing changed. Restarted the app and nothing changed also. Thought maybe something hit my drone and I could have lost it because I have done that several times before in the same place and nothing bad happened. It only came back when I restarted the RC. I think it was already returning home but I was too focused on the other things to bring it back immediately then checking if RTH was in action.
Definitely a bug. Likely with the RC. Others have reported the same before. Untill DJI gets some shame and acknowledge this issue and fix it, please RESTART YOUR REMOTE MIDFLIGHT to recover control.

Thank you. That's useful!
Many people say that's it's dangerous to restart RC mid-flight.

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-11 04:35
Video over Wifi is always like that, several hundred meters, freeze, lag and so on. It's a bad decision by DJI, they should be clear that Spark and MA can't really fly more than several hundred meters.

That's why Mavic Pros and Phantoms 3 and 4 use a different technology for video and really can fly. If a heavier larger drone is not an issue - I definitely recommend Mavic Pro or Mavic 2.

With this I agree 100%
This was my first drone, and I went for all the hype. One of the big things that made me buy this drone, is the distance it could go. I was soooo impressed with that. Not everyone knows the finer details of Wi Fi, and drones etc. They should DEFINITELY let people know that the max distance is for the very, very selected few.
I wanted to fly out over the ocean, see if I could get images of whales breaching, that is why I also bought this drone, and 2 km is enough, I thought. Now I can,t even trust it to fly around the soccer field at my kids school. What a disappointment.
Feels like false advertising, hidden in some truth, but not the honest truth.

Vision One Posted at 2018-9-11 03:15
Mavic Pro is quite different. Unlike Mavic Air (which is all-WiFi for control and video) MPP uses DJI's OcuSync for video on a separate (AFAIK) channel. There was a good post on that a couple years ago:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35826345&postcount=333.

Thanks for the response. The plot on the map is not quite where the last signal was... but it was in that general area, yes. The area should have been passable in RTH, but as far as I can tell it didn’t even try. It was barely behind the rock face, but that didn’t interrupt the signal in the previous flights, nor in my friend’s flight using his MP to search for mIne after it disconnected. DJI confirmed they have no idea why the disconnect occurred, even with the cached video, and can see no errors before the loss of signal. That being said, they are at present not willing to replace it since I couldn’t recover the craft. It wasn’t from lack of trying; we hiked all over the hill after it lost signal but couldn’t find it. The support technician is going to escalate the matter further, but I am not sure what to think at this point... thoughts/advise?

reider Posted at 2018-9-11 08:13
Thanks for the response. The plot on the map is not quite where the last signal was... but it was in that general area, yes. The area should have been passable in RTH, but as far as I can tell it didn’t even try. It was barely behind the rock face, but that didn’t interrupt the signal in the previous flights, nor in my friend’s flight using his MP to search for mIne after it disconnected. DJI confirmed they have no idea why the disconnect occurred, even with the cached video, and can see no errors before the loss of signal. That being said, they are at present not willing to replace it since I couldn’t recover the craft. It wasn’t from lack of trying; we hiked all over the hill after it lost signal but couldn’t find it. The support technician is going to escalate the matter further, but I am not sure what to think at this point... thoughts/advise?

Well, that's a strange case, may DJI will really find out something...  I never had RTH problems with MP flying it for almost 2 years...

I had the same issue, disconnect 400m out nothing worked so restart remote and it was back to normal.
First time this happened was straight after installing the latest firmware update.
Has done it again since only 80m away??
Must be related to latest firmware.

only had my mavic air now 2 days...

  i only pushed it that far a couple times, each time it initiated RTH and started flying back as reconnected.   

as pushing the drone out where signal super spotty... dji could maybe smooth it out more..  it can rock the whole footage because its like on disconnection its slamming on its air brakes as hard as it can instead of smoothly slowing down like other drones..

I've never had a problem, as soon as I updated firmware first flight it disconnected 200m out.
After trying a few things a turned of remote and turned on again and it was back to normal.
Tried again and had a disconnect only 50m away small again restart remote and it was sweet.
I agree this is a firmware issue and needs to be resolved asap.

I did a lot of experiments today, both in FCC and CE modes.  The initial story of disconnect without signal recovery did not occur again, generally RTH worked the way it should. However I've tested many times RC signal loss, RTH, and control recovery by turning the RC off and on while in midair.

Bottom-line:
0) RTFM (again) about RTH behaviors. Pages 13-16 in MA manual v 1.2.
1) It's OK to turn off the RC and then turn it on while MA is in the air. Turning RC off initiates RTH. You can cancel after reconnect.
2) Signal recovery takes several (up to 10 sec I think) seconds, that's normal. Don't panic. Seconds last longer when your drone is in the air.
3) "Auto" Wi-Fi channel mode generally works better than "custom" channel in terms of recovery time.
4) If you use FCC mode (esp. in CE regions) - it's useful to start with custom channel, then select Auto. You still start your flight with 5.8, but in case of signal loss MA/RC  will decide on the channel (2.4/5.8). I've seen that.
5) Remember that for the first 60 seconds after loss and RTH MA tries to "retrace" it's path, so if you did a lot of maneuvres  around a POI where signal was lost - it's not really flying back in a straight line. (There are several videos on youtube about this).
6)Try it yourself in a safe/controlled environment*.

* VLOS! VLOS! VLOS! Watch the drone closely. Find an open field where RTH and landing are safe, like an empty football field, try all RTH scenarios by turning your RC off and on.  Horizontal distances from takeoff to test: less than 5m, 5-20 m, 20+ m. height is up to you. For close range scenarios and low altitude you can use impossible to land surface,  and watch it hover.

Same problem with disconnects.  I have experienced it three times now, each time required a restart of the controller to regain control from the auto RTH.  Initial detailed report here:

https://forum.dji.com/thread-152560-1-1.html