Went out for a flight yesterday and had an issue with the DJI Pilot app.

Turned on the controller, launched the app, turned on the P3 Pro and noticed that the app was not giving me the auto-takeoff option but instead the return to home and auto-land icons.

This was despite the fact that I hadn't yet taken off and the P3 was sitting firmly on a hard, flat rock.

Took off manually, had an uneventful flight and landed safely. It subsequently regarded the P3 as landed and gave me the auto-take-off option as normal.

Have you ever encountered this?

p.s. I am chosing to post this here instead of in the DJI Pilot app forum because a) I'm not sure if this is a P3-specific issue and b) the DJI Pilot app forum is full of messages in Chinese and while I cannot expect the whole world to be speaking English, my post itself is directed towards English-speaking readers who may also be looking outside that forum for the same reasons.

Forgot to mention that I am running firmware v1.1.9 and the Android app version v1.1.0 on a Samsung Galaxy S4.

Did it have any height or HS, VS information on the app showing if it thought it was in the air? Was the home point set correctly?

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It was showing safe to fly with the home point set correctly and showing up properly on the map.
The hs and vs information is correctly set and I can confirm that from the log too.

Mmm. Was it a one off or does it do it on every flight.. Maybe something was feeding the Phantom bad data. Did you calibrate before flight? Does the area have lots of metal about?

I calibrated it before flight and yes, it was a one-off. No metal around. Deserted island in the middle of nowhere.

Had you started the motors?  If you start the motors, you will no longer have auto-takeoff.  I puzzled over this for a while and then, through trial and error, found that the Phantom had to be on but not running for auto-takeoff to be available.

Can't answer your question, but....

I thought this was *the* Phantom 3 forum.
Where does one find the "Pilot app" forum?
Thanks

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-10 20:02
Can't answer your question, but....

I thought this was *the* Phantom 3 forum.

http://forum.dji.com/forum-80-1.html

Paul got it right. Auto takeoff only works if motors are not already running. I scratched my head on that a while myself, thinking "why would you want to take off unless you know all the motors are running".
I really don't know why this is even a feature. I don't use it.

I had the same issue yesterday, it had me confused glad weve worked it out - Adam

http://forum.dji.com/thread-20767-1-1.html  you need to look at this this a real problem

Ah Ha !   I noticed the same exact thing, but never wanted to say anything because I never used it to begin with.   But it does seem a bit strange to have the aircraft on, but not running.  I like to let mine run a bit to warm it up.
Anyway, thanks for the info.

power@groovy100 Posted at 2015-6-10 17:23
Forgot to mention that I am running firmware v1.1.9 and the Android app version v1.1.0 on a Samsung  ...

Not to asking the obvious but had you turned on the motors yet??

FYI the motors were not turned on. The Phantom was but not the motors and they hadn't been on at all at any point earlier on that day either.