I am a rank beginner with my new Phantom 4 and unable to get the RTH function to work properly.
Here's what happens.
To play safe during these first flights, I set the following Controller settings as follows:
Return-to-Home Altitude - 20m
Max Flight Altitude - 50m
Max Flight Distance - 40m
I flew the drone out about 30m at an altitude of about 5m, then press Return to Home on the controller screen. The controller accepts the command and starts beeping. The drone then ascends rapidly to what is probably my RTH altitude of 20m, but then just hangs there. I waited a full couple of minutes, but the drone never came over the home landing spot or descend. I finally cancelled the RTH and manually flew it back.

I tried this several times with the same result.

I would appreciate any suggestions as to what I may be doing wrong or, whether there is possibly something wrong with my Phantom.
Thanks for any help.
--JN

You need to go further.  It has a limit to reach before it  can be activated.

Thanks for the prompt reply.
Can you give me some idea as to how far out the drone needs to be. I'm a bit nervous about letting it go to far if I can't confidently bring it home.

Can't remember exactly,  just give the manual a good read.

Check out page 16 of the manual for the RTH specs.

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... _User_Manual_EN.pdf

I didn't see anything helpful on p 16 of the manual except maybe I didn't have enough GPS signals.Is it necessary to hover over the launch site for some time to firmly establish the home point?
Or, as another person responded, is there some minimum distance that the drone must be from Home for RTH to work properly?
I've read the manual several times in addition to lots of online research and haven't found anything else to explain the behavior.  All my software and the drone firmware are up to date.
Any other suggestions will be welcomed.
Thanks.

joelnisson Posted at 6-26 11:34
Thanks for the prompt reply.
Can you give me some idea as to how far out the drone needs to be. I'm a bit nervous about letting it go to far if I can't confidently bring it home.

Set your RTH to 30 m and fly 50 m out. Look at these settings and see if its set to RTH or not.
Forgot this picture.

Smart RTH
This is a user triggered RTH when you tap the RTH button on your remote or in the app. Once the button has been tapped the drone will start its flight back to its home point. It can be stopped anytime by pressing the Flight Pause Button on the remote controller or by pressing the Stop icon in the app. If you’re flying the Phantom 4 Pro or Advanced, then the drone will retrace its flight path for 30 seconds before it starts to ascend and fly straight back to you. Something worth remembering is that if your drone is less than 20 meters away from you when you press the RTH button then it will land just where it is, however, if the landing zone is hazardous then it will try to find somewhere safe to land or just hover at a low height until the pilot takes control and lands it manually.

When I tapped the RTH button, my Phantom went straight up to max altitude and just hovered there for at least a couple of minutes until I cancelled the RTH and brought it back manually.
I am wondering whether it might have something to do with how I started my flights. I used auto-takeoff, then flew forward at about 10 feet altitude. Might the nav system prefer that I initially ascend vertically more before moving forward?

joelnisson Posted at 6-26 14:20
When I tapped the RTH button, my Phantom went straight up to max altitude and just hovered there for at least a couple of minutes until I cancelled the RTH and brought it back manually.
I am wondering whether it might have something to do with how I started my flights. I used auto-takeoff, then flew forward at about 10 feet altitude. Might the nav system prefer that I initially ascend vertically more before moving forward?

Are you using metric or imperial?  RTH is set in meters but all other settings is feet if you use that.
Look at your settings , if its set to imperial this all make sens, your RTH is set higher than max altitude.

I would appreciate any suggestions as to what I may be doing wrong or, whether there is possibly something wrong with my Phantom.

RTH is extremely reliable and whatever caused what you observed, it's unlikely to be a malfunction.

Your Phantom has a black box data recorder.
Whenever there is a mysterious flight incident, the simple solution is almost always to look at the recorded flight data to see what really happened rather than making guesses that are almost always wrong.

To get your flight data go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

You'll find instructions to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
When you do that it gives a summary of the flight data.
Post a link to that summary here for help analysing it.

Wow. Thank you Labroides. I will definitely do that tomorrow and, if the predicted thunderstorms don't materialize, will try another flight tomorrow.

For Labroides or anyone else who might offer help:
Here is the flight log for my Phantom 4 from a short flight this morning:  https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/545N4MRRE8WPPJE5MCMR/#
Some notes and observations:
My settings were:
RTH altitude - 25m (82ft)
Max flight altitude - 50m (164ft)
Max Flight Distance - 350m (1148ft)
Home Point Settings set to "Aircraft" Home point was established and announced by RC.

Notes on the flight log:
4m 31.3s Go Home started; IMU Altitude 77.4ft;
         Braking to avoid obstacle [There were not obstacles - open corn field]

4m 35.6s to 5m 35s - Drone still in RTH mode, but seems to ignore the RTH altidue of 82ft and rose to max altitude of 164ft and stayed in one location. Didn't move toward home. I cancelled RTH.

6m 28.9s to 6m 59.5s - Invoked RTH again while at 164ft altitude; 920ft from Home point. Drone held same position and altitude.


7m 16.8s to 7m 55s - Invoked RTH again with drone at max altitude (164ft) Logs Message: RTH: Preascending; Aircraft is returning to the Home Point. Minimum RTH Altitude is 82ft. You can reset the RTH Altitude in Remote Controller Settings after cancelling RTH. Drone never changed position or altitude.

joelnisson Posted at 6-27 06:01
For Labroides or anyone else who might offer help:
Here is the flight log for my Phantom 4 from a short flight this morning:  https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/545N4MRRE8WPPJE5MCMR/#
Some notes and observations:

Braking to avoid obstacle [There were not obstacles - open corn field]
There's the explanation to what happened.
The drone behaved the same way each time the RTH stalled.
The obstacle will almost certainly have been a low, bright sun.
This is commonly observed.
If you didn't have a Max Altitude limit set, or were well below the max, you would have seen the drone climb to try to get higher than the "obstacle".

If you see it again, you can disable the obstacle avoidance and RTH will keep working or cancel RTH and fly home manually but at a different course rather than flying straight toward the sun.

Here is another flight at 1:00 PM with the sun almost directly overhead.
Same thing happened. RTH caused the drone to ascend and then stall. No reported obstacle avoidance this time.
Might it be some type of conflict in the way I have set these settings?:
RTH altitude - 25m (82ft)
Max flight altitude - 50m (164ft)
Max Flight Distance - 350m (1148ft)

I forgot to include the flight log link:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/B2RD8VZZ6DL37LJQSA8H

joelnisson Posted at 6-27 09:23
I forgot to include the flight log link:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/B2RD8VZZ6DL37LJQSA8H

Hi Joel,

Had a look at your 2 logs, puzzled as your P4 climbs to the RTh settting of 20 meter, align, after while start to cruise (fly back to home) for 0.1 second and stops. Followed by a climb to max height setting.

This time no brake indication as in the other log.

Mayby your DAT file (FLY076.DAT on your mobile device) for this flight have more information it it what happend.
If you like put a link to this file on here.
cheers
JJB

Hey JJB.
I was able to download the data files from my iPad to my computer, but am not able to view them.
Is there a way to upload them to some site like phantomhelp.com to view them and create a link to the analysis?
Thanks for your interest.
--Joel

joelnisson Posted at 6-27 09:07
Here is another flight at 1:00 PM with the sun almost directly overhead.
Same thing happened. RTH caused the drone to ascend and then stall. No reported obstacle avoidance this time.
Might it be some type of conflict in the way I have set these settings?:

Might it be some type of conflict in the way I have set these settings?
The settings aren't causing the issue, the OA sensors are.
Try recalibrating your sensors or just disabling obstacle avoidance in the app settings.
Obstacle avoidance isn't much use if you aren't flying around obstacles anyway.
It just cuts your top speed.

joelnisson Posted at 6-27 12:10
Hey JJB.
I was able to download the data files from my iPad to my computer, but am not able to view them.
Is there a way to upload them to some site like phantomhelp.com to view them and create a link to the analysis?

Hi Joel,  just upload somewhere in the cloud and put a link to there on here

BTW  read the P4 manual, if an obstacle is detected during a RTH it will climb and stop 5 meters above obstacle height.So if craft cannot climb (true or false obstacle sensing) due to max height setting it cannot do anything and will just hover at that height.

Try again with max height setting at 120 meter, RTH height at 30 meter; RTH engage at 20 meters height
  a) sun in the back of the craft
  b) sun at front of your craft
  c) with disabled OA [ for test: carefull, do this only if you know that the return path is free of obstacles ]

the other flight in a overview:


cheers
JJB

Lots of good information for other operators

I did another test flight in a new location this morning under cloudy conditions. Same thing happened: When RTH was invoked, the Phantom rose and then stalled in place until I cancelled RTH.
Here are links to the Flight Records and Logs. I will try another flight with obstacle avoidance turned off if and when the current thunderstorms pass.

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/F9QUC2YFAKKJARI6WH7Y
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fgfFdho-9VgMpy9jLbwn7PWc3YiChGcw/view?usp=sharing

Problem fixed (sort of) by turning "RTH Obstacle Check" turned off (but left main OA left on. RTH worked, though not perfectly (missed Home by 15 or 20 feet).

joelnisson Posted at 6-28 07:44
Problem fixed (sort of) by turning "RTH Obstacle Check" turned off (but left main OA left on. RTH worked, though not perfectly (missed Home by 15 or 20 feet).

Hi,

But is should work on a new P4!  and a RTH without OA can go wrong   so ask DJI to help you out.

BTW the DAT file is the file from the craft (i think), DAT file in your mobile device (wich is decryptable) has more info it it

cheers
JJB

joelnisson Posted at 6-28 07:44
Problem fixed (sort of) by turning "RTH Obstacle Check" turned off (but left main OA left on. RTH worked, though not perfectly (missed Home by 15 or 20 feet).

If your obstacle avoidance is acting up, the first thing to do is to recalibrate the sensors.
You don't seem to be interested in doing it though?

I'm pretty sure I've re-calibrated everything:
IMU, Compass, RC, and visual sensors using the DJI Assistant 2 app.
Am I missing anything?

I still do think that I should not have to disable the RTH OA in order to make RTH work properly. I have noticed a bunch of other folks on this and other forums that seem to be having the same problem (although many of the posts are a year or two old.).

If you disable the OA and test it and RTH is still not working correctly, you've made progress in your diagnosis.  If you disable the OA and test it and RTH is working perfectly, you've made progress in your diagnosis.  If you do nothing, you make no progress.  Good luck.  

Ha. Sounds like good words of wisdom. Thanks for the encouragement.
As long as I can keep bringing it back home, one way or another, I'm all for progress.

Hello there joelnisson. Thank you for reaching out and for these information you have shared. ALABAMA is correct on post # 2. In addition to this I will post a screenshot from the DJI Phantom 4 Pro User Manual with regards to the use of the Return To Home ( RTH ) feature of the said drone. Thank you and fly safe always.

I don’t think it is a matter of distance from home, but will be running some more test as soon as these thunderstorms subside. (I am in Western Massachusetts. The sky has been really violent the past couple of days.)

On my first flight (with all default settings), after I activated RTH, the drone went to max altitude and hovered there. The RTH altitude must've been higher than the max altitude