I lost my Mavic Mini today and I am very sad.
I tried to reach the waterfall which was at a distance of 500 meters, as shown in the video from the cash memory of the application Dji fly.
While flying at an altitude of 120 meters, I changed the settings to an altitude of 200 meters for fear of the trees.
Suddenly the GPS was lost, there was no image, no map, no return home.
Unfortunately I could not find it since there was no communication between the controller and the drone
What did I do wrong?

Sorry to read losing your drone. It will be easier for others to gauge the cause if you can post your flight records.

A J Posted at 8-15 11:06
Sorry to read losing your drone. It will be easier for others to gauge the cause if you can post your flight records.

There are no flight records because they were lost along with the drone.
The memory card was inside the drone and there was no communication,
only the indication no gps in the app and nothing else, no map, no image and the ΡΤΗ did not work

You can retrieve the flight record from the app.

ALABAMA Posted at 8-15 12:56
You can retrieve the flight record from the app.

I think I should not change the max altitude while the drone was in flight.
From there on everything happened, the gps lost, the drone lost height and all communication was lost, so I can not get files other than those stored in the phone cash memory and I quote in this video just before the mavic mini is lost.
My opinion is that we should not change settings while drone is in flight.
I do not see anything else. I have to buy another one since the drone was new and I did not manage to enjoy it

You should go near the waterfall and look in the App for the 'Find my Drone' feature.You can probably locate the last known location of the drone and possibly find it.

Gregor Queck Posted at 8-15 14:43
You should go near the waterfall and look in the App for the 'Find my Drone' feature.You can probably locate the last known location of the drone and possibly find it.

I did it. the Dji fly app showed neither map, nor contact with mavic mini. Just no gps warning

fansb6e85187 Posted at 8-15 14:55
I did it. the Dji fly app showed neither map, nor contact with mavic mini. Just no gps warning

Go to this site and follow the instructions to upload the flight receord: https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/ The record is on your phone, not the aircraft. Copy the URL of the interpreted flight record, then come back here and post a link to it.

Changing height limits whilst the drone is in flight is not detrimental in normal circumstances, I do it quite fequently and have not had a problem. I don't think you can change the RTH height limit whilst the mini is actually executing an RTH. I do not know if you can change the max height limit whilst an RTH is in progress.
I do not know if you can reduce the max height limit to below the drone's current height but I have reduced the height limit when the new height is above the drone's current height.

fansb6e85187  do you happen to know what option was set for the failsafe response to a  loss of signal ?  I think it is RTH by default but the other options are land or hover.

Geebax Posted at 8-15 15:03
Go to this site and follow the instructions to upload the flight receord: https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/ The record is on your phone, not the aircraft. Copy the URL of the interpreted flight record, then come back here and post a link to it.

Thank you very much for your help
I uploaded where you told me the last DJIFlightRecord_2020-08-15, 4:55:00 p.m.
And this is the link https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/9QG75JOT41AX489KPYXB
I do not understand many things but I guess the drone made uncontrollable movements after the gps was lost.
where it fell and where I can find it
Thank you

Sorry to hear you lost your bird.

Sorry to hear you lost your Drone I hope you find it......

fansb6e85187 Posted at 8-15 16:11
Thank you very much for your help
I uploaded where you told me the last DJIFlightRecord_2020-08-15, 4:55:00 p.m.
And this is the link https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/9QG75JOT41AX489KPYXB

I am no expert at reading flight logs, hopefully Labroides may come along and do a better job. But, there is no evidence that your aircraft lost GPS at all, in fact it sees 16 satellites for the whole flight. And it was in full control right at the end of the log, however you may have lost the camera view.

fansb6e85187 Posted at 8-15 16:11
Thank you very much for your help
I uploaded where you told me the last DJIFlightRecord_2020-08-15, 4:55:00 p.m.
And this is the link https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/9QG75JOT41AX489KPYXB

While flying at an altitude of 120 meters, I changed the settings to an altitude of 200 meters for fear of the trees.
Suddenly the GPS was lost, there was no image, no map, no return home.
Your flight data suggests you are confused about what happened.
GPS was not lost anywhere in the flight and the drone was never higher than 130 metres.
You flew out until you started losing downlink at about 700 metres distance and 4 minutes.
Sometime after 4:56.8 you lost the control signal and your screen went black and the Mini started returning to home as it is programmed to.
At 5:49.4 you cancelled RTH with the drone 500 metres north of the home point and left it hovering until about 7:00 when you started flying north at full speed at 130 metres altitude until you lost signal at 7:43.1 back near the waterfall.

I do not understand many things but I guess the drone made uncontrollable movements after the gps was lost.
where it fell and where I can find it
It never lost GPS but you flew far enough to lose signal.
The drone would have continued a little further and after 11 seconds it would have started to RTH again unless it hit the trees just past where signal was lost.

The ground level where signal was lost was approx 115 metres metres higher than your homepoint.
The drone was at 130 metres
How high are those trees?
If they are >15 metres high, that's probably where your drone ended up.

> What did I do wrong?

Actually.... quite a bit. I am trying to be mindful and helpful... I know how it can feel.

First let me say I am relieved to notice you started your flight with a full battery, a bit less when I see flying above 120m which in the farther path was necessary (thus it was not 120m relative to ground).

But you've got too many disconnections to continue on that kind of flight (towards kind of a cliff, further away from you). I have no idea if you were on the edge of the 5.8 GHz frequency or just getting interference on the 2.4 GHz but on those conditions I would have turned on my heels and headed back.

At that point me being me (I had already deployed my reflectors) I would also install my Yagi/Uda and select another CH manually on the 5.8 GHz as the reach was within limits (for EU) of RC/MM. Tried again until the signal remained perfect all the way to destination (waterfall).

But as the flight log starts 204 seconds into the flight I have a feeling something worse could have happened, as a new file is normally not generated for disconnections from RC to AC but rather from MD to RC. So your Mobile Device might have lost link with your Remote Controller... the Fly app wrongly announced (and this is proved it can happen) AC not connected with RC and announced RTH in 11 seconds...

In reality the RC was still under full control (all LEDs on RC lit normally as for battery status) and continued to function normally (as it is the only thing that is linked to the AC at any given moment). Whether that was an OTG cable issue, be that final or temporary didn't matter, a Fly app, a Mobile Device problem or whatever it might have been, the Mavic Mini continued to respond to your inputs... at that point it might have crashed into something.

At this point only you can remember what led to the  creation of a new log file that happened before 204 seconds of flight, but it  must have been something major, something that you could NOT avoid noticing.

Among other outcomes there's the bird factor on the way back, but considering your furthest recorded (video) and log points and how tall those trees appear to be on the slope below, I reckon the possibility your Mini hit a tree not very likely, from the observation point you can see how rapidly the earth goes back to relative flat land looking the homepoint.

Should you ever get a new Mini be very cautious about using your current USB OTG cable with it as it may be faulty.

Ah... forgot to mention: since the area isn't remote and actually on the brink of a town, with a waterfall close by... you should really get your flyers (Lost drone Mavic Mini my mobile phone number or email yada yada yada) stuck on every post possible, local bars or any other place that has a free board where to pin something on.

Same thing happened with my mini yesterday. It got disconnected from RC and it did not return home... checked everywhere on the last GPS location but no luck. Drone was flying just 236 metres away from me and the height was 80 metres checked every each location according to the app but couldn't find it is there any way to track the the Drone now..
The location from where Drone did not return home was just 136 metres away from me. Real sad..

djiuser_cqn2Cx3fTNM9 Posted at 8-16 02:52
Same thing happened with my mini yesterday. It got disconnected from RC and it did not return home... checked everywhere on the last GPS location but no luck. Drone was flying just 236 metres away from me and the height was 80 metres checked every each location according to the app but couldn't find it is there any way to track the the Drone now..
The location from where Drone did not return home was just 136 metres away from me. Real sad..

Post your flight log in a new thread, maybe someone could help. At the very least we could better understand why it went awry.

m80116 Posted at 8-15 22:29
> What did I do wrong?

Actually.... quite a bit. I am trying to be mindful and helpful... I know how it can feel.

thank you for your effort m80116

Labroides Posted at 8-15 19:37
While flying at an altitude of 120 meters, I changed the settings to an altitude of 200 meters for fear of the trees.
Suddenly the GPS was lost, there was no image, no map, no return home.
Your flight data suggests you are confused about what happened.

thank you for your effort Labroides

After all, flying a drone is not a simple matter, it is a whole science.
As a new user i thought i would easily throw it away and take photos and videos. I did not expect to calculate the height and the different height from the home point every time, to calculate if there are gorges or lakes and if the signal is lost and what to do next, well as to do compass calibration every time.
Will you tell me get a small helicopter
Αlthough i loved the mavic mini where it is located
thank you all you who answered

agparask Posted at 8-16 05:55
After all, flying a drone is not a simple matter, it is a whole science.
As a new user i thought i would easily throw it away and take photos and videos. I did not expect to calculate the height and the different height from the home point every time, to calculate if there are gorges or lakes and if the signal is lost and what to do next, well as to do compass calibration every time.
Will you tell me get a small helicopter

You really need to learn about all the things that can go wrong and how to make sure they don't before you get to adventurous and fly off past where you cannot see the drone.

as to do compass calibration every time.
There's no need to calibrate the compass every time.
There's hardly ever a need to recalibrate the compass.

Compass calibration hardly ever needed (although app may say otherwise).

MM is a very handsome and tamed thing to fly... I do believe much more refined than any other copter you may get. Had the RTH altitude been set well clear of any possible obstacle at this point we'll be completely ruling out pilot error, but  there's a good chance that despite the challenges it wasn't even your fault... had you knew for instance about the possibility of OTG cable connection problem, you could have reacted by simply unplugging and plugging it back in (which should fix the problem if intermittent).

I am terribly sorry to hear about the loss of your drone. Please report the case to our support via email, you can apply for data analysis as long as the drone is within the warranty period. And we will provide a corresponding offer based on the analysis result. Here’s the link to contact the support: http://www.dji.com/support

DJI Susan Posted at 8-17 03:23
I am terribly sorry to hear about the loss of your drone. Please report the case to our support via email, you can apply for data analysis as long as the drone is within the warranty period. And we will provide a corresponding offer based on the analysis result. Here’s the link to contact the support: http://www.dji.com/support

Thanks for the offer Dji Susan
Mavic Mini that I lost is under warranty.
I bought before 4 months
but I have already ordered another Mavic Mini, because I want it before summer passes, and I will be more careful this time.
thanks to all the experienced users at this forum that answer our needs and problems

Yes, I had  same thing Before with my Spark drone. Over the water (I made home Point on the boat , without VPS). After few minuts drone lost Connection with remote controller (Remote Controller mallfunction) and then sank under water where my boat were Before. Same things I have now with macic air 2, it lost Connections with RC after 300 m many times.
Conclusions? Use dedicated remote controller like Smartkontroler instead own mobile connected with RC by china second hand cables. I have many problems with new one mavic air 2 and RC and I must say one thing, possibility to lost of drone is very high in case of mallfuncion RC so think twice and buy dedicated controller with REAL ANTENNAS !

Sean-newbie Posted at 8-15 15:53
Changing height limits whilst the drone is in flight is not detrimental in normal circumstances, I do it quite fequently and have not had a problem. I don't think you can change the RTH height limit whilst the mini is actually executing an RTH. I do not know if you can change the max height limit whilst an RTH is in progress.
I do not know if you can reduce the max height limit to below the drone's current height but I have reduced the height limit when the new height is above the drone's current height.

I had mine set to descend by default. First disconnect and down she went. Luckily I could manually override and guide home

m80116 Posted at 8-16 07:47
Compass calibration hardly ever needed (although app may say otherwise).

MM is a very handsome and tamed thing to fly... I do believe much more refined than any other copter you may get. Had the RTH altitude been set well clear of any possible obstacle at this point we'll be completely ruling out pilot error, but  there's a good chance that despite the challenges it wasn't even your fault... had you knew for instance about the possibility of OTG cable connection problem, you could have reacted by simply unplugging and plugging it back in (which should fix the problem if intermittent).

I have been told that I risk a flyaway if I don't do a compass calibration when the app calls for it.  I gather that you think it is safe to ignore the compass calibration warning??

agparask Posted at 8-16 05:55
After all, flying a drone is not a simple matter, it is a whole science.
As a new user i thought i would easily throw it away and take photos and videos. I did not expect to calculate the height and the different height from the home point every time, to calculate if there are gorges or lakes and if the signal is lost and what to do next, well as to do compass calibration every time.
Will you tell me get a small helicopter

Welcome to aviation!

natolson25.com Posted at 8-18 13:14
I have been told that I risk a flyaway if I don't do a compass calibration when the app calls for it.  I gather that you think it is safe to ignore the compass calibration warning??

Rarely needed, but the app will call for it when it is.

Often, when the app calls for compass calibration, it really just needs you to move the drone away from the lump of steel it is near.

natolson25.com Posted at 8-18 13:14
I have been told that I risk a flyaway if I don't do a compass calibration when the app calls for it.  I gather that you think it is safe to ignore the compass calibration warning??

The wording of the warning is poor, usually it gives you a choice of calibrating the compass OR moving the aircraft away from the source of magnetic interference. MOST times the answer is to move the aircraft, not calibrate the compass. Most new fliers are not aware that you must be careful not to start up the aircraft near surfaces that can influence the compass. This includes ALL concrete surfaces, on cars, metal tables, roofs etc.

natolson25.com Posted at 8-18 13:14
I have been told that I risk a flyaway if I don't do a compass calibration when the app calls for it.  I gather that you think it is safe to ignore the compass calibration warning??

You can pretty much ignore it as much as you shouldn't ignore where you power-on your drone. Did you know this one?

The calibration request is to adjust the hardware to some minor local deflections and to the current conditions of the hardware, but is hardly ever needed. You'd need to travel a lot, mostly latitudinally (if I recall correctly) to encounter a significant variance in declination. Meanwhile it's far more likely that you'll get unnecessary requests of calibrating while you moved for your daily trip or just happenned to pass with your Mini over something like a big lump of metal, or you happen to have laid the Mini for a handful of seconds over the roof of your car.

Calibrating in that situation not only is totally unnecessary but introduces the risk of wrong calibration (which may result in a fly-away) as it is not known to the application whether or not the user has cleared the distorted magnetic area well enough. Normally it is also quite unlikely to botch a calibration because you mishandled the drone (it supervises the correctness of the operation as you do it), thus if you have calibrated your drone in a good undistorted zone you'll hardly ever need to calibrate it again if you don't move several hundred miles.

Meanwhile... the most significant acquisition of the magnetic north happens during the start-up process, few know how critical it is to avoid at all costs powering the drone near anything that could influence it, even reinforced concrete is a true DANGER as the drone acquires in that exact moment the magnetic North reference, therefore if it is inside a distorted magnetic field that will completely render worthless any calibration (fine tuning) of the compass which will be still properly fine tuned (calibrated) but with a completely WRONG orientation... does this serve to anything I may ask?

natolson25.com Posted at 8-18 13:14
I have been told that I risk a flyaway if I don't do a compass calibration when the app calls for it.  I gather that you think it is safe to ignore the compass calibration warning??

For years it was clear to all seasoned pilots that there's absolutely no need for frequent compass calibration. Then the Mavic arrived, delivering confusion. Why? Because DJI - for whatever reason - introduced "forced" compass calibration (exercising?) once a month or after every 50km distance from last calibration ... To my knowledge at least Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom is particularly sensitive in this department, and Go 4 app is demanding compass calibration frequently. The rest of my 6-drone fleet is navigating just fine without this ridiculous dance no matter where I decide to fly in 1000km radius. Either way, compass calibration before every flight is plainly senseless ...

Boring thing. I hope it never happens to me.

Labroides Posted at 8-16 07:33
You really need to learn about all the things that can go wrong and how to make sure they don't before you get to adventurous and fly off past where you cannot see the drone.

as to do compass calibration every time.

I had about 2 months of calibrate compass warnings, couldn't understand it. I would go out into the middle of my lawn put the Mini on my Pelican style case and every time the "Calibrate Compass" warning would show.

Wait a minute "..on my Pelican style case..." What's in the case?  Duh! 5 spare batteries in their dji battery holder!!

So now I use my takeoff mat or hand launch and no problems since  :-)

agparask Posted at 8-17 04:40
Thanks for the offer Dji Susan
Mavic Mini that I lost is under warranty.
I bought before 4 months

Thanks for getting back, please contact the support at the provided link and we will do our best to help.

After sad comes stubbornness.
I bought a new mavic mini and i will fly it in the same place where i lost my first drone, at the same height, at the same frequency 2.4ghz and the same weather contitions (no wind, no angry birds) and the same time.
With the new controller the new aircraft and the new otg cable this time.
Dji fly says 2000 meters distance max and 500 meters altitude
I want to record the waterfall, no matter what
“I want to be happy with my drone and not the drone be happy with me”
otherwise i have to use the aircraft as a tripod, as a friend of mine does, afraid nothing will happen.
(Thanks to google translate)

This is what I want to do (my flight plan). Sorry from youtuber that i stole part of his video (the waterfall does not appear in this video)

And on picture

agparask Posted at 8-20 12:14
After sad comes stubbornness.
I bought a new mavic mini and i will fly it in the same place where i lost my first drone, at the same height, at the same frequency 2.4ghz and the same weather contitions (no wind, no angry birds) and the same time.
With the new controller the new aircraft and the new otg cable this time.

Dji fly says 2000 meters distance max and 500 meters altitude
I want to record the waterfall, no matter what
If you are a new flyer, you need to get a lot closer to the waterfall.
Flying 2 km away without much experience is asking for trouble.
There are many things that can go wrong and you don't understand what they are or how to deal with them.

Oh my oh my...

Consider you'll surely won't reach the nominal specs as 2.4 GHz will be covered by regular home/office Wi-Fi routers and 5.8 GHz would be quite affected by general background activity.

I am pretty I could make a good fly over with mine, but I use reflectors (and Yagi/Uda boosters if necessary). And you cannot get very low to the waterfall without losing signal from your former starting point (and you don't want to).

BTW: I have rule I tend to stick whenver possible. Don't fly where you can't walk.