I power on the controller (with iPhone SE) and then the drone; the screen says “Disconnected”. Solid red light on drone snd controller. I then connect the controller to laptop running DJI Assistant 2 and select the product and all of a sudden the controller light turns green and controller connects to drone, and stays connected even after disconnecting the laptop. It reconnects as swell after turning drone off and on again. But if I turn off the drone, and attempt to start over, it will not connect again... until I again link it first to DJI Assistant 2.

My drone setup has worked flawlessly in the past; no crash. The day the problem started, the drone had successfully returned from a routine flight; however I vaguely recall a warning about needing to update something just before the flight on that day, even though the flight was uneventful. I have since updated the firmware in both drone and controller to the latest version: tried downgrading and resetting the drone to factory default, updating again; relinking controller and drone; no change. The only way I can fly the drone now is - after usual initial start up of drone and controller, screen says “Disconnected”, then link controller to laptop running DJI Assistant 2, select controller and voila...green light on controller; now disconnect laptop and you are good to go.

Any help?

Hi!
You might be better off posting your question in the 'products' section of this forum.
That is way more active.
Just create a new thread here : https://forum.dji.com/forum-129-1.html and select the right category / subcategory.

Hi there. Kindly please refer to this thread of yours: https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=247949. Please keep us posted. Thank you!

DJI Paladin Posted at 8-14 21:39
Hi there. Kindly please refer to this thread of yours: https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=247949. Please keep us posted. Thank you!

Controller and drone are on latest firmware. Solid red light on both controller and drone after powering on.
Then if, without any other change, I connect  the controller’s mini-USB to any powered USB port (such as a laptop, phone charger or power bank), the green light on the controller comes on and the controller connects to the drone. Now I can disconnect the cable from controller’s mini-USB port; the light on the controller stays green and I can fly as usual (even after turning off abd on the drone I still get a connection), until if I again turn off the controller and have to start over.