NGC Posted at 1-26 11:05
Excellent point. Maybe he would request a video of paint drying next?

I appreciate Hallmark's request, and various respected individuals in the forum have been encouraging me to engage more via recordings and logs.  It's an important next step for my development, as I currently don't "know how" to do all that, though I imagine it's not hard at all.

Suren Posted at 1-26 10:20
This guy locked sats much faster then I do, he started his timer way early. I will try downgrading my firmware today and see if that clears the issue and post back here.

Please make sure it’s a true cold start, i.e. not flying before downgrade

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 11:13
Please make sure it’s a true cold start, i.e. not flying before downgrade

Will do mate

Suren Posted at 1-26 11:36
Will do mate

That would be really great to know! Thanks again!

DJI Mindy Posted at 1-25 23:25
Hi there, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused. Could you please provide us with the log for further analysis? Below are the methods to Aircraft Data, you may upload the files to Dropbox or Google Drive, then share the link with us.
(1) Download DJI Assistant 2 from the official website. Download link: https://www.dji.com/downloads?site=brandsite&from=nav
(2) Launch DJI Assistant 2. Within 20 seconds after the aircraft is powered on, connect it to DJI Assistant 2.

Hi DJI Mindy, can you clear up something for some members here. Has something changed in firmware updates that has slowed down the time it takes to gain gps lock on Mavic3 ? Is the problem known to DJI engineers and if so is something being done to correct this. There is a lot of misinformation around here and it would help if you could clear it up with some explanation.

Overall pleased with the latest update, but still have the GPS delay problem, and at different locations. For me it Definitely started after 10/12 update and no better since the 24/12 update.  

hallmark007 Posted at 1-26 12:27
Hi DJI Mindy, can you clear up something for some members here. Has something changed in firmware updates that has slowed down the time it takes to gain gps lock on Mavic3 ? Is the problem known to DJI engineers and if so is something being done to correct this. There is a lot of misinformation around here and it would help if you could clear it up with some explanation.

I did a cold start this afternoon in an open field with clear weather.  It took 5 minutes and 17 seconds to get a lock.

Virgil Quick Posted at 1-26 14:11
I did a cold start this afternoon in an open field.  It took 5 minutes and 17 seconds to get a lock.

Its way too long..

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 12:07
That would be really great to know! Thanks again!

I can't downgrade to the first version. Assistant 2 does not let me go into the drone without force updating itself, the only firmware available to downgrade to is .400 which is the December update so that won't help.

Virgil Quick Posted at 1-26 14:11
I did a cold start this afternoon in an open field with clear weather.  It took 5 minutes and 17 seconds to get a lock.

Ouch, that hurts!
Thank you for sharing this!
I wander, if you would be willing to repeat the test tomorrow, but take off as soon as it lets you.
There is a notion that being in flight somehow speeds up the acquisition process.

Suren Posted at 1-26 14:21
I can't downgrade to the first version. Assistant 2 does not let me go into the drone without force updating itself, the only firmware available to downgrade to is .400 which is the December update so that won't help.

ah, I see. I guess we need to get a hold of the earlier DA2 installer...

DarthSLR Posted at 1-25 20:18
I think it wants 12. Above 8-9 it considers weak (yellow)

It's not based on numbers of satellites at all.
You have to wait for the flight controller to determine that it has reliable GPS location data.
The recorded flight data shows an indication of GPS Health on a 1-5 scale.
It's not until GPS Health reaches 4 or 5 that the drone will record its homepoint and you are good to go
In DJI Fly you can tell this when the GPS icon on  your screen turns white.

Charles Adams Posted at 1-26 08:51
Beating the dead horse...

I just executed a test flight to review and experiment with 360 degree panoramic photos, and as a part of the test I decided to wait on the ground until I had full satellite lock (strong GPS).  My environment was my home, where I flew off my back deck.  This environment has moderate obstructions to the sky (trees, neighbors' homes, my home).

But I draw the conclusion that this system is very sensitive to the  unobstructed view to the sky, and anything a pilot can do to safely  reduce obstructions will improve acquisition time.
Every GPS receiver is affected by obstructing of parts of the sky view.
Block half the sky and you block approx half of the potential satellites.
You need a clear, unobstructed view of most of the sky to ensure easy satellite acquisition.
But the M3 appears to have something else that is causing the problem even with a clear sky view.

Mobilehomer Posted at 1-26 09:15
Darth, I have an app called Satellite Check, it not only shows satellite location and strength, but type. GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BEIDOU, QZSS and IRNSS. Install this and see what you get in your area.

There are always many more satellites in anyone's sky than are needed for good satellite acquisition.

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 10:08
Hmm.
Does RC pro have its own GPS module?
I know smartphones do, but I know RC pro in the past could not locate itself on the map until the drone would come "online".

Yes, the smart controller has its own built-in GPS receiver (like almost all Android tablets do).

Labroides Posted at 1-26 15:16
There are always many more satellites in anyone's sky than are needed for good satellite acquisition.

Absolutely. The app shows satellite location and signal strength. Just a nice tool.

Mobilehomer Posted at 1-26 15:44
Absolutely. The app shows satellite location and signal strength. Just a nice tool.

Back in the days when there was only one satellite system and the full constellation wasn't in place, it was useful.
But no need to check these data because there are always plenty of sates visible from anywhere with a clear view of most of the sky.

I did some research and found two things interesting.  One is that the Mavic 3 spec page says it uses GPS + Galileo + BeiDou (3) systems.  So not just BeiDou.  Secondly, the BeiDou system is the only system that supports 2 way transmission of location data.  I'm not saying Mavic 3 transmits back to BeiDou, but it is a noteworthy difference in functionality of BeiDou vs. the others that I didn't know about.

Ok, I did my part.
After the hike, I took both drones, went to the literal middle of the soccer field and cold started them one by one.
Mavic 2 Pro took 37 seconds till Home Point lock.
Mavic 3 Cine took 71 seconds till Home Point lock.
I know it not science with just one session, but that’s what I got.
Tomorrow I do it at home, in my usual situation, with the house/hill blocking part of the sky.

Labroides Posted at 1-26 15:06
It's not based on numbers of satellites at all.
You have to wait for the flight controller to determine that it has reliable GPS location data.
The recorded flight data shows an indication of GPS Health on a 1-5 scale.

Well, this is what I see:
It usually starts with with a very low number, like 0..3, showing in red.
As time progresses, it gets to 8 and the icon turns yellow, and it says weak GPS.
Finally it gets to 12 and then I hear the coveted the home point has been updated message.
After that it goes to 17..20+, whatever the circumstances are.

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 17:16
Well, this is what I see:
It usually starts with with a very low number, like 0..3, showing in red.
As time progresses, it gets to 8 and the icon turns yellow, and it says weak GPS.

It still has nothing to do with numbers of sats.
Your recorded flight data would confirm what I explained above.
As soon as the flight controller determines the location data to have a reliability of 4/5 or 5/5, that's when it puts the drone into P-GPS mode and records the homepoint.
The number of sats is not what matters and it can vary quite a lot.

Labroides Posted at 1-26 17:24
It still has nothing to do with numbers of sats.
Your recorded flight data would confirm what I explained above.
As soon as the flight controller determines the location data to have a reliability of 4/5 or 5/5, that's when it puts the drone into P-GPS mode and records the homepoint.

The problem is the app shows only numbers and thats what people are looking at, it does tell you to tap icon to see signal level. Most are only looking at the numbers. You are also receiving weak signal, in go app this  is opti and until numbers reach above 10 you are restricted to 3m or 30m and it wont confirm homepoint. I have a feeling its a SW. I’ve had 22 flights and I haven’t experienced any of this but I’m in open country.

NGC Posted at 1-26 17:56
Looks like DJI thinks the slow satellite acquisition is a “feature” that is now “optimized” ?

The evidence is piling up to suggest that DJI have lost the plot with the Mavic 3.
It could have been something special ... but as it is, it's far from it.

Thank you for your patience and have a great day.

hallmark007 Posted at 1-26 18:04
The problem is the app shows only numbers and thats what people are looking at, it does tell you to tap icon to see signal level. Most are only looking at the numbers. You are also receiving weak signal, in go app this  is opti and until numbers reach above 10 you are restricted to 3m or 30m and it wont confirm homepoint. I have a feeling its a SW. I’ve had 22 flights and I haven’t experienced any of this but I’m in open country.

The problem is the app shows only numbers and thats what people are looking at,
The problem is that the people that want to keep saying it's something about numbers, have never looked at their data to learn what really happens.

You are also receiving weak signal, in go app this is opti and until numbers reach above 10 you are restricted to 3m or 30m and it wont confirm homepoint.
There is no such thing as weak GPS signal.
Weak signal is DJI speak for a GPS reliability of <4.

Labroides Posted at 1-26 18:13
The problem is the app shows only numbers and thats what people are looking at,
The problem is that the people that want to keep saying it's something about numbers, have never looked at their data to learn what really happens.

People are simply saying what they’re seeing, what they’re hearing. If your telemetry says weak gps your manual says weak gps, then its most likely your going to think you have weak GPS. So its confusing for a lot of users.

NGC Posted at 1-26 18:16
You are talking to a guy who used to claim that “cell phone towers broadcast gps data to Google maps”. Technology isn’t really Mr. Walker’s forte, although he likes to play pretend.

A GPS device can retrieve from the GPS system location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth. A GPS reception requires an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites,[2] and is subject to poor satellite signal conditions. In exceptionally poor signal conditions, for example in urban areas, satellite signals may exhibit multipath propagation where signals bounce off structures, or are weakened by meteorological conditions. Obstructed lines of sight may arise from a tree canopy or inside a structure, such as in a building, garage or tunnel. Today, most standalone GPS receivers are used in automobiles. The GPS capability of smartphones may use assisted GPS (A-GPS) technology, which can use the base station or cell towers to provide a faster Time to First Fix (TTFF), especially when GPS signals are poor or unavailable. However, the mobile network part of the A-GPS technology would not be available when the smartphone is outside the range of the mobile reception network, while the GPS aspect would otherwise continue to be available.
The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) was developed contemporaneously with GPS, but suffered from incomplete coverage of the globe until the mid-2000s.[3] GLONASS can be added to GPS devices to make more satellites available and enabling positions to be fixed more quickly and accurately, to within 2 meters.

As far as I know Litchi missions gathers its information from a number of different means google maps government surveys aerial photography, this is very helpful but also can be misleading , for instance buildings come, hillsides get bulldozed away rivers dry up tides also ebb and flow wax and wane. Not 100% sure about this or if this has to do with your problem.

So what is wrong about what I posted .

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 07:31
Second locks are fast because satellites are cached already. It's the first (cold start) time we are complaining  about.
Am I to understand that your M3 locks fast even for cold start?

... if you couldn't fly for a few days (e.g. because of bad weather), then it seems to take a little longer again, but maybe not as long as after the FW update...
Is that what you mean by "cold start"...?

DarthSLR Posted at 1-26 07:34
There were two FW updates.
The satellite lock issue began manifesting itself after 2021-12-10 update, and was somewhat mollified with 2022-01-24 update, but not to the pre 2021-12-10 levels (or to M2P or other drones rate).

With Assistant 2 you can no longer go back to the very first FW...

hallmark007 Posted at 1-26 23:33
People are simply saying what they’re seeing, what they’re hearing. If your telemetry says weak gps your manual says weak gps, then its most likely your going to think you have weak GPS. So its confusing for a lot of users.

And I continue to explain what really happens and dispel myths and misunderstanding.
But it doesn't do much good around here.

Labroides Posted at 1-27 00:49
And I continue to explain what really happens and dispel myths and misunderstanding.
But it doesn't do much good around here.

I don’t know, I’ve picked up a bit

Suren Posted at 1-26 00:06
This issue is not related to one Mavic 3 drone but it is an issue across the board. Every Mavic 3 owner on here will provide you the log files but we never had this issue prior to the December update. Previous to this update the drone used to lock onto homeport very very fast and we would like that back again, even if the drone takes 30 to 40 seconds it will be acceptable but not 2 to 5 minutes to locks sats, this is eating away into flight/battery time.

We understand how frustrated it is, and we will do our best to help solve this problem. We've forwarded this issue to the corresponding team for a check. To better locate the cause and solve this issue, we need some logs for further analysis. Could you please provide us with the log so that we can forward it to our engineer?

hallmark007 Posted at 1-26 12:27
Hi DJI Mindy, can you clear up something for some members here. Has something changed in firmware updates that has slowed down the time it takes to gain gps lock on Mavic3 ? Is the problem known to DJI engineers and if so is something being done to correct this. There is a lot of misinformation around here and it would help if you could clear it up with some explanation.

Hi hallmark, for the firmware update information, you can refer to this link: https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... elease_Notes_en.pdf
As for the satellite issue, we've forwarded this issue to our corresponding team. To better locate the cause and solve this issue, we need some logs for further analysis. Therefore we are here to see if we can get some logs for analysis. If it's convenient, we hope you can describe the issue in detail such as how long does it take and how many satellites it acquire so that we can forward it to our engineer for further check.

Just done a comparison test, M3 and M2Zoom take off from exact same position straight after one another,
M2Z Cold start or first start-up for 2 weeks; 11/12 sats and home point message 35seconds.
M3 Cold start-up since yesterday, 10/11 sats and homepoint message 2mins 20sec.
M3 new start-up after closing everything down and restarting including app; 11/12 sats 5min 10sec no home point message, auto take-off to 1.1mts and straight away 17/18 sats and home point message.
And final test was that I restarted everything as in 3rd test, I did not wait, but straight away after connection with M3 and only 10 sats did an auto take-off and immediately got home point message and 15+ sats.
The 4th method has been my work around for the issue since 10th Dec update as I would normally not take-off until hearing home point update message.
But for me, this comparison test confirms that if anything the M3 is a slow starter compared to the M2Z.  Dji please take note...

DJI Mindy Posted at 1-27 03:38
Hi hallmark, for the firmware update information, you can refer to this link: https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/DJI_Mavic_3/20220124/DJI_Mavic_3_Release_Notes_en.pdf
As for the satellite issue, we've forwarded this issue to our corresponding team. To better locate the cause and solve this issue, we need some logs for further analysis. Therefore we are here to see if we can get some logs for analysis. If it's convenient, we hope you can describe the issue in detail such as how long does it take and how many satellites it acquire so that we can forward it to our engineer for further check.

Just done a comparison test, M3 and M2Zoom take off from exact same position straight after one another,
M2Z Cold start or first start-up for 2 weeks; 11/12 sats and home point message 35seconds.
M3 Cold start-up since yesterday, 10/11 sats and homepoint message 2mins 20sec.
M3 new start-up after closing everything down and restarting including app; 11/12 sats 5min 10sec no home point message, auto take-off to 1.1mts and straight away 17/18 sats and home point message.
And final test was that I restarted everything as in 3rd test, I did not wait, but straight away after connection with M3 and only 10 sats did an auto take-off and immediately got home point message and 15+ sats.
The 4th method has been my work around for the issue since 10th Dec update as I would normally not take-off until hearing home point update message.
But for me, this comparison test confirms that if anything the M3 is a slow starter compared to the M2Z.  Dji please take note...

Grimtheviking Posted at 1-27 03:43
Just done a comparison test, M3 and M2Zoom take off from exact same position straight after one another,
M2Z Cold start or first start-up for 2 weeks; 11/12 sats and home point message 35seconds.
M3 Cold start-up since yesterday, 10/11 sats and homepoint message 2mins 20sec.

Thanks for the detailed information. Could you please also provide us with the log for further analysis? Below are the methods to Aircraft Data, you may upload the files to Dropbox or Google Drive, then share the link with us.
(1) Download DJI Assistant 2 from the official website. Download link: https://www.dji.com/downloads?site=brandsite&from=nav
(2) Launch DJI Assistant 2. Within 20 seconds after the aircraft is powered on, connect it to DJI Assistant 2.
(3) After DJI Assistant 2 recognizes the aircraft, choose "Log Export", and then click "Save to local".
(4) The final exported data are ".dat" files.

I think its clear upload flight log and see if it helps .