Apparently, my driveway is not perfect for acquiring satellites. Weird, never was an issue for Mavic 2 Pro, but OK, I can go up 20-30 ft and wait 10-15 seconds till it gets the good number.

Now, what was interesting is that refused to go higher than some fairly low value (like beginners mode).
I checked the max altitude in settings and it sure is set to the max.
Once a good number of satellites were acquired, I could immediately get higher to my desired altitude.

Does anybody else notice that?

Yes.  There is some incredibly low altitude limit when GPS signal "sucks" (I've seen it, but not frequently enough to remember what it was).  And then for "weak" GPS signal I've a limit of 98 feet.  I've observed that if I take off with this limit and fly the drone to a slightly more "open" space, GPS lock seems to occur faster.  And by "fly to a more open space", that may mean going just 5 feet forward (farther from the edge of my home) for example.

Since the new firmware update, my M3 is having issues acquiring quickly the satellites signal limiting the max altitude. It take like 45 seconds before have sufficient satellites and trigger the home point has been updated. That most to be another bug.

Just for reference, the lacking-GPS-ceiling on the Mavic Mini is something like 5m, I'm in the same boat  as DarthSLR in that my normal take off point at home is in GPS shadow and the MM often ends up hovering for a while at 5m ir thereabouts

Now, what was interesting is that refused to go higher than some fairly low value

This is explained on p58 of your manual
  Height is restricted to 30 m when the GNSS signal is weak and VPS is available.
  Height is restricted to 3 m when the GNSS signal is weak and light conditions is not sufficient for VPS to work.

Labroides Posted at 12-13 15:41
Now, what was interesting is that refused to go higher than some fairly low value

This is explained on p58 of your manual

Thank you! That makes sense. Sorry for RTFM...

On the RC Pro Controller, top left of the screen. here will be a warning Box that say, "Warning Weak Gps signal". If you tap on this box. It will say, "Due weak Gps signal, your altitude will be limited to 98 Feet!"

sclelectronics Posted at 12-13 20:45
On the RC Pro Controller, top left of the screen. here will be a warning Box that say, "Warning Weak Gps signal". If you tap on this box. It will say, "Due weak Gps signal, your altitude will be limited to 98 Feet!"

I need to get used to all those clickable/tapable things.

Hello there DarthSLR. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. For additional reference I will post some information below on Flight Altitude and Distance Limit. Thank you.

One of those crazy restrictions made for "Your own good" - they want to see the ground to stabilize ... made cave flying very difficult to me - but I found the way - start outside with good GPS and then enter

My DJI FPV drone requires 18 satellite connections to go higher than 30m/98feet. I've been flying it around where I live most of the time, but in the past 2 weeks it refuses to get over 17 connections. Hovers around 14 and maxes out at 17. Wasted almost 2 hours of just flying around trying to get a connection. Is there anyway to bypass this "feature" or Is jailbreaking the only option?

djiuser_trCKg82grbMa Posted at 3-8 15:07
My DJI FPV drone requires 18 satellite connections to go higher than 30m/98feet. I've been flying it around where I live most of the time, but in the past 2 weeks it refuses to get over 17 connections. Hovers around 14 and maxes out at 17. Wasted almost 2 hours of just flying around trying to get a connection. Is there anyway to bypass this "feature" or Is jailbreaking the only option?

My DJI FPV drone requires 18 satellite connections to go higher than 30m/98feet.
It doesn't.
It requires enough sats with a good enough spread to provide acceptable location data reliability , but there is no fixed number at which that might happen.

I've been flying it around where I live most of the time, but in the past 2 weeks it refuses to get over 17 connections. Hovers around 14 and maxes out at 17. Wasted almost 2 hours of just flying around trying to get a connection. Is there anyway to bypass this "feature" or Is jailbreaking the only option?
Fly somewhere that you have a clear, unobstructed skyview and you'll get  the best spread of sats and faster full GPS acquisition.

Labroides Posted at 3-8 15:21
My DJI FPV drone requires 18 satellite connections to go higher than 30m/98feet.
It doesn't.
It requires enough sats with a good enough spread to provide acceptable location data reliability , but there is no fixed number at which that might happen.

So your answer is fly somewhere else? That's quite helpful. Also it requires exactly 18 where I usually fly it which is around where I live. When the weather's perfect, meaning no clouds or wind it finds the satellites quickly but where I live that's rarely the case.  My main question is, is there a way to bypass this?

djiuser_trCKg82grbMa Posted at 3-8 19:32
So your answer is fly somewhere else? That's quite helpful. Also it requires exactly 18 where I usually fly it which is around where I live. When the weather's perfect, meaning no clouds or wind it finds the satellites quickly but where I live that's rarely the case.  My main question is, is there a way to bypass this?

So your answer is fly somewhere else?
It sounds like the location you are flying is the problem and moving somewhere that the drone can get a good view of most of the sky is the solution.

Also it requires exactly 18 where I usually fly it which is around where I live.
Forget about 18 .. I already explained that the number of sats is not what matters.

When the weather's perfect, meaning no clouds or wind it finds the satellites quickly but where I live that's rarely the case.
Wind and clouds make absolutely no difference to GPS.


My main question is, is there a way to bypass this?
Yes... by learning about how GPS works and what affects it.

<<HINT>>
Obstacles like buildings, trees and terrain that block the skyview, block the reception from satellites .
If your drone can only see a small part of the sky, it cannot get the SPREAD of satellites it needs to get good GPS data.