Hi Forum

I just got my mini 3 pro this weekend and took it for a testflight.
I tried some video options, like mp4, mov, different codec, cine vs normal.
Directly the first video I ever took is completely corrupted. I can only play it with the DJI fly app and VLC. Everything else just doesn't work. Tried it on OSX and my Pixel 5.
Other videos, have 'stutters' in between. Meaning the video freezes and after some seconds it continues as if it was streaming and the buffering couldn't keep up.
I'm using a Samsung EVO plus 256GB. I think the 512GB is mentioned on the recommended cards page.
At first I thought it's my 2014 MacBook Pro, which is surely a bit dated. My work MacBook Pro from 2019 has the same thing, as does my phone. But even if I upload to Youtube it's the same. So I kind of think it's the video not the playback.
I still need to make a real test with all the different variations in the same condition and length, but ...
What could this be? Defective? User error? Software issues?

Update: see here for the current conclusion (final one hopefully...)

did you record in h264 or h265 and use dcinelike?  h264 i believe is least compatible and have had better success using h265

Hello there JapanByDrone. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please post a short sample video showing the issue for us to be able to see and can assist. Thank you.

DJI Stephen Posted at 8-17 19:30
Hello there JapanByDrone. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please post a short sample video showing the issue for us to be able to see and can assist. Thank you.

Hi Stephen, sure! Could you allow me to post links? I can upload an example to Dropbox or if you have a preferred service to there.

Whilst the Samsung EVO plus SD cards may be suitable, I have used these in the past and had bad experiences. Sadly the market is full of fakes.

The best card I can recommend is the Sandisk Extreme Pro. Please ensure you buy it direct from the manufacturer and not a 3rd party to ensure that it's genuine. These cards are more than capable and I have not had one let me down yet.

I may have found the reason but still have to do some testing.
Today I could only do 30min due to rain. But none of the videos have the issue.
This time I formatted the card with the drone.
Before I had it in Fat32, as Android doesn't support exFat natively

JapanByDrone Posted at 8-20 06:21
I may have found the reason but still have to do some testing.
Today I could only do 30min due to rain. But none of the videos have the issue.
This time I formatted the card with the drone.

thats probably it, thanks for information

No it isn't. I created another set of corrupted files with the same card and formatted in exFat. It still contains files I took before that were not corrupted, as I didn't format the card in between.
This is definitely not a problem of the card but a bug or issue with the drone.

ABSOLUTELY disappointing! I now have a several hundreds dollar worth drone that is worth nothing. It can't even do the most basic task of saving the videos it takes properly!

Great, seems no idea of customer service either. Can't even find a replacement method...maybe I should just return. It seems DJI is only trouble

Hi.
I know it's easy for someone whose drone is working fine to give advice but the Mini 3 Pro is a great drone and will be worth keeping when you get things straightened out.
You paid your money, can't wait to use all the features and you want to do it now!  I would too.
Step back take it slow and give it some more time. It's probably just the card, try a Sandisk Extreme Pro.  Worst case DJI will replace it if necessary.
Good luck and let us know what's happening.

One thing to try is removing the microSD card from the drone after you turn it off.  Sometimes, I may get corrupted files if I remove the card while on.

Just my 2 cents

Okay I tried that...not even sure why I invest my time in this, that's what annoys me more than losing videos.
It worked for one file but not others. But the file that worked had some kind of auxiliary file to it. The other files don't have that.
Actually I found out that if I turn off the device too quickly after I take a video, the file seems to become corrupted. Apparently the drone can't write the file fast enough to the card from cache. And the software seemingly also doesn't prevent it from shutting off before.
Although 'too quickly' is like within 1-2min. As I stopped the recording mid flight, landed the drone, stepped in front of it and turned it off.
I checked my card and the read/write rate is minimum 80MB/s for both. According to DJI specs website I need a card with minimum 30MB/s write speed, unless I get that wrong.
So it's definitely not the card.
Seems rather that the SD-Card controller or something like that isn't giving the throughput expected to save the files fast enough. The latest corrupted file was only in the range of 300MB.
edit: ah btw. for the file that worked. I inserted the card. Took a new short video (like proposed somewhere in another thread). Then went to the video player in the DJI app. But I couldn't playback. It took several minutes, might have been up to 5min?, where it displayed a message that a 'recording is in progress' or so. After that stopped I could playback my old corrupted file.

Pretty unbelievable company if you ask me...
I'm not sure why everyone is talking so good about them, is this all paid?
Were they just lucky to never have to deal with them?

I finally got a usable answer to my replacement request. They now ask me to accept repair and shipping costs!
THEY didn't even fulfill their part of the contract of delivering a working product. And now I have to accept to pay more to get one?!?
Are they crazy!?!

I have updated my mini pro 3 to the latest firmware and this morning all my video's which i created are corrupted... The photo's are oke but video's are corrupted, anyone else who has this problem? I also have the Sandisk Extreme pro 256GB sd card in it.. Really annoyed and frustrated that my content is gone, the sizes of the video's looks oke but its not working...

djiuser_y2Nfb2Z6705C Posted at 9-21 22:01
I have updated my mini pro 3 to the latest firmware and this morning all my video's which i created are corrupted... The photo's are oke but video's are corrupted, anyone else who has this problem? I also have the Sandisk Extreme pro 256GB sd card in it.. Really annoyed and frustrated that my content is gone, the sizes of the video's looks oke but its not working...

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like my issue just worse. At least for me it was just random videos, not all.
But I'm forced to send my drone in to them, have nothing for weeks and the outcome makes me worry. Given the communication so far. At one point they even started mocking me (they send me a message to calm down using their products while I'm corresponding about a broken product that I can't use... what a company)

JapanByDrone Posted at 9-21 23:50
Sorry to hear that. Sounds like my issue just worse. At least for me it was just random videos, not all.
But I'm forced to send my drone in to them, have nothing for weeks and the outcome makes me worry. Given the communication so far. At one point they even started mocking me  (they send me a message to calm down using their products while I'm corresponding about a broken product that I can't use... what a company)

Hi, there. We are greatly sorry to hear about that. We managed to find out your case number through your forum account. We will make further checks with our team and keep you updated.

JapanByDrone Posted at 9-21 23:50
Sorry to hear that. Sounds like my issue just worse. At least for me it was just random videos, not all.
But I'm forced to send my drone in to them, have nothing for weeks and the outcome makes me worry. Given the communication so far. At one point they even started mocking me  (they send me a message to calm down using their products while I'm corresponding about a broken product that I can't use... what a company)

So this is drone related? Because i couldn't find a reason why the video's were corrupted.... First the mp4 files were 1GB or more, and later on 256KB (so totally destructed)

Thoompje Posted at 9-23 00:00
So this is drone related? Because i couldn't find a reason why the video's were corrupted.... First the mp4 files were 1GB or more, and later on 256KB (so totally destructed)

I'm a software engineer not a hardware expert but as written before I think it's probably something with the card controller or another part not giving the transfer speeds expected. Though just a wild guess.

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-23 03:10
Have you tried another card?

No don't have one but I benchmarked the one I have and confirmed it's working without issues in my DSLR taking 4k 60fps videos.

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-24 04:53
It could be an issue with the drone, but I would still try another card.  My P3 Standards have issues with the same Samsung cards that work fine in all my other drones.  I have to use SanDisk in both P3 Standards.  Cards are inexpensive & it doesn't hurt to have a spare.

Yeah possible, but they say it's a compatible card.

And my fun continues...

I got the drone back from "repair". Of course they claim everything is normal and the device isn't broken.
So having not much choice I bought a new card: SanDisk Extreme MicroSD 128GB UHS-I U3 V30.
It's the same they claim they used, except they tested with 32GB.
Every 4k 60fps video I take is now the same size and length, 3:17, 2.somthing GB
The videos simply stop after that, even they were longer.
Also I took 2x 4k 60fps videos for about ~30min, they were not even saved.

Best thing, when I got it back I immediately did a test flight to check if there is any damage from transport.
I just did a 360° around its own axis. But when I was at 180° it suddenly veered extremely hard sideways into a plant. And since then the app says "gimbal stuck", even though the gimbal seems free. The gimbal doesn't work anymore.
The drone itself is undamaged and flies normally in my test flight today. It wasn't really a hard crash either, as it was only maybe 1m to that plant and the plant was soft, some leaves didn't survive though.

It's now 2 months and I don't have a working drone. In contrast it gets worse and worse.
And I threw more money out the window for that card...

JapanByDrone Posted at 10-9 02:36
And my fun continues...

I got the drone back from "repair". Of course they claim everything is normal and the device isn't broken.

It would be very rare for the issue to be the drone or camera.
Start by dialing everything back to basics and shoot 25/30 frames/sec rather than 60 fps and use H264 compression.
See how that goes with both of your cards.
After you get things working, then try 60 fps (if you really need to).

That's like saying to drive your Ferrari in 1st gear to 30 and only go to second and 60 if you have to
I paid for 4k 60fps so I'm using it and it should do it, cause that was advertised.

Hi @JapanByDrone
Its seems that you`re not the only one. I bought the drone 2 weeks ago. It was recording videos ok in the beginning. No issues eddit them in Davinci Resolve, but one day without crashing it and changing absolutely anything it start having the very same issue as yours. But with the small difference that all my videos are corrupted . Changing, spending more money on SD cards, apps reinstalations, new codecs, new windows, new drone updates and controls........ nothing works Practically I have A very expensive flying toy incapable to record videos...........

TeoTeo Posted at 10-17 05:10
Hi @JapanByDrone
Its seems that you`re not the only one. I bought the drone 2 weeks ago. It was recording videos ok in the beginning, but now I have the same issue as you . Changing and spending more money on SD cards, apps reinstalations. New codecs, new windows, new drone updates and controls........ nothing works. My videos are corrupted too

It's highly annoying. I should have a drone. But I only have mail conversations with the support.
At least they recognized the drone failure and repair it free of charge. But they still claim the video size is due to the card. Eh what, ex-fat supports way larger files than few gigabyte. And it's the same card they use for testing.
Seems buying a new card won't get you far...
So I fear my "fun" continues as they don't replace it but just repair parts

JapanByDrone Posted at 10-17 05:30
It's highly annoying. I should have a drone. But I only have mail conversations with the support.
At least they recognized the drone failure and repair it free of charge. But they still claim the video size is due to the card. Eh what, ex-fat supports way larger files than few gigabyte. And it's the same card they use for testing.
Seems buying a new card won't get you far...

Im investigating it and other people have same issue. Most of them suggesting to install VLC player and shoot with H265. With VLC you can play the videos on the PC and the files are 100 to 300 mb which means that there is information in the files, but the funny fact is that I cant load them any more in a post editing software such as Davinci, Premier and so on. Even shooting with H265 or H264 Davinci cant recognize the file........ Funny that very same stting were working a week ago without changing anything

Dirty Bird Posted at 10-17 06:35
It is normal for the drone to break long videos into ~4 GB segments.  The files stitch together seamlessly in your editing software.  As to the crash, you said you rotated the drone & it veered into a plant.  The drone has obstacle avoidance.  If you rotated in place & suddenly something appears to the OA sensors, the drone may have reacted to avoid something it viewed as an obstacle.  Hope you get things worked out.

That's similar to what they told me. But the videos don't cut at 4GB but 2.Something
Also they don't stitch together they simply stop.

They also acknowledged the issue with the flight. It was caused by abnormal vibrations. The drone went from flying straight to completely sideways.

Okay I'm pretty much done with DJI. Not buying anything ever again from them. What a joke really!
I love the drone actually and will likely keep, not sell it. But the company...

Okay to recap:
When I got the drone initially it flew well. But videos were randomly corrupted. Couldn't open them anywhere. Others had the picture/image stop in between for some time, although the video itself continued playing.
Then I send it back first time and also bought a new sd-card, as they claimed the issue is with the card.
After I got it back, on the first test flight it crashed. Due to abnormal vibrations according to the support. And the gimbal stopped working.
Also videos stopped after 2.something GB and the rest of the recording was missing. When I took very long videos (~30min) they were not there at all, simply not saved.
Then I send it back the second time.
I got it back this week and am just back from the first test-flight.
In their last email about the work report, they mentioned that the S/N doesn't change. It robbed my hope that the video issue might be solved by replacing the motherboard or similar.
They didn't even mention the video issue, even though I send them another mail inquiring about it once more.
When I got it back, I noticed the drone looks replaced entirely. The body looks unused, screws look all untouched where I can see them. I didn't use it much, but at least the small rubber feet on the bottom should have had some usage. I didn't have a landing pad at the beginning. Also I changed the rotors after the crash. Adding to that, the drone came in a plastic bag that has a sticker saying "drone & gimbal" and a new S/N is written on it with the same format as the S/N of the original package. Also the drone was returned with several documents saying I need to be careful about S/N change and that I have to update the remoteID.
But actually the S/N reported on the DJI fly app, is the old one (the one printed on the carton).
About the flying issue: it didn't crash and flew very well. I might imagine this, but I thought the drone is much quieter than before I send it back the first time.
About the video issue: GONE! No corrupted video produced. It seems 4k/24fps/cine has issues on OSX. But I can play them with VLC, so that's not on the drone. They are still split, but after 3.76GB this time. Though unless before the repair, now there is a follow up video with the rest of the recording. Or in case of ~20min recording, several videos.

BEST THING:
I tried BOTH cards. Both have no issues!

NOW THE ABSOLUTE KICKER:

You would think that DJI gave me a reimbursement for not being able to deliver a working product for more than 2 months.

You would think that DJI paid back for the, now useless extra, card which I bought due to their feedback (that the issue is the card).

You would think that DJI would at least send a simple apology that costs them nothing.

Well you might think again!

JapanByDrone Posted at 2022-10-22 01:17
Okay I'm pretty much done with DJI. Not buying anything ever again from them. What a joke really!
I love the drone actually and will likely keep, not sell it. But the company...

I think we got same issues on mini 3 pro I just got mine last week

I am getting the same issue. Every 4k video I have taken with the DJI mini 3 Pro seems to be affected. The videos will not play in simple players such as Window media player or the standard video player on my Android tablet. They will play in VLC but freeze up every 3 to 5 seconds for about 5 seconds at a time displaying digital noise while continuing to count thru the timeline as if it is still playing.. Sometimes the time will freeze as though it is having trouble continuing, and then it will skip forward and commence playing later in the clip.

I initially thought it was only happening for recordings that were being split (i.e. they had reached the size/length limit at around 3.5gb?), but have confirmed that even short recordings appear to be affected.

I am having less trouble with lesser resolutions. 2K appears to work 90% of the time, but does glitch occasionally. Not sure this is the same issue though. 1080 res seems to work every time.

Just to confirm that it shouldn't be a memory card issue, I am using a SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB microSDXC Memory Card. I guess the card itself might be unstable. I know it's official as I purchased it from JB Hifi.....

My drone is currently in the shop for repair/replace due to an unrelated crash, I think I will end up with a replacement anyways but will be keeping an eye on this issue...

Just FYI, I have found that some video conversion software will allow you to process the "corrupt" files and resave them to remove the issue.. This means that if you have valuable footage, it may still be salvageable. The app I was using to do this on Android is called "YouCut". Simply open this app and press save and it saves with the same resolution but you lose the metadata on the file.

I hope this assists.

gecko.pico Posted at 3-26 19:32
I am getting the same issue. Every 4k video I have taken with the DJI mini 3 Pro seems to be affected. The videos will not play in simple players such as Window media player or the standard video player on my Android tablet. They will play in VLC but freeze up every 3 to 5 seconds for about 5 seconds at a time displaying digital noise while continuing to count thru the timeline as if it is still playing.. Sometimes the time will freeze as though it is having trouble continuing, and then it will skip forward and commence playing later in the clip.

I initially thought it was only happening for recordings that were being split (i.e. they had reached the size/length limit at around 3.5gb?), but have confirmed that even short recordings appear to be affected.

Is this issue related to using H265 instead of H264?

Seems like you have a lot of time on your hands....please don't waste ours....we are ALL paid by DJI

supergeo.ca Posted at 3-27 03:16
Is this issue related to using H265 instead of H264?

I believe I was using H264 for all my 4k recordings.

I have since requested an explanation from DJI on this issue. I should state that the files themselves are not corrupt but rather in a format which (it seems) most players cannot handle. This is likely to do with the massive thruput required to play 4K videos. Also compression algorithms can usually be tweaked to be aggressive and produce smaller files which the player then has to decode (which will take longer) which could be responsible for the players having trouble maintaining a constant stream when playing.

There are some things you can do to play your files such as using a different video player!

On WIndows/Linux DJI recommended trying "PotPlayer".
On Android I found XPlayer -Video Player could play these files without issue.

I hope this helps!

fans21f46d12 Posted at 3-27 04:27
Seems like you have a lot of time on your hands....please don't waste ours....we are ALL paid by DJI

What a strange thing to say.....? I'm not sure what you are referring to. Perhaps you could try being clearer and more friendly?

Thanks

This looks like an older thread,  but my 2022 mini pro has just started doing the same thing.  Making video files that wont open in windows media player OR Cyberlink power director,  but WILL open in an RLV player.
Ran it through 'Wondershare' a file recovery app, and it fixed it so that you could watch the video in its player, but after you saved it,  the file STILL WOULD ONLY PLAY IN RLV.   Tried different cards.  Cant trust the thing anymore!  So.....

Facing recording issue with my DJI Mini Pro 3, I find this post that relates exactly my problem with digital noise, pixel occurence every 4 or 5 seconds. It happens recently and no way to get files OK. I also formerly face the same issue with corrupted files ...

Any news or solution to fix I t?
Thanks !