Hi Phantom-users,
After 3 months of close to flawless service, my P3P is unusable for semi-professional video shooting (my job). It worked great out of the box. Never had to calibrate IMU, and compass only when it told me to. All in all, a very reliable workhorse.

Now it sinks while hovering, can't really fly in a straight line and the camera is off-horizon and also facing a bit off, visibly to the left. Not too much but just enough so I can't fly it in a straight line with the video feed. Could anyone pls help and recommend some kind of solution, apart from sending it back to DJI? Sending back is not an option, I work in Costa Rica, and can not go without my drone for weeks/months.

Here is what happened in chronological order:

- firmware was successfully updated for aircraft, controller, batteries when the latest FW came out
- last week noticed horizon issues in some and then all videos
- calibrated the IMU + gimbal - no change (Aircraft was cold, room was ACd to cold, surface level)
- realized one of the front rubber dampers was torn, causing the whole gimbal setup to tilt a bit sideways (was happy to see that thinking that swapping the rubbers will solve everything)
- changed one rubber damper - calibrated IMU + gimbal - no change, camera visibly rattled while in hover
- changed ALL rubber dampers - calibrated IMU + gimbal - not much of a change, camera off-horizon, still a bit of rattling in hover and in flight

- noticed drone is sinking in hover, had to pull it up regularly to avoid involuntary landing
- put on all new propellers - no improvement
- tried to calibrate gimbal while it was facing down (a tip I read on this forum) - no change
- tried to calibrate IMU and gimbal again (compass as well, regularly)

It's like my drone has forgetten where forward is. When I simply go straight, it starts to drift to the left and keeps going up or down a bit, mostly down, something it has never done. A simple elevate/yaw maneuver will look shaky in some parts of the video footage.

There are no visible physical damage to any parts. Aircraft looks solid, never been crashed. I am running out of options and hope. I am even contemplating putting it in the fridge for an hour. Insane as it sounds, I read on the forum some people had success with very cold IMU calibration (straight out of a fridge).

Please, anyone, if you have some tips, I would love to try getting this fixed.
Thanks, Fabio

I actually experienced these symptoms yesterday for the first time (first extended flight since updating FW). I thought I was overthinking it since I hadn't flown in a couple of weeks. Interesting. Will follow this thread for any ideas.

I've got a P3A and have noticed it drifts yaw when heading straight lately ....      so that's an issue, haha.  (I noticed if I spin it around and go straight again, it doesn't drift for a while ...  might be compass related?)

My P3A done the exact same thing yesterday, of course after the FW update. I almost lost her , but managed to switch to Atti mode and land safely. Also, I'm getting a gimbal overload message even after calibrating everything. I've been reading other posts and it seems like a lot of people are having the same issue. My gimbal seems to be hotter after the update. I'm not flying until they either patch the bugs or I can uninstall the update and fly with the previous one. I wish more testing was done before releasing these updates. It going to cause some heartbreaks I'm afraid.

Mine also experiences tilted horizon after latest 'upgrade', and it is a lot worse than under FW 12.6, however spinning her around quickly levels her.
And she also drift slowly left (yaw).
However none of these are as annoying to me as the ever so frequent 'disconnect' issues, and compass errors.

yep agreed with all of the above, I drift slightly and every so often camera is off horizon - I don't however 'sink' whilst hovering, have not heard of that... I do believe that it is to do wth the update.

Hmmm, I've noticed some drift as well when flying today, but I assumed it was due to slightly windy conditions, had a little bit of an issue with altitude control as well... I'll have to re-calibrate my IMU tonight and see if the problem persists.

I have the same issues after take off and when I'm linked to 11 sats or less.   Once I lock on to 15 or more sats, the bird is pretty stable as far as drift is concerned. she will still gain and loose a bit of altitude every now and then.
Just make sure you have at least 12 sats locked in to eliminate drift.

BIG NEWS to all who suffer from similar issues.
Today I have tried flying my P3P without the iPad. It worked flawlessly! Not losing altitude, flying in a perfectly straight line in spite some heavy winds.
So there are two factors which could be at fault. Either the cable or the DJI Go app. Truth be told, there is a small rip in the cable insulation (original Apple cable).
Then I tried flying with my friends iPad with an unused, freshly installed DJI Go. Funnily the horizon issue was gone. It did not sink, but it definitely drifted, this time to the right... Still it performed much better than with my regular iPad.

Today I will reinstall the DJI Go app and see what happens. If that does not help, I will get a new cable... will keep you posted.
Hope this helps someone. If you are suddenly having drift issues and horizon issues, and several IMU/gimbal/RC calibrations do not help, then try flying just with the controller and see what happens.

Sugardaddy Posted at 2015-8-22 02:01
BIG NEWS to all who suffer from similar issues.
Today I have tried flying my P3P without the iPad. I ...

Awesome.. I was having the exact problems.  Will try this afternoon without iPad

So... Flew sans iPad.  Calibrated compass using PAF switch; flew great with no sinking while hovering..  However, it was still yawing slightly to the left.  

Good news is I reattached the iPad and had a flawless flight! No sinking, flying straight and great camera horizon.  Fingers crossed it wasn't just a one time thing....  

Wow, that is great news. How do you calibrate the compass using PAF switch?

Sugardaddy Posted at 2015-8-22 04:07
Wow, that is great news. How do you calibrate the compass using PAF switch?

Flip the PAF switch back and forth approximately 10-15 times -- rear LEDs will turn solid yellow and it's ready for calibration.

I have a P3P with Firmware 1.3.2, controller has 1.3.2. Use an ipad with DJ go, not sure which version, it is packed for flying.

Last week I had same issues.

won't fly straight, gimble is now cocked, need to manually correct.

DJI, please pay your alpha testers to do their job and stop having your customers pay to be beta testers.

Flew my P3P this morning.

Firmware version 1.3.2, DJI GO app version 2.0.0

One battery and all went well flight and camera-wise.

Returned, put new battery in, took off and flew up over 100 meters AGL and was 1200+ meters from home point when the grid started flashing off & on, camera parameters in upper right of screen all went to N/A.

Was recording video as this happened. The little line that animates during image acquisition around the red shutter release button started being animated, then stopped animating and video recording ceased and the camera image onscreen went black, all parameters for camera went to N/A.

The video file on the card was unreadable. All still images up to that point were readable.

I stopped flying away from the home point and hovered in one spot. closed the app, relaunched, no effect.

rebooted ipad, no effect.

returned to home point, swapped in a third battery, no effect. Still a black screen, N/A on all parameters for camera.

Does anyone have suggestion(s) on what is causing this or how to resolve it?

I see no point in contacting DJI support, they are useless, never return emails.

thanks for any tips you can offer.

PS it flew straight, but the gimble was cocked and I needed to adjust it for accuracy.

Sounds like you lost all power to the camera. I have no tips for that other than checking the plugs that connect the camera/gimbal to the drone. I have heard that they came loose for some people.
The video file is unfinished because of the loss of power to the camera. It will be automatically restored once the camera regains power and you boot up the phantom with the SD card inside. There is one company that help restoring unfinished video files form the phantom 3. But I guess this is the least of your problems right now.

another reasons of staying at fw 1.1.9

Anyone find a fix for the gimbal drift issues? Mine is still drifting left off center with the latest firmware upgrade. Drives me nuts when trying to fly straight and it slowly drifts to the left, makes it seem like the P3 is not flying straight.  Moves slowly a few degrees to the left and eventually stops until I yaw again.

I see a lot of posts and not a lot of solutions to much of anything..
I was looking for an answer to my problem within this forum.
My phantom 3 pro. shakes when it fly's very little but if you look at it while it's hoovering you can see it.
And no it's not my shutter speed and I tried new props.
I have two Phantom Pro's and this is the only one of the two that does this.
So i'm only interested in people that have had this problem and solved it.
sorry I'm grumpy but this is getting the better of me.

Do a cold calibration and just calibrate everything