Love my P3A. I have 4 batteries (3 DJI & 1 aftermarket) Everything has performed faultless since new a couple of years ago.
Never updated any firmware....no cracks, I treat it with respect and as a professional product NOT a toy!

Price …. well relatively expensive in Australia but hey, what a great aerial photography platform!
Consider that we previously needed to charter a helicopter for the same shots! Suddenly the cost seems much more reasonable.

My advice: Treat it like you would your most expensive camera and not some aerial hot rod, and it will reward you with many years of reliable and trouble free service.

Had Phantom 3 advanced for just over a year Not had any problems and flys great. Would state read and followed every bodies advice on the forum which has serve me well !!
Usually I leave manuals in box but this time Knowlage is key :-)

Mark The Droner Posted at 12-12 15:11
Tell us more.  What FW did you have and what FW did you move to?

Hi, I'm not sure, because it was more than a year ago, but from the files I still have on my pc I upgraded from P3X_FW_V01.04.0010 to P3X_FW_V01.09.0060. I also have the files P3X_FW_V01.11.0020 and P3X_FW_V01.11.0030 on my pc, probably I tried to upgrade to these files later. At that time they mentioned in this forum also to ask for a bin file that could resolve the problem, but nothing helped.
The bad thing was also that it stopped working when I wanted to take off at a real estate client. A few months later, after reading a lot of forums, spending many days trying to fix it, it suddenly worked again. So I called my real estate client that I had my drone working again, made a new appointment, but once I was at the client and wanted to take off, it didn't work again. They were not amused, to say the least. I did normal photography for them too, but they never hired me again since.

Michel1965 Posted at 12-12 18:53
Hi, I'm not sure, because it was more than a year ago, but from the files I still have on my pc I upgraded from P3X_FW_V01.04.0010 to P3X_FW_V01.09.0060. I also have the files P3X_FW_V01.11.0020 and P3X_FW_V01.11.0030 on my pc, probably I tried to upgrade to these files later. At that time they mentioned in this forum also to ask for a bin file that could resolve the problem, but nothing helped.
The bad thing was also that it stopped working when I wanted to take off at a real estate client. A few months later, after reading a lot of forums, spending many days trying to fix it, it suddenly worked again. So I called my real estate client that I had my drone working again, made a new appointment, but once I was at the client and wanted to take off, it didn't work again. They were not amused, to say the least. I did normal photography for them too, but they never hired me again since.

Okay - so although you haven't told us, we can assume you have a Phantom 3 Professional.

We know that if you upgrade FW from a lower AC FW to AC FW 1.8 or above, you must also upgrade your RC FW to 1.6 or above.  Otherwise you will have encryption issues.  That might be your problem.

You should also always use a fan to blow cool air onto your gimbal when doing a AC FW upgrade to your P3P.  Otherwise you could burn out a board on your P3P.  So it's possible that's your problem.  

You should probably read this post which you will likely find helpful:  https://phantompilots.com/thread ... .87175/#post-901549

Good luck

Mark The Droner Posted at 12-12 19:30
Okay - so although you haven't told us, we can assume you have a Phantom 3 Professional.

We know that if you upgrade FW from a lower AC FW to AC FW 1.8 or above, you must also upgrade your RC FW to 1.6 or above.  Otherwise you will have encryption issues.  That might be your problem.

Thanks for your comment. I did check well before upgrading what I had to do exactly. At the same time, it's not always that easy to find out how to update the firmware, I remember the DJI website at that time had only a limited tutorial about it. I understand that a lot of technology goes into a drone, but it should be easier to upgrade the firmware I think.

I have had 3 Phantom 3 Professionals and still fly one today along with my Phantom 4 Advanced. It is reliable and haven't had any real problems. The 1st one did have an esc error, dji replaced it. I sold that one and ended up getting a 3rd one. All in all I still use one today and love mine.

I think they're let down by horrible software. I'm trying to get enough "points" (WTaF) on this forum just to ask how to reset my *charger*, which has got itself into a hissy fit and now won't charge any batteries (drone or controller). There are lots of threads about how bad the in-battery and in-controller software is which can cause *those* to crash out, but I've not seen anything about the charger.

I've always been heavily into gadgets for decades and never in my life had to replace a *battery charger*, let alone one so expensive and on a "professional" drone with a heavy four figure price tag no less. I've flown it less than 20 times.

As for the forum software - avatar setting via flash, the only way to change password is to "forget" it and do a reset link... Promising hardware, junk software. And I mean *junk* - I'll never buy DJI again, sadly.