https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgzxXt8mr9w

So yesterday I was flying my Mavic when I had a scary moment and thought that my Mavic was going to crash.

I am quite new to drones and have been taking it very steady because I don't want to make any expensive mistakes.

So I have been practicing on the same patch of land since I got my Mavic.

I have about 5hrs flight time totalling 23 flights and up until yesterday have had no problems what so ever apart from losing GPS for about 10 seconds on one flight.

So what happened in the video below really got my heart racing and has knocked my confidence a little.

I wonder if anyone has had the same problem and maybe could shed some light on what went wrong here.

It all happened so fast and at the time it didn’t seem that I had control of the Mavic for a short time.

One thing that I clearly remember was just before it happened I had a strong wind warning, which I have had before and as the Mavic went out of control some epic dam busters’ style music began to play, which I have never heard before.

The wind in the area was not really that strong yesterday and I have been in stronger winds and higher altitude before yesterday’s incident.

So would appreciate any comments or advice as I’m a little put off flying it now until I can figure out what when wrong.

I would try to calibrate the gimbal may you can upload the logs here https://healthydrones.com/ that could help us all

It's almost like the gimbal was adjusting/calibrating mid flight like it does on start up. Have you had any flights since that moment?

trica de Posted at 2017-3-2 02:19
I would try to calibrate the gimbal may you can upload the logs here https://healthydrones.com/ that could help us all

So do you think it was just the camera freaking out and not the drone itself?

TKP Posted at 2017-3-2 02:20
It's almost like the gimbal was adjusting/calibrating mid flight like it does on start up. Have you had any flights since that moment?

Only one low level flight right after I got my breath back, lol and only about 20 feet away from me.

mk1one Posted at 2017-3-2 02:21
So do you think it was just the camera freaking out and not the drone itself?

Excepy the strong wind warning, did you get any error message when this occurred?
Could you please clairfy your current firmware version?

DJI Mindy Posted at 2017-3-2 02:37
Excepy the strong wind warning, did you get any error message when this occurred?
Could you please clairfy your current firmware version?

I didn't notice any error messages but to be honest was a little bit panicked at the time.
My current firmware is V01.03.0400 but I have just noticed that new firmware has been released today so am going to upgrade to that now

mk1one Posted at 2017-3-2 02:57
I didn't notice any error messages but to be honest was a little bit panicked at the time.
My current firmware is V01.03.0400 but I have just noticed that new firmware has been released today so am going to upgrade to that now

And please do the cold IMU calibration on a complete flat surface then do the gimbal calibration.
Test more and let us know the update.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2017-3-2 03:16
And please do the cold IMU calibration on a complete flat surface then do the gimbal calibration.
Test more and let us know the update.

I will do that and let you know what happens, thank you

mk1one Posted at 2017-3-2 02:21
So do you think it was just the camera freaking out and not the drone itself?

Some of the angles I saw in your video could only be caused by the gimbal doing strange things because the aircraft just isn't capable of flying that way (e.g., nearly upside down). Still, I can certainly understand how disconcerting that must have been when you saw it through FPV.

you did all the right things bringing it home,  getting yourself in an open are so you have the best view, didnt panick,  and flew steadily back.   top marks for doing all of this.   its the first time i have seen this gimbal spaz phenonoma,  that many talk about,   it would be great to see the logs, and hear the response from DJI as to what they believe happened,  thanks for sharing this !

no idea if it helps - there is a new firmware out

What’s New?

1. Updated No-Fly Zone management.
2. Optimized gimbal calibration.

see point 2 ;)

trica de Posted at 2017-3-2 04:15
no idea if it helps - there is a new firmware out

What’s New?

I have just updated thank you

MikeQView Posted at 2017-3-2 03:58
you did all the right things bringing it home,  getting yourself in an open are so you have the best view, didnt panick,  and flew steadily back.   top marks for doing all of this.   its the first time i have seen this gimbal spaz phenonoma,  that many talk about,   it would be great to see the logs, and hear the response from DJI as to what they believe happened,  thanks for sharing this !

Thank you for your response, I will try to upload my logs but not sure how to, I will have a look at how to do it and post them.

DroneFlying Posted at 2017-3-2 03:44
Some of the angles I saw in your video could only be caused by the gimbal doing strange things because the aircraft just isn't capable of flying that way (e.g., nearly upside down). Still, I can certainly understand how disconcerting that must have been when you saw it through FPV.

I guess your right, but at the time I honestly thought that it was going down.

I've seen other cases . This one a few days ago .
http://mavicpilots.com/threads/gimbal-reset-in-flight.9055/

Yup. I've read reports of this before, too. Can you confirm that it was just the gimbal freaking out, and not the drone itself? Did you have your eyes on the drone for most of that time?

Jason Lane Posted at 2017-3-2 06:08
Yup. I've read reports of this before, too. Can you confirm that it was just the gimbal freaking out, and not the drone itself? Did you have your eyes on the drone for most of that time?

Hi Jason, I cant confirm anything as it happens so fast. I am told by other that it looks like the gimbal freaking out as the mavic could not fly in that way, which looking back at the footage I would agree with. My eyes were fixed to my screen I'm afraid.

scary moment , glad you got it back

lovely countryside.

I have had many flights with mine and that has happened twice. I now know how it happens. . If your camera is looking down whilst travelling at speed the gimbal goes over current and resets itself. Quite Frighting i know.Try to prove it by flying sport mode with cam facing forward and then again angled down at 45 degrees. See what you think of my theory.

I tend to agree that it is the gimbal. Mine does exactly the same in wind and the wind does not have to be that strong as I don't get any wind warnings. I can't get any response from DJI regarding the issue. I have installed the new firmware so hope to try it tomorrow.

did you run under 400 firmware? looks like the gimbal reset itself and doing the selfcheck thing.

Scunna Posted at 2017-3-2 13:33
I have had many flights with mine and that has happened twice. I now know how it happens. . If your camera is looking down whilst travelling at speed the gimbal goes over current and resets itself. Quite Frighting i know.Try to prove it by flying sport mode with cam facing forward and then again angled down at 45 degrees. See what you think of my theory.

Ok I will try that but when I'm not sure, it raining heavy at the moment. Next time I manage to get out I will, thank you.

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-3-2 22:03
I tend to agree that it is the gimbal. Mine does exactly the same in wind and the wind does not have to be that strong as I don't get any wind warnings. I can't get any response from DJI regarding the issue. I have installed the new firmware so hope to try it tomorrow.

Cool let me know how you get on but it should not happen really

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-3-2 22:03
I tend to agree that it is the gimbal. Mine does exactly the same in wind and the wind does not have to be that strong as I don't get any wind warnings. I can't get any response from DJI regarding the issue. I have installed the new firmware so hope to try it tomorrow.

by the way did your phone / tablet start to play some epic movie type music when it was happening?

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-3-2 22:03
I tend to agree that it is the gimbal. Mine does exactly the same in wind and the wind does not have to be that strong as I don't get any wind warnings. I can't get any response from DJI regarding the issue. I have installed the new firmware so hope to try it tomorrow.

or maybe the music came from the controller, I'm not sure

jpno1 Posted at 2017-3-2 22:56
did you run under 400 firmware? looks like the gimbal reset itself and doing the selfcheck thing.

yes it was flown with firmware 400, I updated to 500 yesterday

I just had this happen to me today.  Brand new bird, going on 2 days old.  Unboxed yesterday, upgraded to latest firmware.  Took it for some test flights.  Focus was spot on intially (in default profile/color profile), changed to d-log, changed customer setting, tried to focus, drone indicated it was in focus but wasn't.  Flew several passes trying to make sure it was properly focused (c1 - center focus and tap).  Everytime mavic registered that it was in focus but I could tell on the phone screen it was not.  Brought the bird in and went out in the evening to retest it.  From get go, issue was still there.  Made a couple passes trying to focus, no help.  I did a camera reset mid flight and boom, camera was in complete focus.  After reset it went into 4:3 photographic mode, peaking enabled, seemed to be default profile.  I changed to video mode and "peaking" was still enabled.  Recorded with everything default and everything was in focus.  Mid flight I change to d-log and customer settings and shortly after the focus starts to have issues.  I got home and downgraded the rev the previous rev.  Took it out for flight this morning to continue testing.  Off the bat, focus was poor, tap focus/c1 no good even though mavic registered it was focused.  Continued to fly and front sensors start complaining due to the sun.  I disabled all sensors and continue.  About 3 minutes later, the controller starts beeping like made like its detected something (like sensors still enabled but they were not).  It was just continuously beeping  even though obstacle avoidance was turned off.  I stop mid air to hover and noise stops.  I continue my flight and boom, this happens, camera freaks out, I lose control of the gimbal, looks like the mavic is starting to fall out of the sky from the video feed but I soon realized it was because the camera/gimbal is doing something odd like a reset/gimbal startup.  Lose the gimbal for about the same time it takes to initialize the gimbal.  When it recovers, all my settings have been changed.  I've lost dlog, camera went from what I had iso100 to iso3200, camera out of focus, profile was set to none.  I realize the camera/gimbal had reset itself mid flight.  Not fun at all.  Bring the bird back in.... now contemplating what to do.  It almost seems like a short somewhere.  I wasn't in sports mode but did have the throttle pinned to the edge of the stick range.  I didn't get any errors though.  This is my 4th bird, 1st 2 had focusing issue, 3rd one has violent gimbal initialization and then would constantly give gimbal overload error but other than that it has been fine.  4th one I thought was having focusing issue but seems to be turning into something else now with this whole camera/gimbal reset midflight.  Definitely scared to take it up again.  The QC has been terrible with the mavics.

Were you using a third party App such as Litchi or Autopilot as they are having problems like this since the latest firmware and Litchi have even mailed registered users telling them not to use there own software in certain modes until DJI sort it out.
I tried to use Autopilot to take a 360 and I had the same problem that I've just watched in your video but returned to normal once I disengaged .

The Rev Posted at 2017-3-9 05:36
Were you using a third party App such as Litchi or Autopilot as they are having problems like this since the latest firmware and Litchi have even mailed registered users telling them not to use there own software in certain modes until DJI sort it out.
I tried to use Autopilot to take a 360 and I had the same problem that I've just watched in your video but returned to normal once I disengaged .

No, all native app.  DJI GO 4.  Also, I don't believe in using auto-pilot modes unless necessary.  I prefer to be under control while flying.

damn that was scary

Mine has done it a few times, suddenly stopped in mid flight and the camera freaked out and reset. I thought mine was crashing as well.

If it is the wind causing it could be avoided/tested using the gimbal and camera protector

I have been having these annoying gimbal resets ever since I got my mavic in March. Several times on every flight. I've tried auto and full gimbal calibration, new fast memory cards, and firmware updates. Nothing has solved the problems. I've gotten used to the issue since the Mavic stays in the air, but it stops the video and obviously ruins the shot.

Here is a compilation of just a few resets. Does not seem to correlate with position or flight profile.

https://youtu.be/B5zx16A5Juo

fans86f42bad Posted at 2017-4-20 15:28
I have been having these annoying gimbal resets ever since I got my mavic in March. Several times on every flight. I've tried auto and full gimbal calibration, new fast memory cards, and firmware updates. Nothing has solved the problems. I've gotten used to the issue since the Mavic stays in the air, but it stops the video and obviously ruins the shot.

Here is a compilation of just a few resets. Does not seem to correlate with position or flight profile.

https://youtu.be/B5zx16A5Juo

fans86f42bad Posted at 2017-4-20 15:28
I have been having these annoying gimbal resets ever since I got my mavic in March. Several times on every flight. I've tried auto and full gimbal calibration, new fast memory cards, and firmware updates. Nothing has solved the problems. I've gotten used to the issue since the Mavic stays in the air, but it stops the video and obviously ruins the shot.

Here is a compilation of just a few resets. Does not seem to correlate with position or flight profile.

So were you ever able to resolve this issue? My brand new Mavic is doing this randomly and it's very discouraging to see threads dating back about 8 months with no resolution....

I have also experienced this with my Mavic a few times and it's only the gimbal and also my always stopped recording video at the time. This has occurred at different distances and in different flight conditions. It's scary!

Gimbal reset and test sequence during a flight. Lucky, you did not get system reboot during a flight.
I agree with what fansa6e27bfd said at #29, Bad QC.

maximeeso Posted at 2017-8-2 13:09
So were you ever able to resolve this issue? My brand new Mavic is doing this randomly and it's very discouraging to see threads dating back about 8 months with no resolution....

Same here, hopping on the gimbal/record stop wagon.

Latest firmware, latest app etc.

Video record stops and the gimbal freaks out. Only the first 1-2 sec of the gimbal error is visible on the record.