My spark got lost yesterday.  I got the same error as many other "compass error"   I lost controll over it and i flew away.  


Downloaded till FLight record and looked at Phantomhelp.  Looks like it sunk :-(   
expensive 15 minutes of fun.


http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/TTV1QM3MO4OROBNDA1C5/#

Latest firware on? v0.600???

Latest firware on? v0.600???

djiuser_oUn3550 Posted at 2017-8-23 05:15
Latest firware on? v0.600???

Yes. I updated it early the same day.  I flew with the other battery for 15 min or so without any problems.

This was the last flyby i was going to make that day.

You received compass error Warnings when aircraft are at just 1.4ft from you and less than 1 minute of flight , why you decided to ignore the warnings and keep force flying to 1.400ft distance from you and make 7 more minutes of flight even with warnings?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         In the final of flight record drone was forcing auto-landing caused by low battery 10%, probably it landed on last coordinates on your map if you dont lose connection before, did you search for the drone on that coordinate?

What is this yaw error in the flight log?
I have noticed that the previous version 4.4.15 dji go had yaw tuning control , now in the .17 app this function is not there anymore. Anyway it didnot work before anyway. Has this maybe got something to do with this?

Aldo you ste saying the other battery. Did you do fw update for that battery aswell?

Also you are saying

STech - Hathder Posted at 2017-8-23 05:21
You received compass error Warnings when aircraft are at just 1.4ft from you and less than 1 minute of flight , why you decided to ignore the warnings and keep force flying to 1.400ft distance from you and make 7 more minutes of flight even with warnings?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         In the final of flight record drone was forcing auto-landing caused by low battery 10%, probably it landed on last coordinates on your map if you dont lose connection before, did you search for the drone on that coordinate?

yes It Was 22 meter above me and the RC was not responsive.  I could´t do anything.  Tried RTH  and Landing .   The Spark was on it own path to selfdestruct
I searched on land i that area, but I think it landed on  water,

fans61699a75 Posted at 2017-8-23 05:34
Also you are saying

yes I updated both batteries

majosthlm Posted at 2017-8-23 05:35
yes It Was 22 meter above me and the RC was not responsive.  I could´t do anything.  Tried RTH  and Landing .   The Spark was on it own path to selfdestruct
I searched on land i that area, but I think it landed on  water,

Interestingly when my bird took to the trees the other day it was directly above me and I had wondered if I had lost connection because of it, mind you the drone shouldn't go into atti mode or something because of a loss of signal with the RC i wouldn't imagine.

Who knows, maybe the forceful spinning of the drone itself after hitting the branches prevented a runaway! lol

Bummer on your bird though!

"...yes It Was 22 meter above me and the RC was not responsive. "

"it was directly above me and I had wondered if I had lost connection because of it"


Anyone of you have put the remote up in the sky?
Or taken the antennas parallel to the ground?

Hmm ... first flyaway case with Mandatory firmware....as said.

fansa7dc5944 Posted at 2017-8-23 06:12
Hmm ... first flyaway case with Mandatory firmware....as said.

Flyaways are different to dropping out the sky,

Martin Lines Posted at 2017-8-23 06:30
Flyaways are different to dropping out the sky,

Yeah, and these flight logs are riddled with errors. It went into ATTI mode once and recovered, but he still flew it back out anyway.

ix3lplix Posted at 2017-8-23 06:41
Yeah, and these flight logs are riddled with errors. It went into ATTI mode once and recovered, but he still flew it back out anyway.

Yes, he recovered the aircraft and returned to GPS mode and decided to continue the flight, it even used the tripod mode after..

IF THE SPARK SHOWS A WARNING AND GOES INTO ATTI AND YOU CAN RECOVER THE AIRCRAFT AND AC COME BACK TO GPS, ITS NOT WISE TO CONTINUE THE FLIGHT, YOU SHOULD COME THE AIRCRAFT BACK AND LAND.

majosthlm Posted at 2017-8-23 05:35
yes It Was 22 meter above me and the RC was not responsive.  I could´t do anything.  Tried RTH  and Landing .   The Spark was on it own path to selfdestruct
I searched on land i that area, but I think it landed on  water,

Not sure I really understand what happened. From the logs it looks like you had moments of no control, with moments of control in-between. The reason I ask is I had a similar event with my Spark when it leggd it away at top speed - luckily I regained control and was able to land it unharmed. So did you have no control from the first incident onward? Was it windy?

StarFishUK Posted at 2017-8-23 06:52
Not sure I really understand what happened. From the logs it looks like you had moments of no control, with moments of control in-between. The reason I ask is I had a similar event with my Spark when it leggd it away at top speed - luckily I regained control and was able to land it unharmed. So did you have no control from the first incident onward? Was it windy?

From the flight logs whe can assume that in the moments of control, he decide to continue the flight and even use de tripod mode AND NOT COME BACK AND LAND.

STech - Hathder Posted at 2017-8-23 06:55
From the flight logs whe can assume that in the moments of control, he decide to continue the flight and even use de tripod mode AND NOT COME BACK AND LAND.

Well, to be fair, that is how it looks. But rather than make assumptions I thought I would ask.

When I had the Spark go into ATTI mode and lose control, the moment I got control back I made it hit the ground faster than Trump's approval rating.

I see a lot of instances of ATTI mode.  Was the craft completely/totally/hopelessly uncontrollable?  Or did the craft respond to your remote commands just not as expected/desired?

I've seen a lot of pilots that cannot fly in ATTI mode, as all they learned on was GPS.  I'm sure a lot of crashes would be avoided if they spent a couple batteries just flying around in ATTI just to get a feel for it.

StarFishUK Posted at 2017-8-23 06:52
Not sure I really understand what happened. From the logs it looks like you had moments of no control, with moments of control in-between. The reason I ask is I had a similar event with my Spark when it leggd it away at top speed - luckily I regained control and was able to land it unharmed. So did you have no control from the first incident onward? Was it windy?

No wind at all.  Full controll until 11min 20 sec.  After that no control what so ever :-(

fansa7dc5944 Posted at 2017-8-23 06:12
Hmm ... first flyaway case with Mandatory firmware....as said.

As I wrote a mandatory-brick update was never about safety

Jive Posted at 2017-8-23 07:30
I've seen a lot of pilots that cannot fly in ATTI mode, as all they learned on was GPS.  I'm sure a lot of crashes would be avoided if they spent a couple batteries just flying around in ATTI just to get a feel for it.

On Spark, set AC to ATTI mode ( at least oficialy)  its not a choice, simply the drone dont have this option.

I learn how to fly on ATTI because i fly since Phantom 1 ages, if Spark was my first drone i will dont have even the option to practice, unless i buy a cheap drone just to practice atti mode.

STech - Hathder Posted at 2017-8-23 06:55
From the flight logs whe can assume that in the moments of control, he decide to continue the flight and even use de tripod mode AND NOT COME BACK AND LAND.

I here you shouting out loud.  :-) Yoy don´t need capital letters.

   I had full control untill 11 min and 20 sec.  Compass error was the only warning that flashed on dji go app.   After that I loose all control of it.   just after 11 min and 22 sec or so I tried RTH   and though i was flying back to me, but it continued just pass me and flew away...

To be honest, I think that first time any of us encounter ATTI mode, we feel helpless and as though the craft is out of control.  It happened to me with a Mavic many months ago and only now do I feel a noob for thinking I had lost all control.

Buy a P3A would help if you can still get one. You can switch between P(ositioning) and A(tti) any time. It is not too hard to learn to fly in ATTI, especially with DJI aircraft. You get altitude hold atleast. Only Aileron/Elevation to worry about. But if flight controller has gone mad then no training can help. You will not have control at all. Another MANDATORY firmware is required.

fans61699a75 Posted at 2017-8-23 05:26
What is this yaw error in the flight log?
I have noticed that the previous version 4.4.15 dji go had yaw tuning control , now in the .17 app this function is not there anymore. Anyway it didnot work before anyway. Has this maybe got something to do with this?

Yaw error related to compass error it's magnetic yaw in other words magnetic compass interference compass doesn't know where North is so causing aircraft to go into yaw movements while gps trying to get heading straight, it's basically data conflict spark is not set up to deal with data conflict between compass and gps so it drops gps because you don't need gps to fly but you do need compass.

From what is being described and answered, this isn't a case of "pilot has no experience with ATTI", because there would be some response from the craft to the RC (though the pilot will be challenged if he/she has no experience).  This sounds like it went to ATTI mode and the pilot had a dead stick.

majosthlm Posted at 2017-8-23 07:39
I here you shouting out loud.  :-) Yoy don´t need capital letters.

   I had full control untill 11 min and 20 sec.  Compass error was the only warning that flashed on dji go app.   After that I loose all control of it.   just after 11 min and 22 sec or so I tried RTH   and though i was flying back to me, but it continued just pass me and flew away...

Sorry for your loss. Hopefully DJI will work something out with you.

To be clear, did you not get the Yaw Error message on screen at 8m 16.9s? Or the switch to atti mode at 8m 19.1s? Or the multitude of other errors up until 11m 20s?

If not, that's terrifying because that would have given you 3 full minutes get to the ground, being you said you were still in control at this time.

Hi majosthim, sorry for your loss.

Looking at your log the most probable cause for your lost crashed drone was magnetic interference you picked up from the ground you launched from, you don't mention where this was but looking at your picture I'm guessing there were a lot of metal objects about or rebar concrete.

One thing is noticeable in your log, when it went into Atti mode there was very little stick movements by you, it could be that you where taken by surprise, but when you go into Atti mode your stick movements need to be big and almost constant to fight aircraft drifting. I understand it's to late for that now so apologies for that but might be something to think about for the future.

Below will give you some idea what happens to AC when this problem occurs.

Why would a compass error disable GPS?
Orientation (compass data) and position (GPS data) are different but related.
When the Spark is moving and getting position information from the GPS that tells the Spark that it is travelling in a different direction from what it's getting from compass data, The Spark programming can't work with the data conflict.
The solution is to drop data from one source and since the Spark .can't fly without a compass but can without GPS, it's the GPS data that gets dropped.

There have been some compass problems with Sparks lately or your issue may have been related to something you did.
I'd be curious about when and where you calibrated it and where you launched from as these may be relevant factors.
You should at this stage sync your flight to dji cloud
Contact support@dji.com to set up RMA
Also try contacting moderator to see if they can get your log checked.

STech - Hathder Posted at 2017-8-23 07:34
On Spark, set AC to ATTI mode ( at least oficialy)  its not a choice, simply the drone dont have this option.

I learn how to fly on ATTI because i fly since Phantom 1 ages, if Spark was my first drone i will dont have even the option to practice, unless i buy a cheap drone just to practice atti mode.

I didn't know this.  I also have a P3, and ATTI is an option there.

InTheReeds Posted at 2017-8-23 08:09
Sorry for your loss. Hopefully DJI will work something out with you.

To be clear, did you not get the Yaw Error message on screen at 8m 16.9s? Or the switch to atti mode at 8m 19.1s? Or the multitude of other errors up until 11m 20s?

I think it's almost certain that compass error and Imu heading error where given once these are given it will almost certainly tell you that you are now in Atti mode, Atti mode across top left would continue to stay on until gps is regained.
It's unlucky for op that he was flying so close to the water because his AC ran to critical battery and landed unlucky for him into the water.

Your last known coordinates are in your log, it shows aircraft landing into the water, don't know if you can get a diver to search, because it's almost certainly in the water at that point.

hallmark007 always has the answers, I read these posts and wait patiently for his responses....  

Sorry to hear about your case, have you sent an email to support.eu@dji.com and reported this case to them? If not, please sync your flight record and export the Flight Controller LOG Data and contact them and start a data analysis. We will try our best to help this out.

fans61699a75 Posted at 2017-8-23 05:26
What is this yaw error in the flight log?
I have noticed that the previous version 4.4.15 dji go had yaw tuning control , now in the .17 app this function is not there anymore. Anyway it didnot work before anyway. Has this maybe got something to do with this?

If you get the yaw error that popped up on the DJI GO 4 app, please provide us with the screenshot of this prompt. I'll help to confirm.

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-8-23 18:44
Sorry to hear about your case, have you sent an email to  and reported this case to them? If not, please sync your flight record and export the Flight Controller LOG Data and contact them and start a data analysis. We will try our best to help this out.

I´ve mailed support and got a case opened.  My casenumber is CAS-920033-J5D7Y6.  I´ve sent them my flightdata and last video that was recorded.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-23 08:26
Hi majosthim, sorry for your loss.

Looking at your log the most probable cause for your lost crashed drone was magnetic interference you picked up from the ground you launched from, you don't mention where this was but looking at your picture I'm guessing there were a lot of metal objects about or rebar concrete.

Thanks for the post.   

I don´t think it could be a rebar or anything metal at the starting area. it was a parkinglot with gravel.  


But it was no wind at all this evening.  and I think my stick movment was at 100% when I realize that I didn´t have any controll of the Spark.   Should RTH signal or  Landing Signal work  when ATTI mode appears?

This is the Video of the last fly

I lost control over it when it came in over land between the two trees   round  1.00 min in the film

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ut2hq9 ... %2053%2032.mp4?dl=0