Today I had a very detrimental experience in mid-flight.  About 10 minutes into flight, my Inspire 1 Pro started flying off course and my controller began to beep.  I look down and it says, "Compass Error."  As the Inspire was out of control flying away from me, I hit the RTH button, but it didn't really help, and actually it seemed to make things worse.  I managed to get it closer to me and canceled the RTH.  I damn near lost it coming in for a landing, but I made it.  

Has anybody experienced something like this before.  If so, what was the outcome?  Cause?  I'm thinking it needs calibrated, or possibly I need to send it in.  Comments?  Thanks for the help if you have any.

Todd

Sorry to hear that. Thank god your bird is ok. I presume that you have not asked for IMU/compass calibration before flying off. One only needs to do any calibration when it asks to. I curious how you got it back. Did you turn to atti mode and fly it back manually. I theorize that it will not fly any direction once it is in atti mode and you can control the AC back to your position.

Has happened to me flying the Phantom 2+, was able to get the Phantom down. I began making sure that I do IMU and Compass calibration after each upgrade.

How did you manage to get it back? Did you calibrate the camera before flying?

This issue usually occurs when the aircraft is flying in a place where the compass cannot detect the interference correctly. Please fly in another open place with less interference.

thats kind of been happening a lot lately. best thing to do it switch to atti. keeping it in any gps mode will make it worse. sometimes it will fix after a few seconds but usually I just bring it back in. oddly this has been happening out in open ocean water.

Did you upload the flight logs to Airdata for example? If so do you have a link?

fans589cba4b Posted at 2017-10-10 07:44
thats kind of been happening a lot lately. best thing to do it switch to atti. keeping it in any gps mode will make it worse. sometimes it will fix after a few seconds but usually I just bring it back in. oddly this has been happening out in open ocean water.

Flying over the ocean can certainly add to the complication of flying. If you find that the compass and GPS is consistently failing, have a technician evaluate your aircraft.

snath Posted at 2017-10-7 21:31
Has happened to me flying the Phantom 2+, was able to get the Phantom down. I began making sure that I do IMU and Compass calibration after each upgrade.

A good idea no doubt. Please note that the compass is hardware so if you ever decide that it is not working properly, consider replacing that part.

so I should do the warranty claim online ?

If it is still under warranty, you should listen to Mark. Get it replaced ASAP rather than risk losing your craft.

fans589cba4b Posted at 2017-10-10 17:55
so I should do the warranty claim online ?

Yes, please fill in online repair form to start a ticket and send in for evaluation.

DTK Posted at 2017-10-7 16:37
Sorry to hear that. Thank god your bird is ok. I presume that you have not asked for IMU/compass calibration before flying off. One only needs to do any calibration when it asks to. I curious how you got it back. Did you turn to atti mode and fly it back manually. I theorize that it will not fly any direction once it is in atti mode and you can control the AC back to your position.

I never got a notification before take off, and the controller indicated all was good to fly.  When I got the error message, it did say to exit out of GPS mode, but I had so much going on (controller beeping, the bird flying on it own, and me going in panic mode).  The first thing I did was hit the RTH button.  With the campus error, it didn't even know which direction home was.  So I was fighting against the direction I wanted it to go.  I then got it close enough to me and exited out of the RTH mode.  I had to force land it because it wanted to go somewhere else.  I think I was shaking for about 30 min thereafter.  Not fun.

Mark Guille Posted at 2017-10-7 23:01
How did you manage to get it back? Did you calibrate the camera before flying?

Once hell broke loose (controller beeping at me, bird zipping off away from me, and my own panic setting in), I hit the RTH button.  That didn't help much.  With the campus error, the bird didn't know which direction to go.  I ended up fighting against it.  Lucky I had visual on it the entire time.  I got it close to me and turned off the RTH mode.  The controller said to exit GPS mode but I was in panic mode so I didn't even comprehend that.  I was so intensely concentrating on flying.  I had to force land it, but I got it home.  I was shaking for about 30 min after.  Not fun.

Håkan K Posted at 2017-10-10 09:10
Did you upload the flight logs to Airdata for example? If so do you have a link?

Not sure what this is or what you're talking about.  I'm willing to learn something new if you can expand on it...Thanks

Maker10 Posted at 2017-10-14 12:47
Once hell broke loose (controller beeping at me, bird zipping off away from me, and my own panic setting in), I hit the RTH button.  That didn't help much.  With the campus error, the bird didn't know which direction to go.  I ended up fighting against it.  Lucky I had visual on it the entire time.  I got it close to me and turned off the RTH mode.  The controller said to exit GPS mode but I was in panic mode so I didn't even comprehend that.  I was so intensely concentrating on flying.  I had to force land it, but I got it home.  I was shaking for about 30 min after.  Not fun.

That sounds scary! Just out of interest, did you calibrate the compass before that flight?

Mark G.

Hello, I had about the same problem with my mavic pro yesterday. Just as I actionned the automatic takeoff of the bird, it started acting wild and I got a red notification on the app saying compass problem or something like that. I was so panicked I forced the drone to land after like 10 seconds and it almost crashed in a car. I would like to fly it again today but don't know what to do to be sure the problem won't happen again. Should I just recalibrate the compass?

djiuser_n0xPGPEoT186 Posted at 8-14 04:49
Hello, I had about the same problem with my mavic pro yesterday. Just as I actionned the automatic takeoff of the bird, it started acting wild and I got a red notification on the app saying compass problem or something like that. I was so panicked I forced the drone to land after like 10 seconds and it almost crashed in a car. I would like to fly it again today but don't know what to do to be sure the problem won't happen again. Should I just recalibrate the compass?

Do absolutely nothing at this moment. Go somewhere else (park nearby, soccer field etc.), power everything up and check the compass reading status there. If it's normal, then there's no reason to perform compass calibration. What you've witnessed was probably caused by local magnetic/radio interference, not much to worry about. However, it's always a good habit to be prepared for such rare situation, where the drone is switching from P-Mode to Atti-Mode unexpectedly. Abandon automatic take-off idea and employ manual launching instead. Shut her straight up with a persistence and practice Atti-Mode flight somewhere in wide open space.

Hey, I got the same issue with my DJI spark. Mid flight at about 700 metres away from me and about 250 metres high, compass error popped out and it started going crazy. After awhile it got back to GPS mode and I was able to initiate return to home, during return to home the compass error was still there but it was still coming home correctly. I researched why and it said that were flying in a place where there's too much interference that causes disruption to the drone and the controller. So try flying at a place that has less interference.