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Active Track Fail
2558 30 2017-10-19
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Lercher
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First, thank you for taking time to read this and help in anyway.


A few days ago, I tried out active track on my Mavic Pro. It worked and looked great at first. My son and I were riding a 4-wheeler and it was very cool to record ourselves.

After about 3 mins of the drone in active track trace mode, it decided to fly backwards away from us. As you can see from this video here, there was nothing else around and we were in the middle of an open field. There are no power lines nearby; we are in middle of 550 acres farm. The overall status looked good. IMU and compass all looked great!



Please also see the attached picture of the flight recorder. The drone flew 19 mph backwards into a tree without any joystick input.


I confirmed that flying backwards was disabled in the DJI Go 4 app. The RTH was set on take off in that field.


Can someone help me figure out what happened?

My email address is the same with my DJI account and this forum. Everything is synced.


I am about to return the unit cause this seem very very strange behavior.

Thank you again for any help!!

unnamed.jpg

2017-10-19
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G_Sig
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First which you should look at is the GPS on your device. If that is not right this could happen.
If your device has lost GPS it should been in the log file.
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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The flight recorder in the app shows the entire time it's flying backwards that has 19 satellite locks.

I'll try to see if I can access the logs on my device for that app and see what it shows as well.

Is there a way to set up the drone to hover if satellite lock drops for minute? It just seems weird that the drone would fly backwards and continually to pick up speed when the GPS signal is lost.

Thanks so much!
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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G_Sig Posted at 2017-10-19 08:30
First which you should look at is the GPS on your device. If that is not right this could happen.
If your device has lost GPS it should been in the log file.

I don't think GPS on the mobile device is needed or used for ActiveTrack; I believe you're thinking of Follow Me. ActiveTrack is done by visually tracking the subject, while Follow Me follows the remote / device using its GPS location.
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-19 10:49
The flight recorder in the app shows the entire time it's flying backwards that has 19 satellite locks.

I'll try to see if I can access the logs on my device for that app and see what it shows as well.

If this is some kind of ActiveTrack bug I'm not sure that I'll be able to help much, but in any case the DAT file from the flight will provide the most information. If you retrieve it using these instructions, upload it to DropBox, and provide a link to it in this thread I'll take a look, though. The correct file will be at least tens of megabytes in size and have a timestamp that corresponds to when the flight occurred. If you have any trouble locating the correct file you might try closing and restarting the Assistant application a few times and see if that helps.
2017-10-19
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G_Sig
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 10:54
I don't think GPS on the mobile device is needed or used for ActiveTrack; I believe you're thinking of Follow Me. ActiveTrack is done by visually tracking the subject, while Follow Me follows the remote / device using its GPS location.

You are right, I was thinking of Follow me not ActiveTrack.  As I understand ActiveTrack to much light or changes in shape of subject could bee involved as this happen when the ATV turns away.
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 10:58
If this is some kind of ActiveTrack bug I'm not sure that I'll be able to help much, but in any case the DAT file from the flight will provide the most information. If you retrieve it using these instructions, upload it to DropBox, and provide a link to it in this thread I'll take a look, though. The correct file will be at least tens of megabytes in size and have a timestamp that corresponds to when the flight occurred. If you have any trouble locating the correct file you might try closing and restarting the Assistant application a few times and see if that helps.

Thank you!!

Here is the data file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dkcesr ... 9_14-30-45.DAT?dl=0

I'm pretty sure i got the right one. I did 5 flights that day, the last 3 were test to make sure the drone was still working correctly. The 2nd flight of the day is when this happened.
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-19 11:35
Thank you!!

Here is the data file:

Can you try again and see if you can locate the Flight Controller (FC) entry? It looks like the one you provided is probably a Vision entry but the FC is the one I need. Unfortunately the Assistant software and / or recent firmware is producing some flaky behavior lately and you may need to power the aircraft on and off a few times until the FC entry shows up in the list.
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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G_Sig Posted at 2017-10-19 11:13
You are right, I was thinking of Follow me not ActiveTrack.  As I understand ActiveTrack to much light or changes in shape of subject could bee involved as this happen when the ATV turns away.

It's easy to get the two mixed up -- I often do myself -- because the names are so similar to one another and there's nothing intuitively obvious about either one. But I guess that wasn't as bad as when they came out with the successor to "DJI Care" and called it "DJI Care Refresh".
2017-10-19
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Ex Machina
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Yikes! Obviously you retrieved the bird, but in what shape?
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 13:10
Can you try again and see if you can locate the Flight Controller (FC) entry? It looks like the one you provided is probably a Vision entry but the FC is the one I need. Unfortunately the Assistant software and / or recent firmware is producing some flaky behavior lately and you may need to power the aircraft on and off a few times until the FC entry shows up in the list.

Thank you!

I have tried it 4 times and DJI Assistant 2 keeps only this.
Untitled-1.jpg

Any other thoughts on how I can get you that data?
Untitled-1.jpg
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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Ex Machina Posted at 2017-10-19 13:54
Yikes! Obviously you retrieved the bird, but in what shape?

Yes, I did. Had to climb a tree in order to get it. 3 branches held it from failing like a hand underneath.  

The only thing that seems to be wrong is I had to replace the blades.

When I have taken it out after the crash, I keep thinking that it seems like its going to fall out of the sky when hovering. Just from the sounds it makes, especially when a very little wind comes up.  I can't seem to tell if that is what it sounded like before.

I thought maybe it drifts a little to the right, but I looked back at some other videos and I think it did a little wobbling like that before too.

I took it back out yesterday. Took it up about 120 feet and it sounded like it was going to come crashing down, but it responded great and held it's place for  taking pics.
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 13:10
Can you try again and see if you can locate the Flight Controller (FC) entry? It looks like the one you provided is probably a Vision entry but the FC is the one I need. Unfortunately the Assistant software and / or recent firmware is producing some flaky behavior lately and you may need to power the aircraft on and off a few times until the FC entry shows up in the list.

Would the black box help? Here is a zip file of the stuff it exported.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5nfyg ... 9_14-30-45.zip?dl=0
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-19 16:14
Would the black box help? Here is a zip file of the stuff it exported.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5nfygivw2enqve/DJI_ASSISTANT_EXPORT_FILE_2017-10-19_14-30-45.zip?dl=0

You might go ahead and try to download the DAT file again and see if it lists a Flight Controller (FC) entry when you do. It's also ok to select / include more than one flight if you're not certain which one is the correct one; it'll just store them all in a single file and I'll be able to figure out which is the right one.
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 16:59
You might go ahead and try to download the DAT file again and see if it lists a Flight Controller (FC) entry when you do. It's also ok to select / include more than one flight if you're not certain which one is the correct one; it'll just store them all in a single file and I'll be able to figure out which is the right one.

OK, this is strange. When I look at the data upload screen early today it showed 5 entries for the Oct 17th, when the even happened. I reinstalled the DJI Assistant 2  app and just looked again. Now it only shows 3 entries, but when I select one line item it shows that two items have been selected.

Here is the new info:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m3dnv3 ... 9_20-07-06.DAT?dl=0

Thank you for looking into this!!!
2017-10-19
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-19 17:14
OK, this is strange. When I look at the data upload screen early today it showed 5 entries for the Oct 17th, when the even happened. I reinstalled the DJI Assistant 2  app and just looked again. Now it only shows 3 entries, but when I select one line item it shows that two items have been selected.

Here is the new info:

Yep, that one contained two valid Flight Controller (FC) entries: one was a takeoff / hover / landing that lasted about 20 seconds beside someone's (your?) house, and the other just shows the Mavic powered on but not flown.

So we're getting warmer (valid FC entries) but still not quite there yet to find the flight you described. In the past getting the correct DAT file was pretty straightforward, but lately with whatever software change(s) DJI made that's affected this it's more hit-or-miss.
2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-19 18:22
Yep, that one contained two valid Flight Controller (FC) entries: one was a takeoff / hover / landing that lasted about 20 seconds beside someone's (your?) house, and the other just shows the Mavic powered on but not flown.

So we're getting warmer (valid FC entries) but still not quite there yet to find the flight you described. In the past getting the correct DAT file was pretty straightforward, but lately with whatever software change(s) DJI made that's affected this it's more hit-or-miss.

This is so strange. The crash event happened on Oct 17th, but the data showed 5 entries for that day, but now it only shows 2. However, the next day there are like 9, but I did not do 9 flights. Here is everything from Oct 17 that it shows and Oct 18.

On the one you saw, beside a house, was it dark outside?

Dropbox Link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ztrumn ... 9_21-45-32.DAT?dl=0

Thank you for looking into this!!
2017-10-19
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DJI Thor
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Sorry for the crash, have you contact the support yet? I recommend you sync the flight records and export the flight data, upload to Dropbox and paste the link here. I'll help to check more.
Besides, please also send the drone back for repair.


2017-10-19
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Lercher
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DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-19 21:21
Sorry for the crash, have you contact the support yet? I recommend you sync the flight records and export the flight data, upload to Dropbox and paste the link here. I'll help to check more.
Besides, please also send the drone back for repair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMb1RD5pPOg&t=1s

Thank you, "DroneFlying" has been awesome and trying to help me. No, I have not contacted support yet. This bird is not even 30 days old from the store and I do not have the DJI Care Refresh.

On the Flight Data, I pasted several dropbox links above:

The crash event happened on Oct 17th, but the data showed 5 entries for that day, but now it only shows 2. However, the next day there are like 9, but I did not do 9 flights. Here is everything from Oct 17 that it shows and Oct 18.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ztrumn ... 9_21-45-32.DAT?dl=0

Blackbox Data:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5nfyg ... 9_14-30-45.zip?dl=0

Does this seem normal behavior?
2017-10-20
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Lercher
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DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-19 21:21
Sorry for the crash, have you contact the support yet? I recommend you sync the flight records and export the flight data, upload to Dropbox and paste the link here. I'll help to check more.
Besides, please also send the drone back for repair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMb1RD5pPOg&t=1s

I have everything synced too with the same email that I have on this forum.

Thank you for any help!
2017-10-20
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-19 19:17
This is so strange. The crash event happened on Oct 17th, but the data showed 5 entries for that day, but now it only shows 2. However, the next day there are like 9, but I did not do 9 flights. Here is everything from Oct 17 that it shows and Oct 18.

On the one you saw, beside a house, was it dark outside?

Well, there were a total of 15 different -- and all valid -- FC DAT files included in that, but unfortunately none of them appears to match the video you posted. I even asked BudWalker to do a sanity check for me and he came to the same conclusion and suggested that maybe the one from the flight associated with your video got overwritten at some point.

At this point the best I can do is take a look at the log that's stored on your mobile device, which will be a TXT file that you should upload to PhantomHelp using these instructions. Once you've uploaded it then post a link to the log here and I'll take a look to see if I can figure anything out. To be honest it's something of a long shot, partly because it has a lot less information than the DAT, but at this point it's our best hope and probably will also be the only thing DJI has to go on when they look into it.
2017-10-20
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-20 03:44
Thank you, "DroneFlying" has been awesome and trying to help me. No, I have not contacted support yet. This bird is not even 30 days old from the store and I do not have the DJI Care Refresh.

On the Flight Data, I pasted several dropbox links above:

Oh, and there's something else I wanted to mention but forgot to in my last post. Part of the reason you're seeing so many DAT files is because it doesn't just create one for each flight (which is what happens for the TXT logs on your mobile device): it actually creates one for every time that you power on the aircraft, so even if you just power it on to (say) retrieve a DAT file it'll create yet another one.
2017-10-20
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-20 10:53
Well, there were a total of 15 different -- and all valid -- FC DAT files included in that, but unfortunately none of them appears to match the video you posted. I even asked BudWalker to do a sanity check for me and he came to the same conclusion and suggested that maybe the one from the flight associated with your video got overwritten at some point.

At this point the best I can do is take a look at the log that's stored on your mobile device, which will be a TXT file that you should upload to PhantomHelp using these instructions. Once you've uploaded it then post a link to the log here and I'll take a look to see if I can figure anything out. To be honest it's something of a long shot, partly because it has a lot less information than the DAT, but at this point it's our best hope and probably will also be the only thing DJI has to go on when they look into it.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to even look at this stuff over!!!!

Just guessing, do you have any ideas on what it could have been? Just wondering.

Question, if this was to start to happen again, I could just press the RC pause button to cancel any auto flights be done at the moment? Not sure if I would want to try an auto mode again.

Another question, from your experiences, is it safe to fly the Mavic Pro over water, maybe around 10' or 15' high?

Thanks again!!!
2017-10-20
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Lercher
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DroneFlying Posted at 2017-10-20 11:08
Oh, and there's something else I wanted to mention but forgot to in my last post. Part of the reason you're seeing so many DAT files is because it doesn't just create one for each flight (which is what happens for the TXT logs on your mobile device): it actually creates one for every time that you power on the aircraft, so even if you just power it on to (say) retrieve a DAT file it'll create yet another one.

I found the correct flight on the phone. The file is here: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/YYPPVRXBT9JFUGI1F66T/

I also uploaded the entire folders for the Flight Records and Flight Log from my phone. There were some dat files in there.
Flight Records: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ld673tslmo7ziq0/FlightRecords.zip?dl=0Flight Log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5p2zr0gwi1xq7u1/FlightLogs.zip?dl=0

Thanks so much!!




2017-10-20
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Jenee 2
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-20 11:25
I found the correct flight on the phone. The file is here: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/YYPPVRXBT9JFUGI1F66T/

I also uploaded the entire folders for the Flight Records and Flight Log from my phone. There were some dat files in there.

When I watched your original video of the ActiveTrack, the thing that stood out most to me was that the aerials on your RC seem to be hidden from the Mavic.  It appears that when it lost the ActiveTrack subject, it also lost GPS positioning but that doesn't explain why it went backwards unless there is a bug in ActiveTrack under certain conditions.
2017-10-20
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DroneFlying
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-20 11:25
I found the correct flight on the phone. The file is here: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/YYPPVRXBT9JFUGI1F66T/

I also uploaded the entire folders for the Flight Records and Flight Log from my phone. There were some dat files in there.

I looked at the TXT log and although it does show the flight information leading up to the crash it doesn't offer any clues that I can identify that would explain why the crash happened. It would have been nice to be able to review the DAT file from the flight, but the truth is that it's not clear it would have been any more helpful than the TXT file was.

Frankly I suspect that Jenee's right about this just being some kind of bug with ActiveTrack. I've seen other cases where people had crashes while using ActiveTrack, but it's usually when they're flying in tight quarters near trees or other obstacles. I even re-read the portion of the manual that covers ActiveTrack just to see if there might be some obvious explanation for this but I can't find any.

Given all this -- and especially since you have the video from the flight showing what happened -- my personal opinion is that this probably should be covered as a warranty replacement and I suspect that you'll wind up getting one. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
2017-10-20
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BudWalker
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-20 11:25
I found the correct flight on the phone. The file is here: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/YYPPVRXBT9JFUGI1F66T/

I also uploaded the entire folders for the Flight Records and Flight Log from my phone. There were some dat files in there.

I looked at the .DAT files contained in FlightRecords/MCDatFlightRecords. FLY057 was the earliest which had a dateTime of 2017-10-18 00:20:24 GMT. I think that was a couple of hours after the incident flight.

It's unlikely that the .DAT files will help much with determining the problem. But, looking at the video it appears, at least to me, that the Mavic decided to track it's shadow. The direction of the flyaway is consistent with trying to center the shadow.
2017-10-21
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DJI Natalia
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Lercher Posted at 2017-10-20 03:44
Thank you, "DroneFlying" has been awesome and trying to help me. No, I have not contacted support yet. This bird is not even 30 days old from the store and I do not have the DJI Care Refresh.

On the Flight Data, I pasted several dropbox links above:

Thank you for the details, I also download the file you post at 24#.
I have forwarded them to engineers for further analysis, will let you know the result when i get from them,  appreciate your patience!
2017-10-21
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Lercher
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DJI Natalia Posted at 2017-10-21 23:26
Thank you for the details, I also download the file you post at 24#.
I have forwarded them to engineers for further analysis, will let you know the result when i get from them,  appreciate your patience!

Thank you!
2017-10-26
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ro_flyer
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This was painful to watch....
2017-10-26
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RepK

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Well I am sad to say I found this thread because I had the same issue today... after reading everything today - i will call it "ACTIVE TRACK FLY AWAY".  I was not so lucky as I was at 160ft - my drone is gone.

I have the log showing where I was "active tracking" on an historic building when it seems to start to move away from the building.  Not knowing what was going on... I see from the log that I started pushing the drone forward with the stick to keep it from going backwards.  When I finally let up on the stick it went backwards like a bat out of hell until I lost contact.

This is obviously an issue AND A BAD ONE with the DJI Spark.  I just purchased on Black Friday 2017 and had less than 3 weeks.

Is it worth asking DJI to replace Spark if I have log showing the 'fly away'??

2017-12-19
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