With 13 satelites and registered homepoint, Spark gives me 4 compass fail messages in seconds, before all lights turn red and it flies away full speed for never to be seen again... I updated the Spark with latest firmware yesterday. It was in the mountains, no metal or electrical interferance - this is crazy. Why by a drone if it just finds out it will fly away?

It's not the number of satellites you need to go by but the bar beneath it. Yours is empty = no GPS. That said all it should do is enter ATTI mode and you fly it manually back to your position until GPS signal is regained. Why it flew away will be down to the compass error. Best you upload the flight data.

Just click on link below and follow instructions come back here and post your link.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/BRQA7KYV63JZ6AIMR07E/

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-7 12:53
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/BRQA7KYV63JZ6AIMR07E/

Interesting...I'm anxious to see how others interpret his log.  Surely looks like a malfunction to me.

A CW Posted at 2018-1-7 11:42
It's not the number of satellites you need to go by but the bar beneath it. Yours is empty = no GPS. That said all it should do is enter ATTI mode and you fly it manually back to your position until GPS signal is regained. Why it flew away will be down to the compass error. Best you upload the flight data.

The bar is empty BECAUSE it switched to ATTI mode.... it does that after it gets compass errors. So, it may show plenty of satellites, but it ignores the GPS.

stealther Posted at 2018-1-7 13:00
The bar is empty BECAUSE it switched to ATTI mode.... it does that after it gets compass errors. So, it may show plenty of satellites, but it ignores the GPS.

It doesn't switch to ATTI mode unless GPS is lost - think about it!

I have all GPS bars untill 22 seconds when first YAW failure appears

Windy but nothing the spark can't handle however the way the Spark flew off is consistant with the wind direction at approx 20+ ft per second!!!!! Please correct me if I'm wrong.... That may be miles and miles away!

What were the sticks doing while it was flying away?  One could visually look at it and turn it to fly back to the home point.

All light where red, no contact/reaction with sticks :-(

Well 25 mph gusts are a respectable wind..... many of this yaw errors are coming in these windy days. i am starting to suspect wind has a major impact than we think. What if all compass errors are due to the fact that stick inputs are forward and gps reads heading drifting due to the wind and takes it as an errors and switches in atti.... just my 2 cents ...

A CW Posted at 2018-1-7 13:01
It doesn't switch to ATTI mode unless GPS is lost - think about it!

Well.. yes, I thought about it. And it has been explained elsewhere too. When the Spark gets compass errors, it ignores the GPS data and switches to ATTI mode. So, there may well be plenty of satellites in view, as indicated by the DJI app, but the bars are greyed out, indicating the software is ignoring it.

Well, I had that exact same issue with mine took off with full bars, 16 satellites locked and home point recorded, but I was able to land the darn thing, I've been seeing more and more of this, File a claim with DJI.

Funny note, Mine did that at 28 seconds after take off.

stealther Posted at 2018-1-7 20:57
Well.. yes, I thought about it. And it has been explained elsewhere too. When the Spark gets compass errors, it ignores the GPS data and switches to ATTI mode. So, there may well be plenty of satellites in view, as indicated by the DJI app, but the bars are greyed out, indicating the software is ignoring it.

Really? Thats not good! Pleased I sold mine when I did. Get a Mavic mate!

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-7 12:53
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/BRQA7KYV63JZ6AIMR07E/

Sir, I would recommend you follow the last GPS and try to locate the drone. If you can not find it, please contact our support and start a case: http://www.dji.com/support. Also, you can upload the flight records to dropbox and post the lilnk here.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-1-8 02:35
Sir, I would recommend you follow the last GPS and try to locate the drone. If you can not find it, please contact our support and start a case: http://www.dji.com/support. Also, you can upload the flight records to dropbox and post the lilnk here.

We were 4 people following the SPARK in free sight, it disappeared over a hill and far away. The last GPS position was recorded close by our location. We waited for a long time to see if it would return to home point. I also walked a kilometre over some hills and far away in the direction it flew to see if I could re-connect to the drone with no success.

Here is a dropbox folder with all data: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ad8qg ... BafHCn84LKdz-a?dl=0

I have registered a case with SJI Support #924332

A CW Posted at 2018-1-7 23:28
Really? Thats not good! Pleased I sold mine when I did. Get a Mavic mate!

This happens to Mavics as well (https://forum.dji.com/thread-93748-1-1.html). For me the fix is not getting an even more expensive drone that will fly away at its own will..

A CW Posted at 2018-1-7 23:28
Really? Thats not good! Pleased I sold mine when I did. Get a Mavic mate!

This happens to Mavics as well Mavic compass failure -> Crash. For me the fix is not getting an even more expensive drone that will fly away at its own will..

Get a Phantom 4 Pro then LOL Though my MPP has been less buggy than my P4P

Paul Lee Posted at 2018-1-7 13:56
Windy but nothing the spark can't handle however the way the Spark flew off is consistant with the wind direction at approx 20+ ft per second!!!!! Please correct me if I'm wrong.... That may be miles and miles away!
[view_image]

The spark should handle 10m/s wind which is the same as 22,3 mile/h or 33 ft/s. I am just around this level, gust of 25mph translates to gusts of 11 m/s.

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-8 05:03
We were 4 people following the SPARK in free sight, it disappeared over a hill and far away. The last GPS position was recorded close by our location. We waited for a long time to see if it would return to home point. I also walked a kilometre over some hills and far away in the direction it flew to see if I could re-connect to the drone with no success.

Here is a dropbox folder with all data: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ad8qgbo217kbrge/AADdBPHwSb4BafHCn84LKdz-a?dl=0

Thanks for your update. I believe our support will take a good care of your case. Please provide them the flight records and they will help you locate the problem. If you have any doubt, please inform us.

22.2mph is asking too much in my view. With gusts, spark's ground speed with full fwd is going to be in the region of a few mph.
All red lights indicate low battery?

Hi looking at your flight log, I suppose first thing is why did you get yaw error followed closely by compass problem and IMU heading exception, well the answer to that is we don’t know.
Yaw error is usually associated with a problem in your compass but why has your compass got this problem well only you might be able to give answers to that.
Could the yaw error cause problem with your compass I’m not really sure, but if you take it that you are trying to fly a straight line but your spark is violently trying to yaw left or right your Aircraft gets a message from IMU to say it can’t keep its heading because of this yaw problem which seems to favour compass heading, so gps gets disabled and aircraft goes into Atti mode, it is controllable but made very difficult by only having phone as controller and what looks like a higher wind than spark can cope with.

Although you say spark can handle this wind that’s not strictly correct you were flying with the use of your phone as controller, so speed of your spark is 14kph max so much lower than wind speed that day, can wind cause yaw error and thus problem with compass I believe it can did it happen here I’m not sure I think it will be for dji to decide, I have seen some offered warranty in similar cases and others refused, dji have been coy in letting us know why they would give warranty in similar situations, maybe because they don’t want to admit they might have a problem or because user was flying in a good environment where this should not occur.
It is also their prerogative not to explain when offering warranty, but when not offering warranty they usually use envoirment as prime cause to cause of crash.
So we will have to wait and see how you get on , I wish you luck in your endeavor.

Although max speed with phone is 14 mph, my own obsevations are that that is ground speed.
So roughly speaking into  a 16 mph headwind spark can still clock 14.mph ground speed.
It uses 16 mph to hover, which pilot does not see, with 14 left 'as stick input' from its 30 mph available, and reducing so on as wind increases.
Fly with the wind and max speed will not reach 30 mph, even though wind drives it at 16. It's actually applying 2 mph reverse when showing ground speed of 14 Mph.

Bright Spark Posted at 2018-1-12 06:47
Although max speed with phone is 14 mph, my own obsevations are that that is ground speed.
So roughly speaking into  a 16 mph headwind spark can still clock 14.mph ground speed.
It uses 16 mph to hover, which pilot does not see, with 14 left 'as stick input' from its 30 mph available, and reducing so on as wind increases.

Sparks top speed using mobile phone is 6.7 mph.

Just trying to show ground speed /air speed concept.In that case it will handle 25.3 mph headwind and sill achieve 6.7  mph ground speed.(with top speed of 32 mph available. )
Flying with 25.3 tailwind means spark is applying
18.6 mph reverse with 6.7 mph groundspeed.

Top speed of 30.1mph I believe with the remote

These figures are all for illustration. What ever the exact top speed, it is available throughout the range for the spark, but not the pilot except in sport mode.

If the top speed were limited to, for example only, 6.7 mph in any particular  mode/controller configuration, the essential issue is that without a higher speed than 6.7 mph available to the flight controller,  it would never be able to progress up wind.
When the headwind equals the top speed , that's it,all over, even in atti.

Paul Lee Posted at 2018-1-7 13:56
Windy but nothing the spark can't handle however the way the Spark flew off is consistant with the wind direction at approx 20+ ft per second!!!!! Please correct me if I'm wrong.... That may be miles and miles away!
[view_image]

What app/website are did you use for this screenshot?

I have looked into quite a few log files in the recent weeks and most of them that have all Yaw Errors in them have 1 thing in common.  Very strong winds recorded for the flight times.  

This log is a little tougher to analyze because the log doesn't contain any values for the RC stick inputs at all.  Because of this, it isn't possible to determine what pilot inputs had on the flight path, so some guesstimating needs to be taken into account.

Having said that, I really think the wind played a very big factor in this flight.  Firstly, the regional weather report is showing the wind speed at around a steady 20mph (maybe slightly under).  
.  
That is a very stiff wind.  Looking at the area of the flight via Google Maps & Earth, it appears to be a hilly area with valleys running through it.  Wind speeds in these type of geographic elements can be greatly affected by the terrain with localized wind speeds that can be both far greater and far lower than the overall regional wind speeds due to the way the wind is funneled around and over the terrain.



Like I said, without the RC input values in the log files, it is impossible to tell what inputs the pilot made during the flight and what influence those inputs had on the flight path.  However, we can see in the flight path, that it appears that even after the aircraft went into ATTI mode, it *appears* that the pilot had enough control of the flight to circle it around into the wind and bring it from about 80 ft away to about 19 feet away.  This happened from 0:22.2 to 0:34.8 into the flight.

Only a couple seconds later (at 0:36.5), the controlling device lost connection with the aircraft at only a distance of 42ft away and 52ft up.  When the connection was restored 6 seconds later, the aircraft was already 195ft way and increasing its speed away from the home point until the connection was permanently lost 2 seconds later at a distance of 242 feet away moving at a rate of about 17mph.

My guess is that a wind gust was likely responsible for putting the aircraft into a situation it wasn't able to cope with (could be exceeding design limitations or could be a bug, impossible for me to say) and as such caused the Yaw Errors which eventually put it into ATTI mode.

My recommendations:

• Open a case with DJI support to see if they can figure out why the Yaw Error occurred in the first place.
• don't fly in high winds where you could be potentially putting the aircraft near its limitations
• if you do fly in windy conditions, fly INTO the wind so that if something happens, the wind will blow it back to you (instead of away from you) and give you more time to react.
• If it goes in ATTI mode, start losing elevation fast if there aren't obstacles (such as trees or buildings) to crash into.    Also crashing into those objects may be preferable to keeping it at current elevation and watching it fly away.
  

Maybe I missed it, but were you using the Spark's RC or just controlling via your phone?

I wish you the best of luck in a positive resolution to your case.

Kloo Gee Posted at 2018-1-12 13:22
I have looked into quite a few log files in the recent weeks and most of them that have all Yaw Errors in them have 1 thing in common.  Very strong winds recorded for the flight times.  

This log is a little tougher to analyze because the log doesn't contain any values for the RC stick inputs at all.  Because of this, it isn't possible to determine what pilot inputs had on the flight path, so some guesstimating needs to be taken into account.

Thanks for an extensive analysis. The YAW error came during a time of flight with no stick input. I had flown the Spark into position behind us (green). I was operating the gimbal to start filming us (here the path turns red). I couldn´t find us in the picture and looked up. Then I saw the Spark had moved and was flying over us and doing a circle around us. There was no reaction to stick input. I was using the iPhone with a Steelseries bluetooth gaming controller (same as I have used since acquiring the Spark).

GREAT NEWS!

Got a nice mail from DJI today; "..we have confirmed it as a warranty case according to our analysis result. We would like to offer you a 100% off coupon code for Spark（Alpine White) without remote, then you can place an order for it from DJI online store."

This is my first real drone, and I really liked the brand of DJI. A great consumer brand demonstrates its integrity in cases like this, I'm an impressed and happy customer, thanks DJI I am looking forward to capturing more great outdoor footage as soon as I have the new drone. Guess I will buy the controller also..

Thanks for the support on this forum Pilots :-)

Kloo Gee Posted at 2018-1-12 10:40
What app/website are did you use for this screenshot?

Hey Kloo Gee,

Sorry didn't notice you'd asked this till now.... The website I use for this is
Windy

I just use awesome screenshot to capture....

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-16 23:54
GREAT NEWS!

Got a nice mail from DJI today; "..we have confirmed it as a warranty case according to our analysis result. We would like to offer you a 100% off coupon code for Spark（Alpine White) without remote, then you can place an order for it from DJI online store."

Congratulations for the good outcome and we are looking forward to your future footage! :-)

Fantastic news! Thank you for updating the thread with the great outcome.

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-16 23:54
GREAT NEWS!

Got a nice mail from DJI today; "..we have confirmed it as a warranty case according to our analysis result. We would like to offer you a 100% off coupon code for Spark（Alpine White) without remote, then you can place an order for it from DJI online store."

Good job, happy flying.

This has happened to me... I stupidly took off with the compass error message and the Spark flew out of control in random directions, I could only change the yaw of the craft and steered it back to me and caught it and tilted it to turn it off. Needless to say I got very lucky, and I'm sorry about your Spark, always check messages in the app before you take off.

It everyone has the ability to afford phantom 4 mate! I hope you realize that.

fansd1111641 Posted at 2018-1-16 23:54
GREAT NEWS!

Got a nice mail from DJI today; "..we have confirmed it as a warranty case according to our analysis result. We would like to offer you a 100% off coupon code for Spark（Alpine White) without remote, then you can place an order for it from DJI online store."

Congrat's. And enjoy your new Spark.