So I purchased my new MAvic Pro 2, as well as the Mavic 2 Fly More Kit, an extra battery and the joke that is the DJI Care Refresh for the Mavic 2, back on the 27th of August this year for a costly AU$ 3,200.35.

This is my second DJI drone purchase, after I previously owned a Mavic Pro for some 2 years without a single issue. I'm an ameteur photogropher / videographer and I film weddings on the side, and take real estate pictures with my drone. I was very excited to see the new bird in action and after around 15 test flights, working out the best settings etc, I took it out to film a wedding on the 29th of September this year. I did the usual pre flight checks, waited for the drone to clear its own internal checks and took off from a stable, level surface. I was on a large Paddle Steamer at the time and once in the air, I started to film, getting some great shots of the Paddle Steamer, and Wedding Guests.


About 5 mins into filming, the image tranmission on my iPhone went blank and a message appeared on the remote, stating "Disconnected". I didn't panic initially, as it has happened to me before on my old drone. I waited about 30 seconds and nothing. I could see the drone still, even though we were moving away from it but I wasn't worried, as DJI had claimed an impressive 8 KM range. After a minute or so, I started to get worried, as the connection was apparently not restablishing. I turned the remote off and then on again - nothing. I even rebooted my phone and the DJI App - nothing. I stayed out in the open, clear of obstacle's and tried to adjust the aerials with no joy. I found out later, that the drone had gone back to it's point of take off and had landed in the water.


Inititially, I was furious - mainly for the people getting married, as they had speciffically asked for footage on the boat. There's nothing more frustrating when you let someone down and it's not even your fault. After a while, I calmed down and thought that it would all be ok (other than losing the footage and my high speed 128 gig micro SD card) as I had my DJI Care Refresh...  Bzzt


I got home and contacted DJI, which started a string of emails back and forth, with them hand balling me around and me having to re-tell my story. They asked me for flight records and DAT files, but the crazy thing was is that either the drone or the controller, or the DJI 4 APP didn't save/record/store/keep the records of the final flight. And because I had disabled video caching on my iPhone, there was litterally no evidence of the flight, even though 100+ people saw it take off. After jumping through many hoops, replying to stupid email requests to provide flight records that apparently didn't exist due to no fault of my own, DJI replied something along the lines of, "We are so sorry for your loss, but without incident data, we can't help you. Thanks so much for your support and have a good day." WTF??


So I'm now AU$ 2,299 (plus the SD card) out of pocket, I've lost the footage and DJI have told me to suck it, when I had absolutely no control over this. I even sent them a picture of my Drone's last known location, pinged from the bottom of the river before it died and nothing. This is not how I expected to be treated, especially from such a big company - who's clearly trying to be like Apple in their delivery.


My only option now is to try to go through my Home insurance, which has a hefty excess, and I found out will only cover AU$1,800 for personal electronic items. I'm so angry that in this day and age, I'm being told to essentially go and F*#@ myself after spending welll over 7 grand with DJI.


Has anyone else had disconnection issues like this? Obviously it wouldn't have been an issue if I was on land, but I'd previously flown my old drone over water, and taken off from a boat many times before and had never had this issue, which gave me the confidence to do it with the new drone. Also, DJI specify water damage in the DJI Care Refresh Policy.


If anyone has something constructive to add, I'm all ears.


Thanks,


Kris.

Can you see your flight data in the Go4 app.... or is this blank? - You can use iTunes to find the flight data stored in the app files on your phone, it will be there. You say - 'I found out later, that the drone had gone back to it's point of take off and had landed in the water.' - The steamer was moving then?? Also turning the remote on and on will cause the drone to go in RTHome mode and fly back to its take-off position.
https://youtu.be/brKQZ-gTBXg

Aerial-Image Posted at 11-15 23:10
Can you see your flight data in the Go4 app.... or is this blank? - You can use iTunes to find the flight data stored in the app files on your phone, it will be there.
https://youtu.be/brKQZ-gTBXg

Hey thanks for the reply. I can go into the flight records on the App for the Mavic 2, but there's absolutely no record of the flight on the 29th of September this year. It's like it just didn't record the flight at all. The last recorded flight recorded was on the 19th of September when I took some pics of a house.

Hi MrTockley, we do apologize for your loss, but all the data analysis is based on the flight data, without the data, we are unable to verify what happened.
The flight records may fail to be saved for the following reasons:
1. Customer may not connect to the APP during the flight.
2. Customer may use the third party APP.
3. The flight records were deleted manually.

If none of the above happens to you, we will escalate your case to the appropriate team to see if there is any further resolution can be provided.
DJI Care Refresh covers water-damaged drone, but it doesn't cover any loss or partial loss, please check the screenshot below, thank you.

DJI Mindy Posted at 11-16 00:32
Hi MrTockley, we do apologize for your loss, but all the data analysis is based on the flight data, without the data, we are unable to verify what happened.
The flight records may fail to be saved for the following reasons:
1. Customer may not connect to the APP during the flight.

Hi Mindy,

I’ve never used anything other than the official DJI App, and I wouldn’t know how to delete the flight record and I can’t think of a reason that I’d need to. I was supposed to be insured for pilot error and water damage (even if that was the case which it wasn’t) but it’s impossible to make a claim if the App has crashed and the flight record didn’t actually record to the App. I’d appreciate if this was escalated as I’m currently over $2,000 out of pocket with no resolve insight.

DJI Mindy Posted at 11-16 00:32
Hi MrTockley, we do apologize for your loss, but all the data analysis is based on the flight data, without the data, we are unable to verify what happened.
The flight records may fail to be saved for the following reasons:
1. Customer may not connect to the APP during the flight.

Hi Mindy,

I’ve never used anything other than the official DJI App, and I wouldn’t know how to delete the flight record and I can’t think of a reason that I’d need to. I was supposed to be insured for pilot error and water damage (even if that was the case which it wasn’t) but it’s impossible to make a claim if the App has crashed and the flight record didn’t actually record to the App. I’d appreciate if this was escalated as I’m currently over $2,000 out of pocket with no resolve insight.

MrTockley Posted at 11-16 01:11
Hi Mindy,

I’ve never used anything other than the official DJI App, and I wouldn’t know how to delete the flight record and I can’t think of a reason that I’d need to. I was supposed to be insured for pilot error and water damage (even if that was the case which it wasn’t) but it’s impossible to make a claim if the App has crashed and the flight record didn’t actually record to the App. I’d appreciate if this was escalated as I’m currently over $2,000 out of pocket with no resolve insight.

Thanks for your clarification, your case has been escalated to the appropriate team to follow up, we will have someone to contact you soon, please wait patiently, thank you.

DJI Mindy Posted at 11-16 01:24
Thanks for your clarification, your case has been escalated to the appropriate team to follow up, we will have someone to contact you soon, please wait patiently, thank you.

That would be amazing

You might have a DAT flight log on your mobile device. Follow these instructions to check if that file was created


"I found out later, that the drone had gone back to it's point of take off and had landed in the water."

So, it sounds like you already found the cause of your loss. Per your story above, it sounds like the remote controller signal disconnected from the Mavic and it returned home (as designed). If you do manage to find any flight logs, they are only going to confirm this happened. Unfortunately, they won't be able to tell us why the remote controller disconnected (which is a perfectly normal event).

If you decide to fly over water in the future, you should set the "Remote Controller Signal Lost" setting to "Hover". The Mavic will then hover in place if the remote controller disconnects for some reason.



Also, try to take off from a safe landing location. If that's not possible, then try resetting the home point to a safe landing location after taking off. If there are absolutely no safe landing locations (other than hand catching from the boat), then the only thing you can really do is use the "Hover" setting above.

msinger Posted at 11-16 02:43
You might have a DAT flight log on your mobile device. Follow these instructions to check if that file was created


[Image]

Hey, thanks for the reply. DJI did send instructions to retrieve the DAT files from both the remote and my mobile but nothing was recorded on that day which is incredibly strange.

If I had have set it to hover on lost signal, chances are that the drone would have just eventually done a forced landing into the water anyway, as that’s where I was flying over

When using the hover option, the drone will auto land if the battery reaches the critically low level. The idea is that it would likely give you enough time to get closer to that location to reestablish the remote controller connection or be able to position yourself below the drone to catch it when it lands.

msinger Posted at 11-16 02:50
When using the hover option, the drone will auto land if the battery reaches the critically low level. The idea is that it would likely give you enough time to get closer to that location to reestablish the remote controller connection or be able to position yourself below the drone to catch it when it lands.

Yeah I realise that but I was on a chartered boat that I had no control over and was unable to stop, slow down or turn back. Having said that, I was well within the 8 kilometre range so IF it had of reconnected successfully, I would have been able to land it safely, but it never did.

Remote controllers can disconnect for many reasons. That's why failsafe procedures like RTH exist.

msinger Posted at 11-16 03:01
Remote controllers can disconnect for many reasons. That's why failsafe procedures like RTH exist.

Then there’s an inherent flaw in the radios, and or software to allow a catastrophic failure like this. I have had drones disconnect before, but to not regain a connection for 20 mins is something else all together that the end user has no control over and shouldn’t have to be responsible for. If I lost connection and the drone landed on a group of small children because I had no way of controlling it, would that be my responsibility too?

"If I lost connection and the drone landed on a group of small children because I had no way of controlling it, would that be my responsibility too?"

Yes. You're 100% responsible once you get that drone up in the air. You need to plan ahead instead of trying to blame others when things go south.

msinger Posted at 11-16 03:11
"If I lost connection and the drone landed on a group of small children because I had no way of controlling it, would that be my responsibility too?"

Yes. You're 100% responsible once you get that drone up in the air. You need to plan ahead instead of trying to blame others when things go south.

How can I be responsible if the drone disconnects and never regains connection? Are you saying that it’s impossible to fly a drone around people in case it’s my fault that the thing loses connection?? Seriously?

Are you saying that it’s impossible to fly a drone around people in case it’s my fault that the thing loses connection?? Seriously?


Yes!

ghostrdr Posted at 11-16 10:53
Are you saying that it’s impossible to fly a drone around people in case it’s my fault that the thing loses connection?? Seriously?

So you’re saying that if you were driving a car, and there was a catastrophic mechanical failure - either
mechanical or software, and it caused you to lose control of the car and crash then it would be your fault too? Because you were driving it at the time?

I fail to see how this has become about me being somehow responsible. I flew the drone like I have hundreds of times before - in good faith, thinking that there would be a number of redundancy features built in for the safety of others and to at the very least, land it somewhere safely. I did nothing wrong and for people to suggest that I should have done this or that is ridiculous. How about he drone should have regained connection??

MrTockley Posted at 11-16 03:13
How can I be responsible if the drone disconnects and never regains connection? Are you saying that it’s impossible to fly a drone around people in case it’s my fault that the thing loses connection?? Seriously?

You can be responsible by setting the home point to a safe location or by setting the "Remote Controller Signal Lost" setting to "Hover" so the drone doesn't try to return home. Since you did neither, the drone did exactly what it was programmed to do (and what you indirectly told it to do).

There is no way to ensure the remote controller signal will not be lost mid-flight. So, you should never assume that won't happen.

msinger Posted at 11-17 06:44
You can be responsible by setting the home point to a safe location or by setting the "Remote Controller Signal Lost" setting to "Hover" so the drone doesn't try to return home. Since you did neither, the drone did exactly what it was programmed to do (and what you indirectly told it to do).

There is no way to ensure the remote controller signal will not be lost mid-flight. So, you should never assume that won't happen.

I’m not sure if you read my post or not but I was on a boat that was moving away from where I took off from. It was a wedding that took place on said boat that had been chartered to go from point A to point B. I had no control over the boat and couldn’t stop it or turn it around so hovering over the water where it lost connection would have ended up with exactly the same result. I fail to see how this could be my fault in any way. There’s hundreds of not thousands of clips involving DJI drones filming over water and nowhere does it specify that you can’t or shouldn’t fly over water. The real issue here is how a very expensive drone lost connection, and failed to reconnect with the controller and how the flight didn’t even register with the app. You suggesting that I should have taken off from a different location doesn’t change the fact that the drone and or software failed in a catastrophic manor, which is why I posted this in the first place.

MrTockley Posted at 11-17 18:42
I’m not sure if you read my post or not but I was on a boat that was moving away from where I took off from. It was a wedding that took place on said boat that had been chartered to go from point A to point B. I had no control over the boat and couldn’t stop it or turn it around so hovering over the water where it lost connection would have ended up with exactly the same result. I fail to see how this could be my fault in any way. There’s hundreds of not thousands of clips involving DJI drones filming over water and nowhere does it specify that you can’t or shouldn’t fly over water. The real issue here is how a very expensive drone lost connection, and failed to reconnect with the controller and how the flight didn’t even register with the app. You suggesting that I should have taken off from a different location doesn’t change the fact that the drone and or software failed in a catastrophic manor, which is why I posted this in the first place.

I read your entire post.

The fact that you took off from a boat, the boat was chartered, you were recording a wedding, the high expense of the drone, etc. does not matter. You need to ensure the home point has been set in a good location before starting any type of flight. The point of setting the home point is to allow the drone to safely return home when something (like this) does not go as planned.

msinger Posted at 11-18 05:00
I read your entire post.

The fact that you took off from a boat, the boat was chartered, you were recording a wedding, the high expense of the drone, etc. does not matter. You need to ensure the home point has been set in a good location before starting any type of flight. The point of setting the home point is to allow the drone to safely return home when something (like this) does not go as planned.

So how do you take off from a good location when you start out on the boat? Watch any documentary that has anything to do with boats, fishing, or oceanic wildlife and they all take off from a boat! You’re an idiot trying to detract from the fact that the drone failed here. You should be able to take off from anywhere and the drone should come back. Please stop wasting my time with your ridiculous comments.

The drone did come back to where you launched from and you weren't there. Disconnects happen, it's a fact of drone life. Sometimes they don't reconnect and they either hover or return home based on what the pilot specifies. Man up and face reality. You made a bet that it wouldn't disconnect and you lost. Move on!

MrTockley Posted at 11-18 05:14
So how do you take off from a good location when you start out on the boat? Watch any documentary that has anything to do with boats, fishing, or oceanic wildlife and they all take off from a boat! You’re an idiot trying to detract from the fact that the drone failed here. You should be able to take off from anywhere and the drone should come back. Please stop wasting my time with your ridiculous comments.

I feel like we've been over this already, but here goes...

You have a few options:

1) After taking off, fly the drone over top of land (where it's safe to land) and reset the home point to that location.

2) Set the "Remote Controller Signal Lost" setting to "Hover" so the drone doesn't attempt to return home.

3) Manually reset the home point to your new location as the boat moves (not a great option if the boat is constantly moving).

Your drone didn't fail. You failed to understand how it works and lost it.