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Lost connection during flight
1186 10 2019-3-1
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bill81
Australia
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Hi all. Took my mavic pro 2 for a flight today and got a mighty fright. I was on a cliff/headland and flew it out over the sea and lowered it down towards the water. I momentarily took my eyes off it as I took a few steps and when I looked up where I thought it was (down below me, but probably still 10 metres above the water) it was gone - and worse than that I had lost connection in the app. The app was still running but black with the disturbing no connection message.

Now, I assumed the worse, that it had suffered some kind of power failure and fallen in the sea. I pressed the return to home physical button on the remote, just incase it wasn't underwater, but nothing happened. I had long given up on the thing. Around 16/17 minutes after this debacle began, I heard it hovering behind me  - it had returned to home. I had since closed the app and reopened it. It couldn't land properly because of uneven ground but I tried the controller and it worked - I could guide it to land - even though there was no signal on the screen.

Obviously I was keen to get the SD card back to my laptop at home. It seems (well, I can see) that as soon as it lost connection, it climbed much higher in the sky. When I was looking down at the sea, it was actually many metres up in the air - I guess I didn't look up. And then it hovered there for 15 minutes, before getting bored and returning to home.

I see there is new firmware available and so I am updating that. Could this have been the issue? It's a pretty major flaw, and pretty damn dangerous. It's possible I got a prompt to update the firmware and didn't do it, I can't be sure.

But has anyone experienced this? What the hell happened? Pretty nervous to fly it again without finding out what happened.
2019-3-1
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bill81
Australia
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It has dawned on me that as it went out over the cliff it could have lost connection with the controller because of the rock between us - until I walked forward to the front of the cliff. But surely it should immediatley reconnect? It was 2 seconds max where I had no line of sight (and where there was rock between us)
2019-3-1
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SPIKE_151
First Officer
Flight distance : 69767 ft
United Kingdom
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Yes there have been quite a few similar stories on here with just the same thing, some ending in a crash and not recovered drone. Two important points to learn here, one always keep the controller antennae in direct line of sight of the drone with no obstructions between the two, and point 2 set your RTH altitude high , I set mine at 400 feet. If your rth height had been low and drone flying fast you may have hit the cliff on the way back and lost your drone.

Another point is keeping a vlos with your drone, if the screen goes black your controller may still be linked to the drone to send control inputs even though it is not receiving video back. If you have vlos you can fly it back even if your tablet or phone crashed or turned off, this happened to me in a hot country when my ipad over heated and shut down when my drone was in the air.
2019-3-1
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JJB*
Captain
Flight distance : 12132231 ft
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Netherlands
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Hiya,

Good to read that your drone is stil alive!

If you like upload your flightlog on here using > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

cheers
JJB
2019-3-1
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DJI Susan
Administrator
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Hi bill81, we're sorry to read the post. Just to verify, has the drone been damaged during the flight and is there any error message in the App? If not, you may test the drone in an open field and keep it in the sight of line to see whether everything works well. In case the drone needs to be serviced, you may start a case and send it from here for diagnosis: https://www.dji.com/support
2019-3-1
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bill81
Australia
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JJB* Posted at 3-1 03:08
Hiya,

Good to read that your drone is stil alive!

thanks for the idea - but when I look at the log on my phone it says the flight only last 46 seconds - up until it lost connection  -  (not around 17 minutes as I know to be the case)
2019-3-1
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bill81
Australia
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SPIKE_151 Posted at 3-1 01:16
Yes there have been quite a few similar stories on here with just the same thing, some ending in a crash and not recovered drone. Two important points to learn here, one always keep the controller antennae in direct line of sight of the drone with no obstructions between the two, and point 2 set your RTH altitude high , I set mine at 400 feet. If your rth height had been low and drone flying fast you may have hit the cliff on the way back and lost your drone.

Another point is keeping a vlos with your drone, if the screen goes black your controller may still be linked to the drone to send control inputs even though it is not receiving video back. If you have vlos you can fly it back even if your tablet or phone crashed or turned off, this happened to me in a hot country when my ipad over heated and shut down when my drone was in the air.

yes, the line of sight thing is clear and I did make a mistake here. If only for a couple of seconds, but that didn't help the matter. RTH altitude is something I didn't know about, thanks. Can you point me to those other stories? How were they resolved?
2019-3-1
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bill81
Australia
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DJI Susan Posted at 3-1 03:34
Hi bill81, we're sorry to read the post. Just to verify, has the drone been damaged during the flight and is there any error message in the App? If not, you may test the drone in an open field and keep it in the sight of line to see whether everything works well. In case the drone needs to be serviced, you may start a case and send it from here for diagnosis: https://www.dji.com/support

No error message now, no Susan - just when flying. And no damage to the craft. It simply hovered for quarter of an hour and then came back. I will start a case., thanks
2019-3-1
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JJB*
Captain
Flight distance : 12132231 ft
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Netherlands
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bill81 Posted at 3-1 14:24
thanks for the idea - but when I look at the log on my phone it says the flight only last 46 seconds - up until it lost connection  -  (not around 17 minutes as I know to be the case)

oke, but in a record of 46 seconds sometimes a lot of info can be found...

2019-3-2
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DJI Susan
Administrator
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bill81 Posted at 3-1 14:36
No error message now, no Susan - just when flying. And no damage to the craft. It simply hovered for quarter of an hour and then came back. I will start a case., thanks

That's OK. If you encounter any difficulties during the progress, feel free to contact us, we'll always be here for help.
2019-3-2
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SPIKE_151
First Officer
Flight distance : 69767 ft
United Kingdom
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bill81 Posted at 3-1 14:26
yes, the line of sight thing is clear and I did make a mistake here. If only for a couple of seconds, but that didn't help the matter. RTH altitude is something I didn't know about, thanks. Can you point me to those other stories? How were they resolved?

there is a search box above the threads,, just type lost connection in there,, and it will take you to all the posts about lost connection
2019-3-3
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