I am wrong to be outraged that my Mavic Air was put at serious risk by a failure of the DJI Go4 app on my tablet this evening (UK time)? I was some distance away and the MA was under my direct control following the river Yar towards Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. After a couple of minor communication glitches - probably due to occluding reed beds - she was proceeding at 6m height above the water when my the DJI Go2 App window simply vanished from my tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab S2) with an Ankher cable to the MA controller). I was as you can imagine devastated and aghast. I restarted the App immediately but it went to the flash start-up screen and said "select vehicle" (or some such message). It would not reconnect with my MA.

Is there any way to get round this if the MA is not close enough for an easy connection?

There was no WiFi close by so in fact the app seemed to searching for updates, for goodness sake, not for my drone!!!!

Is there any way to cause the App to stop looking for updates and get on and do its job of connecting to the drone?

Fortunately I had set RTW to 30m height and take off point. After some breath defying minutes I heard the drone back above my head.

But still the stupid DJI Go4 App was not connecting - it was still looking for updates, I think!!!. I put the controller and tablet on the ground and prepared for action.

Can you force the app to try to connect when the drone is 10m away?

I was standing on the edge of a bridge on a ledge with no parapet above a muddy river. I had a landing pad but had the drone chosen to land 1m off centre it would have fallen 6 foot into the wet mud. I had no means of controlling it since the DJI Go4 App was not connecting. I did not think, in the stress of the moment, that the controller might (not sure) have worked even though the tablet app was saying no connection.

If you have a tablet or phone plugged in, and the App has crashed, will the controller on its own control the drone?

I had seen hand catching done but never tried it. The drone is less than a month old and its my first DJI drone.

The drone descended rapidly as expected and then hovvered looking for precision landing I think. At that point I risked my fingers and grabbed it from underneath and vowed never to let go! It squealed dementedly and tried to to escape upwards! I had as a game plan to wait for the batteries to die!! I pulled it down and it still wouldn't stop automatically. I could not safely reach the battery button and was scared of turning the drone upside down. Eventually I knelt on the ground and brought the drone down to near ground level when it got the message and switched off.

How do you force MA to shut off if you have grabbed it but cant reach the contoller? Or if the App has crashed on your tablet??

I have left my tablet in its original state following the crash and refusal to re-connect to the drone. I have not updated Airdata yet or anything as I don't want to destroy logs or data evidence.

What on earth do I do now? If this had been a serious exercise lives could have been put at risk????

Please help me?

To turn off the motors enough to turn the drone 90 degrees (blades perpendicular to the surface of the earth)

Is there any way to cause the App to stop looking for updates and get on and do its job of connecting to the drone?

Don't have a Mavic Air.  But with Mavic Pro...

Fly with Remote Controller.

Prior to flying, disable Cellular, WiFi, & BlueTooth on SmartDevice that is running GO-4.

Pull back the throttle stick for 3 seconds to disarm the motors.

Apps crashing is to do with the device it runs on, not the app itself. Just think about it for a moment. Thousands of your version of the app are running and only a few crash. If you had any understanding about software, you would realise it is impossible to cater for every phone setup.
There are crap apps running on your phone, it may have loads of clutter from pics and junk files. For a vital task, like controlling a drone, you should be obsessive about dedicating the device just for drone use and killing all apps, prior to starting go 4.
The good thing about apple is their strict control over third party apps. You are less likely to crash the software as a result. Android is a bit wild west by comparison, but knowing that, the better informed user can avoid trouble. I prefer android, but acknowledge apple as a great product.
Sort out you phone and practices and you are unlikely to crash the software.

I think before anyone flies they should know how drone works, it’s clear you didn’t know that you could fly drone if app crashed, you had heard of hand catching but knew very little about it, you had set up a very precarious homepoint which you later admit was practically useless, all of these things should be understood before flying your drone.
And you should accept that you were partly responsible.
1/ you should have a safe homepoint in the case of drone needing to RTH
2/ if you are planning on hand catching, learn how to do it
3/ if your drone may lose signal radio or app know how it’s going to react in both situations
/ RTFM

hallmark007 Posted at 4-23 01:55
I think before anyone flies they should know how drone works, it’s clear you didn’t know that you could fly drone if app crashed, you had heard of hand catching but knew very little about it, you had set up a very precarious homepoint which you later admit was practically useless, all of these things should be understood before flying your drone.
And you should accept that you were partly responsible.
1/ you should have a safe homepoint in the case of drone needing to RTH

Spot on Hallmark.

Mine did that once. App crashed in mid flight. (brand new tablet with no other apps) Luckily, I restarted the app and it connected.

Mr. Motta Posted at 4-23 19:37
Mine did that once. App crashed in mid flight. (brand new tablet with no other apps) Luckily, I restarted the app and it connected.

The manual tells you Not to depend on the app for flying .

Hall is prudent:
You must anticipate, by preflight briefing yourself the potential casualties risks that can occur at your site environment. I baseline the scheduled tourist helicopters that swarm the beach park where mavic air is flown. They do not swarm at dawn dusk nites.
Anyhow, newbies must leash radius very close, say, beginner mode. Beginner mode works.
Youll know when to turn off beginner mode.