The active track on my DJI MAVIC 2 ZOOM does not work correctly anymore with the newest forced update from DJI.  It also almost cost me the drone in a crash while trying to record out on a boat.  Here is exactly what happened and I'm hoping to find a solution to this issue.  I have now lost my nerves when it comes to letting the drone fly with DJI GO 4.  I have hand launched and caught this drone more times then i can count.  I find that it is better then risking landing it on payment or grass because of the horribly low profile it has and the stress put directly on the main legs and motors.
I took the drone out on a boar to get some video of the boat while in motion.  The first flight went perfect and i controlled the drone the entire time.  The boat is approx 30' long and fiberglass construction. When i took the drone out it said to calibrate the compass.  I did just that and recieved the OK for the flight.  Hand launched the drone made sure it was stable and then took it out over the water.  I WAS IN CONTROL at this time and took the photos of the boat as requested.  The mission went fine.  Flew the drone back to me at the stern of the boat, turned the drone sideways and then brought it in as close as i could reached out, put my hand under it, waited for it to see my hand and rise up a little.  Pushed down and held on the right stick to engage landing, heard the audible "landing" from the voice on the tablet.  Drone touched down in my hand just like it always had and the motors spooled down.  This mission went perfect.


The second part failed horribly and almost cost me the drone in the water.  I again hand launched the drone.  There was no warning to calibrate the compass or anything to indicate a problem.  Once it was hand launched i then flew it a safe distance and altitude.  Told the boat captain what was going to happen and had open communication with him to stop in an emergency.  Battery at approx 80% on the drone.  It took off and hovered just like normal.  I then switched into the autonomous flight mode.  I chose "active track" from the list of icons.  I drew a box around the large boat approx 50-75ft away and pressed the "GO" button on the screen.

Told the boat captain to drive on, i watched in horror as the drone did nothing but sit in the same spot and get further and further away.  It was still showing it was tracking the boat but did not move or turn just hovered.  Active track was NOT set to "spotlight".  I then asked the captain to circle back around and try it again.  Once again did the same thing and the drone started to follow the boat but after less then a minute on OPEN water the drone lost the boat multiple times.  This happened a total of three times, the drone would not follow or would follow and lose the tracking subject.  Water conditions were smooth and the contrast of the boat to the water should have been an EASY subject to follow.

I gave up and didn't want to risk the drone battery life was now in the mid 60% so i decided to call it a failure and bring it back before something worse happened.  I switched back into manual mode and flew the drone back to the stern of the boat.  The SAME area i landed before with no problem.  This time the drone did something completly different then before for no reason.  I initiated the hand catch as described above.  The drone started to come down and made contact with my hand.  I grasped the drone and the motors kept running, never heard the audible landing on the tablet like before.  I kept  right stick held down and the drone kept trying to fight me.  I then tried to initiate the emergency stop via flipping the drone over.  This i have seen work in other videos and some people hand catch and use this technique all the time.  The drone motors reved up into a higher RPM and then even with the drone upside down the motors would not shutoff.  I refused to let go of the drone at this point for fear that it may crash into the water and was ignoring the commands from the remote.  I could not do the emergency stop procedure with the stick do to my one hand holding the drone for dear life.

I put the tablet down and was able to initiate the landing via the landing command.  It then said landing and then asked a second time was I sure.  In both instances i clicked or slid yes.  After about 30 more seconds the angry drone stopped fighting me and the motors turned off.

I have NEVER had this happen before even with more then 20+ hand launches and catches.  I have not flown the drone since that day and honestly i am afraid to EVER try and release control to the DJI GO 4 app after that incident.  I have sent an email much like this to DJI and recieved no response.  Anyone here have any clue why the drone did this especially flying upside down.  The motors should have stopped

I have also used active track before on myself and the feature worked fairly well.  Just walking around and the drone followed me.  The drone should have been able to follow easily behind and around the boat.  A 35' boat is a big target and the wide open area should have been the perfect enviorment for active track to work.
Anyone else have issues like this or have an explanation of why the drone acted the way it did?

Thanks for any help

I really only have two points to make.  First, the firmware update is not forced.  You have a choice to apply it or to not.  Second,  it is always a really good idea to test the aircraft under controlled circumstances when new firmware is applied.  I for one would never launch from a boat and apply active track without throughly testing new firmware to make sure it’s stable.  Glad you got your bird back, and I have not had any issues with the new firmware yet.  

Oracle Miata Posted at 9-24 06:13
I really only have two points to make.  First, the firmware update is not forced.  You have a choice to apply it or to not.  Second,  it is always a really good idea to test the aircraft under controlled circumstances when new firmware is applied.  I for one would never launch from a boat and apply active track without throughly testing new firmware to make sure it’s stable.  Glad you got your bird back, and I have not had any issues with the new firmware yet.

While you are correct no one forces you to update the firmware as in no one puts a gun to your head and says do it.  DJI however does not honor warranties if the firmware is older or if you use ANY other app.  So it is forced if you want to keep you warranty through DJI.  If you crash without having the up to date firmware they will be the first to say it is not covered.  

I have tested the active track and had several successful flights after the update so there was no reason to suspect an issue.  I have always been extremely cautious of my drone and do pre-flight checks along with a control test in a hover before it ever goes outside my reach.  I'm guessing then that this was just a fluke or a gremlin in the system.

I still cant figure out why the motors did not cutout when flipped over and why a 35' boat in open water could not be tracked but me at 5'8" could be tracked in a grass field.

William516 Posted at 9-24 06:51
While you are correct no one forces you to update the firmware as in no one puts a gun to your head and says do it.  DJI however does not honor warranties if the firmware is older or if you use ANY other app.  So it is forced if you want to keep you warranty through DJI.  If you crash without having the up to date firmware they will be the first to say it is not covered.  

I have tested the active track and had several successful flights after the update so there was no reason to suspect an issue.  I have always been extremely cautious of my drone and do pre-flight checks along with a control test in a hover before it ever goes outside my reach.  I'm guessing then that this was just a fluke or a gremlin in the system.

I'm sorry about your scary experience, but I have to say I think you are wrong about losing warranty support if you do not keep up-to-date on firmware versions or use third party apps -- what DJI can't do is warranty problems caused by 3rd party apps, but my understanding is that they will warranty problems determined to be hardware-related while flying with 3rd party apps.

lot of noob mistakes in this one..   

if you can manually fly and get footage you wish to get, i suggest doing that vs trusting software to understand everything i watched as software misunderstood the environment around me and pile drove my mavic 2 pro into a tree for seemingly no reason..just how it is with software sometimes, it it misunderstands something and things its an opening it can shoot well RIP if it isn't..  activetrack can be flakey, this as far as i known has always been the case because it is using Ai and ML.. sometimes just doesn't want to follow or obey or sees an obstacle then suddenly decides wants to eat that obstacle...  i wish some cases where DJI would give us a warning pops up on side of screen says why its deciding to be stubborn.  

all of DJI's prosumer drones been known to fight to the death if they are flipping over, not the case with enry lines like spark and mavic air but prosumer and up..no they take no prisoners its by design they will fight you..        if ur drone isnt ready to land when its in your hand, let it go and try again..  dont fight it because you wont win without getting cut or damaging the drone in a battle.  for some reason it hasn't seen you first time and thinks its in a battle for its life..  try again

I’m amazed at the length of this post, but I’m more amazed at the glaring mistake you made and still did not realize what you done, I can only say both you your craft and anyone else on the boat are extremely lucky that you didn’t do any damage. LEFT STICK DOWN 3 seconds ....

If you want your flight checked out then post your log.

hallmark007 Posted at 9-24 10:41
I’m amazed at the length of this post, but I’m more amazed at the glaring mistake you made and still did not realize what you done, I can only say both you your craft and anyone else on the boat are extremely lucky that you didn’t do any damage. LEFT STICK DOWN 3 seconds ....

If you want your flight checked out then post your log.

How do you retreive the log?  Sorry but never really had to review a log before.

I will see if i can post the log but i thought i said i had held down on the right stick (mode 2) I fly in.  Right stick for me is similar to the collective of a helicopter.  My right stick control up / down and yaw left / right
Left stick controls forward / reverse and left and right.  I had NEVER had an issue with landing at all before attempting the autonomous flight mode.  I even had a perfectly good run prior launching and recovering by hand in the same exact spot.  
I think the lesson to learn from this is that as someone else before posted, do not rely on DJI software or any software to pilot when possible.  I usually always fly hands on and never trust the computer but this one time i wanted to let it try what i had seen others do without issue.

Also i was unable to initiate the panic stop of both sticks down and in because my tablet makes it very hard to do that maneuver especially when one hand is still holding the drone.  So right stick for me and held down has ALWAYS initiated landing for me before and it is continued to be held down until in my hands and the motors have stopped.

William516 Posted at 9-24 11:02
How do you retreive the log?  Sorry but never really had to review a log before.

I will see if i can post the log but i thought i said i had held down on the right stick (mode 2) I fly in.  Right stick for me is similar to the collective of a helicopter.  My right stick control up / down and yaw left / right

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

Just go to link follow instructions , it’s highly unlikely if you push stick down craft would try to go in any other direction but down, it obviously worked when landing in your hand,
I have never seen a crash caused by a malfunction of the app .

hallmark007 Posted at 9-24 13:27
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Just go to link follow instructions , it’s highly unlikely if you push stick down craft would try to go in any other direction but down, it obviously worked when landing in your hand,

Yeah i agree, it did go down but refused to actually land and shut down the motors.  I never got the "landing" voice until i had to swipe the tablet and confirm the landing twice.

Then and only then did the motors stop

William516 Posted at 9-24 18:01
Yeah i agree, it did go down but refused to actually land and shut down the motors.  I never got the "landing" voice until i had to swipe the tablet and confirm the landing twice.

Then and only then did the motors stop

Just put up the log .

hallmark007 Posted at 9-25 04:31
Just put up the log .

I tried to post the log file but the site says it can't support the file I tried to upload.  Do you have another way to upload it?

William516 Posted at 9-25 09:20
I tried to post the log file but the site says it can't support the file I tried to upload.  Do you have another way to upload it?

There's no need to upload the log to this forum. Upload it to PhantomHelp per the instructions in the link you were given, and that upload will send you to a page showing the uploaded log data. Copy that page's URL, paste it into this thread, and we'll be able to see what you uploaded.

I still have the same FW since last year September 2018...I will never up date the FW for fear of this kind of foolish. I'm the only one still able to fly from my location...the other FW updated M2Z stay grounded lol.

William516 Posted at 9-25 09:20
I tried to post the log file but the site says it can't support the file I tried to upload.  Do you have another way to upload it?

Maybe do as gimpy said .

So i noticed u said u did the new fw i am almost certain the djo go 4 app settings get reset. Did u go through the app settings and configure everything before said flights? Also u do not have to update if u don't want to. I would also try not to flip something as big as a mavic over to initiate motor shut down. You held throttle down for 3 seconds? If u are going to fly from a boat i would recommend turning "landing protection" off in vps settings. This way the drone will land easily when u hand catch, no fighting and shuts right down.

i watched in horror as the drone did nothing but sit in the same spot and get further and further away,
this is what it does on sm controller with me too! the only way i can get it to follow my jeep is in profile mode, i dont understand