(Online) shops here try to be sustainable by reselling items that are sent back during the cool-off period after a purchase. I obtained a Mini 4 Pro that was resold 'as new', which usually means that there are no usage traces - the item can be used however. After connecting drone and RC to DJI Assistant I found out that there were as many as 19 entries in the log export. Most with a duration of less than 5 minutes, some a lot longer. This need not be a problem, if the drone is used for some limited flighing. But if it crashed or was used in bad weather conditions, that is a different story.

The RC seems wiped, at least there are no .TXT logfiles on the device. There are, however, .DAT files and one can export .DAT files from the drone itself. But these are encrypted and not recognised by any tool I know of. So my, relatively simple, question is really if it is at all possible to get a bit more information about the historic usage of this drone?

https://app.airdata.com/wiki/Help/DAT

Unfortunately airdata cannot process the .dat files that DJI assistant exports, nor the.dat files that are on the RC2 controller. Or, better put, it processes, but the results are gibberish. Phantomhelp (the offline tools) does not process the files at all.

SWITCH SYNCING OFF
Switch everything on and let it connect.
Using the CSC start the motors and let them idle for 10 to 20 sec.

Stop the motors  and switch everything off etc..

Have a look at the file or files in the folder FlightRecord/MCDatFlightRecord, their name will contain something along the lines of FLYxyz, where xyz is a number.
My records indicate that DJI have done a good thing and switched the hundreds character back on, i.e. I have a txt flight log that records the DAT number as ''105'', so it is likely that the number you will see is the true number of times the drone has been switched on.
THe number is NOT a count of the number of times the drone has been flown, as far as I know that information is not known unless the logs still exist on the controller.

Incidentally how did you search the screen the controller for logs?
I do not know if it will work but try using the computer WITHOUT using the Assistant 2 and run a search for ''DJIFlightRecord''.


Other than that, via the app have a look for the charge count on each battery, this is also recorded in the .txt flight log but in that log it is the count of the IN USE battery only.
If you are feeling generous you could upload the DAT to a file hosting web site, make its page public and post the URL here, I would like to see in the screen device DAT i.e. the one in MCDatFlightRecord is readable.

IF YOU SYNC THE SCREEN DEVICE DAT WILL BE DELETED.

Hello, there. Thank you for sharing your query with us. The .DAT files are Flight Controller Data also called flight controller log, or aircraft log, stored in the aircraft, usually when the aircraft has an accident or abnormal performance, the data is needed for DJI to analyze, and the data needs to be connected to the computer to export (via DA2 software). Please know that this file can only be accessed by DJI. Thank you for your understanding.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 1-6 15:39
SWITCH SYNCING OFF
Switch everything on and let it connect.
Using the CSC start the motors and let them idle for 10 to 20 sec.

Hi Sean,

I am a regular here and elsewhere, so I didn't sync anything, but the previous owner probably has - as there are no .txt files anymore. Could be a result of wipe or factory reset as well. The .DAT from the drone was obtained throurh DJI Assistant - a direct file connection to the drone (over USB) only shows the image/video storage. The .DAT files from the RC2 were obtained via direct transfer over USB.

An interesting thing was that there are many (10 or so) more log entries show via DJI Assistant (on the drone that is) than there were .DAT files on the RC2. Now I understand that these are independent and a logentry is generated for every time the drone is powered up. But some of the entries are covering quite a substantial period of time (over 10 minutes) so this puzzles me a bit.

I uploaded one .DAT obtained from the drone and two from the RC. You can find them at this link: https://we.tl/t-Vys5gSmsXj (available until Jan 14th) . You will also see that the FLYxxx number does not always augment - as the three RC files are all numbered 019...

If you find something useful, please let me know ;-)

DJI Gamora Posted at 1-6 23:42
Hello, there. Thank you for sharing your query with us. The .DAT files are Flight Controller Data also called flight controller log, or aircraft log, stored in the aircraft, usually when the aircraft has an accident or abnormal performance, the data is needed for DJI to analyze, and the data needs to be connected to the computer to export (via DA2 software). Please know that this file can only be accessed by DJI. Thank you for your understanding.

Dear Gamora,

Thanks for your reply. It is unfortunate that DJI keeps all the information so hidden. It would be helpful if at least some information could be extracted (like if there was a collision or some other malfunction).

It was a decision to encrypt these files, as those from previous models seem to be open to software with great and usable results.

Frank071 Posted at 1-7 06:35
Hi Sean,

I am a regular here and elsewhere, so I didn't sync anything, but the previous owner probably has - as there are no .txt files anymore. Could be a result of wipe or factory reset as well. The .DAT from the drone was obtained throurh DJI Assistant - a direct file connection to the drone (over USB) only shows the image/video storage. The .DAT files from the RC2 were obtained via direct transfer over USB.

"but the previous owner probably has - as there are no .txt files anymore. Could be a result of wipe or factory reset as well."
Syncing deletes ONLY the DATs from the screen device, be that screen device a samrt controller or a phone etc..
In fact, with regards to txt flight logs, syncing is more likely to re-create old txt flight logs, by downloading missing but previously synced logs from DJI.

If via "via direct transfer over USB"you found no logs belonging to the previous pilot then it is quite likely the ydeleted the old records or reset the controller, as you suggest.
Incidentally it would be worth checking that you can see your own logs via  "direct 'transfe'r over USB", just to ensure that you have been looking in the correct place.

"An interesting thing was that there are many (10 or so) more log entries show via DJI Assistant (on the drone that is) than there were .DAT files on the RC2."
That is quite normal, the DATs on the drone can only be copied or over written when the storage space runs out , that some of them are 10minutes etc long would beperfectly normal when someone is delving into settings etc .......or flying.

"You will also see that the FLYxxx number does not always augment - as the three RC files are all numbered 019..."
That you see multiple DATs from the screen device for the same drone switch on is not uncommon, it happens sometimes when the controller is disconnected from the drone and then reconnects,
I also find that I often get two screen device DATs for the same switch on and either they
a) differ greatly in size or
b) their hh-mm-ss time stamp differs by a few seconds or
c) one is in the 24h clock and the other is in the annoying 12h clock. The date / time separator for these two time stamp formats also differs, I think it is "_" for the 24h time stamp and "-" for the 12h time stamp.


If you switched the drone off between any of these DATs then that have have a common number is ...... odd.
Going to look at the logs now.

Frank071 Posted at 1-7 06:35
Hi Sean,

I am a regular here and elsewhere, so I didn't sync anything, but the previous owner probably has - as there are no .txt files anymore. Could be a result of wipe or factory reset as well. The .DAT from the drone was obtained throurh DJI Assistant - a direct file connection to the drone (over USB) only shows the image/video storage. The .DAT files from the RC2 were obtained via direct transfer over USB.

That's a pity just tried the three std csv and CsvView can not process them :-((((

Frank071 Posted at 1-7 06:38
Dear Gamora,

Thanks for your reply. It is unfortunate that DJI keeps all the information so hidden. It would be helpful if at least some information could be extracted (like if there was a collision or some other malfunction).

You're most welcome. Rest assured that your feedback will be taken into consideration. Please feel free to reach us if you have further concerns.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 1-7 15:27
That's a pity just tried the three std csv and CsvView can not process them :-((((

Thanks for trying. Upon further investigation I found damage to one of the propellers... As that obviously does not qualify as 'as new', the drone was sent back. No need for the logs in the end