Yesterday when I was flying, I received the low battery warning and began to fly my Mavic back towards where I was standing. All of a sudden the drone stopped moving at normal speed and almost froze in place. I held down on the controller to descend but it would hardly even move. Maybe 1 foot every 2 seconds. At this point i was 200' in the air and had 2 minutes left on the battery. When it reached critical battery level, it began initiating its own landing sequence and I could not cancel it or take control. With 30 seconds left on the battery I was still 100' in the air and stood underneath the drone expecting to have to catch it out of the air. Pressing down on the controllers would not make it descend any faster. By the time the battery ran completely out of time it was still 50' in the air. I held down on the controller as hard as I could but it was still descending at a snails pace. The controller was flashing 00:00 and beeping at me like crazy - eventually I made it down to head height, reached up and grabbed it out of the air.

This is extremely worrying, that the Mavic would all of a sudden stop responding. Things I checked/tried throughout the process - sport mode on and off, no difference. Checked if it was in any special flight mode (ActiveTrack, Tripod, etc), it was not, just regular GPS mode. Has anyone experienced anything like this?

Not sure why it went that slow, but if you add other movments like forward or backward during descent the drone should depend faster and smoother. It's very rough on the craft to descend straight down which is why it's a slower process that ascending.

trance728- Posted at 2016-12-12 03:23
Not sure why it went that slow, but if you add other movments like forward or backward during descent the drone should depend faster and smoother. It's very rough on the craft to descend straight down which is why it's a slower process that ascending.

Tried that as well, forward, back, left right - nothing worked. Just took it out today and it was descending about 7-8 feet a second pulling straight down on the controller. Yesterday it was 1/2 a foot a second. Something went VERY wrong.

andremercier Posted at 2016-12-11 14:25
Tried that as well, forward, back, left right - nothing worked. Just took it out today and it was descending about 7-8 feet a second pulling straight down on the controller. Yesterday it was 1/2 a foot a second. Something went VERY wrong.

Try looking at the flight logs, might be an answer in there.

Sounds like it went into low battery RTH mode, it takes over control and is slow and steady.. Possibly if you pressed the 'pause' button you may have regained control?

Hindsight is a good thing, but it might have helped if you disabled the VPS downward facing system ... it sounds almost like it was doing a slow landing procedure, falsely detecting the ground even though still high up.

Just a thought  incase it happens again. Cameras and sensors look clear and free from dust etc?

Danny-B- Posted at 2016-12-12 07:25
Hindsight is a good thing, but it might have helped if you disabled the VPS downward facing system ... it sounds almost like it was doing a slow landing procedure, falsely detecting the ground even though still high up.

Just a thought  incase it happens again. Cameras and sensors look clear and free from dust etc?

That might've been it. Said it was detecting obstacles at 200' up.

Have you tried to do the VPS calibration?

DJI Mindy Posted at 2016-12-12 17:29
Have you tried to do the VPS calibration?

No but I will try that tonight and see what happens. Thanks!

andremercier Posted at 2016-12-13 04:42
No but I will try that tonight and see what happens. Thanks!

Thanks, please keep us posted.

The VPS calibration. Hummmmmm! That caused me nothing but a headache today, in the end I had to refresh the firmware. Now - not all the times, just some time MY craft will descend very slowly - with full battery. I checked it today after the new firmware sent the craft mad. After the refresh - checked it - all okay - now its very occasionally on landing - landing very, very slowly. Moreover its not just landing slowly but it continues to descend even without me pressing anything, hands off the controller. This never happened before and has only happened SINCE the new firmware was rolled out! I have spent a lot of money on DJI products and I really don't want my Mavic coming down onto someones car, house, or God know's where. I don't even feel safe anymore taking images from above and lowering the craft down to get in close in the event it starts to think its landing. The RC was stating to me 'landing' yet this is wrong. I had full battery, I only pressed down to come down every now and then. DJI tech support aren't helpful neither! {:4_142:}

Try turning off landing protection it the "vps"settings in dji go 4. Let me know how u make out. I know this setting can trigger things like that especially in light fog or if vps thinks there is an obstacle. Also with this setting off u can actually land it without it stopping 2 ft off ground then slowly descending...u can actually control your landing at your own pace also hand catching is super easy with this setting off. It will not fight u. It will shut down immediately

Hello, i am having the same problem with my Mavic Pro. Did u manage fix the problem? Can you help me?
Tks

Eron

something might be hindering the sensors on the bottom...this happened to me when i strapped up a gopro to the bottom of my drone

So I've had the exact same thing happen to me twice now.
This evening the my Mavic air 2 would not decend below 30 meters.
I tried everything to bring it down but nothing would work, sports mode to turn off obstacle avoidance, flying it to another area, brings it down while moving forward but nothing was working.
Not even the rth was letting the drone decend.
I was pushing down on the left stick to decend but the mavic just started rotating, no descending at all showed on the screen.
Inside the last minute of battery life I changed the the controller stick mode from mode 2 to mode 1 and finally it let me decend.

I had literally only fully recalibrated the drone as the drone as the drone would not hover in the same spot  it just kept on drift.

This is pretty f**king awful to see from a €1000 drone.

The first time the drone would not decend for me it was maybe 3 meters off the ground and refused to land. It ran out of battery 30 cm above the ground
This is bull ....

djiuser_7fSQoVN31afS Posted at 12-8 13:20
So I've had the exact same thing happen to me twice now.
This evening the my Mavic air 2 would not decend below 30 meters.
I tried everything to bring it down but nothing would work, sports mode to turn off obstacle avoidance, flying it to another area, brings it down while moving forward but nothing was working.

There's usually a simple cause for things like that and when you find the cause, it's easy to remedy.
If you want to find the cause of your incident, you'll need to post the recorded flight data.

Go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
It has instructions to find the .txt file from your phone or tablet which you can upload to that site
Upload it and it gives you a summary of the flight data.
Post a link to that summary.

Or just post the .txt file

djiuser_7fSQoVN31afS Posted at 12-8 13:20
So I've had the exact same thing happen to me twice now.
This evening the my Mavic air 2 would not decend below 30 meters.
I tried everything to bring it down but nothing would work, sports mode to turn off obstacle avoidance, flying it to another area, brings it down while moving forward but nothing was working.

Hi,

as said in post #16, upload your flightlog.

But reading your issue,  pushing dows > start to rotate....mode 1 > it did descend.
Must be a faulty RC.

See if you can simulate stick inputs in the calibration mode.

cheers
JJB

I had the same problem with my mini 2.
I checked the flight log, and there is 0 downward stick input while i was holding the stich down. It was comming down verry verry slow. Looked like the controller needs soms kind of reset