Disconnected mid-flight - anyone else had this happen?

deejaygee2023 · Mar 12, 2015

I've checked the list of known issues and my issue doesn't seem to be one so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has experienced it.

On my second flight of my new I1, about 4 mins into the flight, it was 70 metres away and 20 metres above water. I saw the red "Disconnected" status come up on the app and I had no control. Has anyone else been disconnected mid flight and how long did it last for?

The Editor · Mar 13, 2015

No never.... how were your antennas orientated on you remote?

sirnikolas · Mar 13, 2015

Did you regain control?

crashburn · Mar 13, 2015

deejaygee2023 said:
I've checked the list of known issues and my issue doesn't seem to be one so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has experienced it.

On my second flight of my new I1, about 4 mins into the flight, it was 70 metres away and 20 metres above water. I saw the red "Disconnected" status come up on the app and I had no control. Has anyone else been disconnected mid flight and how long did it last for?

Once, I was expermenting with custom image transmission settings, everything was working well, strong signals etc, then all of a sudden I got the red disconnect message, app crashed, I dusconnected cable and rebooted. By the time the app was up again, return to home had activated. Now, I just use auto. Still cleaning my pants from that one.

Enjoy life and be nice

Mactab · Mar 13, 2015

This is happening to me on every flight. The app disconnects for approx 10secs 3 or 4 times in the 10 minutes or so I am flying. Still have control though but very disconcerting. I thought it was a firmware issue and would be solved with the update but after updating it is still happening. Antennas are correctly positioned, though surely the positioning of them can not be that sensitive ..... can they?
I would like to find the cause of the drop out. I'm using an Ipad air and video transmission is smooth as silk.

deejaygee2023 · Mar 13, 2015

No I didn't regain control and had a fly away with complete loss.

The damaging thing for me though was that the flight record says I descended it into the water at full speed from 21metres above. I didn't, I'm an experienced Phantom flyer so why would I do that? It says I pulled the left stick hard down for a full 5 seconds. Ever thought of doing this when flying at a low level over water. No? Me either. And I saw it fly away out to sea as I tried to regain control. Very strange and a bit like crashburn, I've had to buy a new set of trousers and beg for mercy at the wife's budget interrogation.

In discussions with DJI for the last 2 weeks but looks like we'll agree a satisfactory solution for me.....

The Editor · Mar 13, 2015

deejaygee2023 said:
No I didn't regain control and had a fly away with complete loss.

The damaging thing for me though was that the flight record says I descended it into the water at full speed from 21metres above. I didn't, I'm an experienced Phantom flyer so why would I do that? It says I pulled the left stick hard down for a full 5 seconds. Ever thought of doing this when flying at a low level over water. No? Me either. And I saw it fly away out to sea as I tried to regain control. Very strange and a bit like crashburn, I've had to buy a new set of trousers and beg for mercy at the wife's budget interrogation.

In discussions with DJI for the last 2 weeks but looks like we'll agree a satisfactory solution for me.....

If you had disconnected show on the app the presumably the Inspire went into failsafe RTH....... Was your home point not set to where you took off from or if dynamic then it would be your TX location.....i.e..You!

deejaygee2023 · Mar 15, 2015

The antennas were pointed up and parallel to each other. I'm not positive I set the home point before I took off but I had just finished another flight from the same spot, changed the battery and took off again. It didn't go into RTH which of course caused all the problems....

James Munro · Mar 15, 2015

I've had this happen to me on 2 of the 3 flight I've had. Each time the fix I used was to double click the home button and kill the DJI Pilot App then relaunch.
30 seconds or so and everything was back to normal.
I posted about this on a Facebook group and someone said this is an iOS bug and should only last about 10 seconds and it fixes itself but you still have remote control.
I haven't tested that but find it odd that I couldn't find any reference to this being a well known bug in the forums. A few references to it but no real answers.
I'm running on an iPad Air but find it too big so will see if the same disconnected thing happens when I fly with my iPhone 6.

deejaygee2023 · Mar 15, 2015

Thanks James, I had read about the 10 secs thing somewhere but it doesn't seem to be that common which is strange if it's an IOS problem. I'm using an iPad Air as well. I think there were other things that were going on as well when I had my incident so I'm not prepared to say the disconnect totally caused my fly away.

Volcom09 · Mar 15, 2015

This happen to me once with my iPad air 2. It was only my second flight and the inspire 1 already had the latest firmware when I recieved it. I was filming it on 4k and the app went off. I had to quickly kill the Dji Pilot app and relaunched it again. Lucky it didn't fly away. On the video footage when I played it the inspire 1 just hovered in the air and then slowly started flying back towards me. I managed to get it going and flew it back. Other than that one incident I've never had anymore. I've since updated the firmware to the newest one and it's been all good.

sirnikolas · Mar 16, 2015

James Munro said:
I've had this happen to me on 2 of the 3 flight I've had. Each time the fix I used was to double click the home button and kill the DJI Pilot App then relaunch.
30 seconds or so and everything was back to normal.
I posted about this on a Facebook group and someone said this is an iOS bug and should only last about 10 seconds and it fixes itself but you still have remote control.
I haven't tested that but find it odd that I couldn't find any reference to this being a well known bug in the forums. A few references to it but no real answers.
I'm running on an iPad Air but find it too big so will see if the same disconnected thing happens when I fly with my iPhone 6.

G'day James, that was me who responded to you on Facebook. I explained the same issue to Dji 24/7 and that was their response.

James Munro · Mar 16, 2015

sirnikolas said:
G'day James, that was me who responded to you on Facebook. I explained the same issue to Dji 24/7 and that was their response.

Hi SirNikolas, It's good to know they're aware of the issue, have you tested the 10 second recovery? If it happens when I fly next I'll resist the urge to kill the app to recover and try to wait 10 seconds to see if it comes back.
Hopefully the other promised App features (POI & GroundStation) aren't too far off either.

sirnikolas · Mar 16, 2015

James Munro said:
Hi SirNikolas, It's good to know they're aware of the issue, have you tested the 10 second recovery? If it happens when I fly next I'll resist the urge to kill the app to recover and try to wait 10 seconds to see if it comes back.
Hopefully the other promised App features (POI & GroundStation) aren't too far off either.

I've had it happen to me twice in 21 flights. The first time it happened the I1 was 3 meters away from me and I was in the centre of a cricket ground. Believe it or not I didn't panic and I just continued to fly it just to see what would happen and I also had my finger hovering over the flight mode to flick on atti as I was flying gps at the time. Not even 10 seconds later the app reconnected and all was good but I did notice that the camera was no longer recording. So I started recording again and all was well. Later that day I jumped online and spoke with Dji. A few days later I went for another fly and a few minutes in the app disconnected once again and again I continued flying and not 10 seconds later the app reconnected and all was ok.
I'm tipping the next firmware update and app update will be the mother of all updates.

James Munro · Mar 16, 2015

That's interesting, I actually noticed that my Inspire was still recording when I relaunched the App both times.

sirnikolas · Mar 16, 2015

I'm waiting for the next FW with open arms.

sheridan williams · Mar 16, 2015

This also happens to me pretty often, and it started happening since the last firmware update, whenever it happens I jus unplug the sync cord fom the remote & replug it and it goes back to normal, it's still very very scary though because it always happens when the inspire is far away. I don't know what they fixed in the last firmware but it seems am having more problems since the update am also getting DATA ERRORS pretty often and the huge one COMPASS ERROR, so please DJI, hurry with the new update we would like to enjoy our 3 grand!!!!!!

Mytchak · Mar 16, 2015

It happened to my 14 year old son yesterday. He was LOS and about 200 feet out. I was on the flight line chatting with people and noticed he was coming in for a landing after flying for only 5 minutes or so. I walked over to him and asked why he was coming back so early and his reply was "The display reported disconnected. I was not comfortable so I brought flew it back and landed it but the display is working again".

First thought? THATS MY BOY!!!!

So we looked at the sensors and everything looked healthy.

At the second go around, the iPhone locked up during flight. He had full control of aircraft and brought it back in for a landing.
This second time, I had to reboot the iPhone.

I will open a ticket with DJI but thankfully, he was not depending on the video feed as flying LOS.

Harry Nicholson · Mar 16, 2015

The Editor said:
No never.... how were your antennas orientated on you remote?

What orientation is best for these?
I didn't think it would make much difference unless pointed away from Inspire 1 line of sight?

The Editor · Mar 16, 2015

Harry Nicholson said:
What orientation is best for these?
I didn't think it would make much difference unless pointed away from Inspire 1 line of sight?

It makes quite a bit of difference since the o/p from the TX is limited (by law) at 20dBW/100mW EIRP at 2.4gHz, it's pretty much line of sight only at these sort of wavelengths. Since RF from a simple dipole is radiated in the plane it is orientated in it's best to have the antennas straight up like rabbit ears - this will give you the best range and reliable link.