Mavic Pro disappears in other direction, no control

PIX4Dcapture PIX4Dcapture Questions/Troubleshooting
1

A question about control. Today I took our Mavic Pro drone out for a 3d grid pattern and a circular pattern. We use the drone for technical applications in the municipality of Ringebu, Norway.

Yesterday I took the drone out to the same place, no problems during flight. I checked the drone with DJI app, closed the DJI app and started PIX4D apps. No sweat.

Today however, I went straight to the CTRL+DJI app and from there to PIX4D Capture. Green lights on checklist and on the back of the drone (blinking green on Mavic Pro.)

Launched the drone some 10 meters out of the defined grid. Drone went up, flew to startpoint, overshot the starting point, adjusted itself, and then took off in another direction, to the forest hill side. That got the adrenalin pumping. Abort button didn’t work, RTH didn’t work. At some point the drone started hovering, and then I got control again and worked RTH again. Drone landed on starting point. Closed all applications started up anew, and flew a good grid mission.

Then I flew a circular mission on lower altitude. Drone took off to starting point and flew the mission. Not very steady, but it followed the pattern more or less. Just two or three pictures before the end of the mission, I switched from map to camera and back, and then the drone hovered in the air. Not sure whether this is a coincidence or not. Drone just hovered. Had control with joysticks, so landed the drone by hand. Letting go of the joysticks resulted in the drone taking off again.

Got my pictures allright, but an increased heartrate as well.

Now this is quite unfortunately. Her in Norway, we are often flying in confined / enclosed areas, a lot of forrested area, not much room for error. All the software /firmware is of the latest version. Why does a drone behave like this? Seen some YouTube videos with operators having the same problem, but no solution.

Why does this happen? Is it a certain sequence we have to follow on start up? Or on aborting a mission? I’m quite uncomfortabel using the software now. Any hints/tips/suggestions?

2

Hi @mvv,

We are sincerely sorry to hear about this bad experience. Pix4Dcapture is acting as a third-party application so when the drone flies away, we cannot give instructions that would override the safe behavior of the drone such as RTH, a different mode of the controller. Meaning that the Pix4Dcapture app can’t override the RTH common provided by the drone when you press it. So, make sure there is no connection lost between the drone and the remote controller while using the RTH option.

As the first step for any issue, I would suggest you go through all the basic checks and troubleshooting steps as it will solve most of the issues that can be encountered if properly followed.

You can have a look at our article on how to interrupt a mission when unexpected behavior occurs here.

Regards,