Pix4D Capture crashes and fly away events

PIX4Dcapture PIX4Dcapture Questions/Troubleshooting
1

Hello all,
I experienced two Fly Away episodes while using pix4D Capture software at August 18th. Important to say: I don’t know if this problem is related to Pix4D software, DJI hardware, software or firmware or any other possibility. I’m posting here trying to find some answers. I’ll do the same at DJI forum.

I had planned three grid missions at 100m height, 880m x 560 meters with a Phantom 4, but, after two failures, I gave up flying. I will try to list here all strange behaviors that I could notice:

  • Pix4D Capture software crashed several times along the week and crashed sometimes that day;
  • It was hard to connect Ctrl+DJI with P4. I needed to turn on and turn off randomly battery, drone, control and Ctrl+ DJI to be able to get connection;
  • P4 mission was set to flight to 100m but it stopped to climb at 45m and started to fly in one straight direction (not compatible to grid map start point);
  • I changed control mode to A, S and P (several times) with no results;
  • I pressed return home point (also several times) with no results;
  • I completely lost the drone control.

Luckily P4 returned to home after battery depletion limit. No aerial pictures were taken.

I was using a Moto X 2014 mobile with latest Android (6.0) and firmware version available. I also was using most updated DJI GO, Crtl++DJI, Pix4D Capture, drone and control software and firmware.

I uploaded the log files and drone flight path (kml file - recovered from the log). 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxey2q-KAAPKSlVBVms2Q2FuRkE/view?usp=sharing

Fly away also happened yesterday with a friend, also here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. He lost his Phantom 4 Pro. He also experienced some of these strange behaviors.

Would you know why it is happening?

Thanks in advance,

2

Just a thought, DJI recommends doing a calibration before each flight in a new location. I almost always forget to do one myself, luckily, I have not experienced a fly-away. Knock on wood.

3

DJI absolutely does not reccomend doing a “calbiration” before each flight in a new location, granted this may have been true with the P2 and early P3 workflows

For the P4 series (as per the operations manual)
“Only calibrate the compass when the DJI Go 4 app or the status indicator prompts you to do so.”

4

Thanks, I failed to make an important distinction. I did not specify that I was talking about doing a “Compass Calibration” 

Sean, you are correct it does state that in the manual for doing a “Gimbal Calibration”

See the section called, “Calibrating the Compass” below

5

Adam,

My apologies I had assumed the P4 and P4P were the same but apparently not

6

I had two flyaways today, the second resulting in the complete loss of the quad (a DJI Mavic Pro).  Both occurred at the end of flying a pattern, where instead of returning to home and landing, the Mavic just held altitude but not position, and was taken downwind.  the first flyaway I was able to recover by cancelling the flight on the Pix4D app and pushing the return to home button on the mavic controller - resulting in a proper return to home and landing.  the second time, the pix4d app appeared to freeze, and the Mavic woundnt respond to any commands, drifted downrange and out of sight.  I was eventually able to reconnect to it using the DJI Go app, which let me see through the live view that the quad was hung up in a tree somewhere. The Go app reported the Mavic’s position, but the position reported was clearly incorrect, despite showing a GPS lock on 13 sats.  Because we were still connected to the Mavic, we were able to take still photos and download them.  these photos include geolocation data, which has allowed us to get a reasonable fix on where it might have ended up, but search had to be called off due to sunset - will be going out first thing tomorrow to keep looking.  Really wish the mavic had a lost drone alarm.  The original problem remains though - Pix4D resulted in unexplained flyaways, and loss of control.

if it is any help, the first flyaway mission is still in the app - the second, in which the Pix4D appeared to crash completely, is there but reporting that it has not been flown

7

I am sorry to hear about this experience. Please contact the Support team via the request form so they can follow up.

8

Went out next day, and with the geolocation data extracted from some of the still images, we managed to find the Mavic!

I’ve been able to extract a full .DAT log from the Mavic from the mission that failed - I’ll contact Support and see if they are interested in figuring out what went wrong.  I’ve since tried DJI’s GS Pro app, and it seems to work fine.