Hello,
Today I tried for the first time to use Pix4Dcapture iOS software.
During mapping mission, the drone suddenly changed its route and flew somewhere else.
I tried to take control of the drone but unfortunately it was too late and it was gone.
The last message I saw in Pix4Dcapture was something like “Drone is Hovering” but I didn’t see it so I couldn’t get close enough to get back control.
I would like to find my drone, but it is quite difficult to locate it with your software…
Can you help me to access the flight log or the last location of my drone?
Please help me to get it back
We are sincerely sorry to hear about this bad experience. Pix4Dcapture is acting as a third-party application and can not be responsible when the drone crashes/fly away as we cannot give instructions that would override the safe behavior of the drone. When the situation becomes out of control, it is coming from the drone itself.
Normally taking over manual control should prevent incidents from happening. Were you able to take over manual control by moving the remote controller joysticks, changing flight modes or by pressing the return-to-home (RTH) button? You can have a look at our article on how to interrupt a mission when unexpected behavior occurs here.
We would be able to find the last coordinates of your drone before the connection was lost. It may help you to find it back. You can send us the logs following this procedure.
I will be glad to help you find your drone. To get the latest GPS coordinates recorded, you can go through this procedure and send us the relevant file:
With a file manager, go in the Pix4D folder and open the project folder you were flying while the issue occurs. (ex: Project 3).
Open the mission folder (ex: Mission 1).
In this folder, you should find a file called Mission 1.gpx or flightLogs.csv.
Analyzing this file, we will be able to get the last GPS coordinates recorded by our application. As a side note, if the connection between the drone and remote controller was lost and the drone continued to fly, we will only be able to see the last coordinate when the connection was established.
Keep in mind that the last recorded position might not be the last position of the drone if the connection was interrupted at some point.
If it is the iOS device, can you connect your device to the iTunes and then extract the file from your Pix4Dcapture app.
If you don’t find your drone at the indicated coordinate, use another drone with PixCapture to take pictures as if you wanted to make a 3D map of the area. Then, look at the images one by one without making a map.
It happened to me that PixCapture crashes during my flights and usually the drone is able to continue its mission by itself because PixCapture uploads the parameters to the drone, making it autonomous.
I don’t know your drone model, but generally they all have a home return function that you can activate and that by pass PixCapture. Another by pass if your drone is a DJI: move the flight mode switch from “P” to “A” and then bring it back to “P”. But the best si to make sure that the “return to home”, “hovering” and “low battery” modes are activated in your flight controler. That way, your drone will have a plan B if PixCapture crashes.
I recently experienced a fly-away event while using Pix4DCapture with an Android tablet and a Phantom 4 Pro Drone. I loaded the flight plan but, once the drone reached altitude, it flew in the opposite direction. I attempted to pause the mission but the app froze, I used the RTH button but did not have a response, and I was unable to take manual control of the flight. After about 10 minutes, I received a live feed from the drone for about 2-3 seconds before the screen went black. Additionally, I could tell that the drone was hovering, but the distance reported continued to increase. It also provided an erroneous altitude reading (-20 m). After searching for several days, we have been unable to recover the drone. I have been looking through the flight logs, but it’s not clear to me where the trouble was or --more importantly-- if a lat/long was received when I last had contact. Which file (or files) should I look at? Is it possible that a location was recorded during the brief final signal that I received from the drone? Any troubleshooting advice is appreciated, thank you!
Also, does the “mission bounds center” line in the log file correspond to a location? It doesn’t make sense based on lat/long.
Good afternoon, I was making a flight plan with PIX4D and he just lost, could someone help me try to identify his last position? I am sending the log file. MISSION 2.zip (2.1 KB)
Has there been any determination made as to why the drones are flying off? Is it related to the software glitches in the parrot drones?
I posted in another thread but I too had the same thing happen, only at the end of my mission, where the drone hovered, asked if I wanted to take manual control or resume and by the time I looked back up it was gone.
The coordinates only recorded the drone to where I saw it last, so it was not helpful by any means.
Hello @jbrown as Kapil posted above “Pix4Dcapture is acting as a third-party application and can not be responsible when the drone crashes/fly away as we cannot give instructions that would override the safe behavior of the drone. When the situation becomes out of control, it is coming from the drone itself”
Today I tried for the first time to use Pix4Dcapture iOS software.
During mapping mission, the drone suddenly changed its route and flew somewhere else.
I tried to take control of the drone but unfortunately it was too late and it was gone.
I would like to find my drone, but it is quite difficult to locate it with your software…
Can you help me to access the flight log or the last location of my drone?
Please help me to get it back
here my log files Project 9.zip (63.3 KB)
Hello @geodron,
The last coordinate recorded is lat=“5.467141566195112” lon=“100.25952538855263”.
Keep in mind that the last recorded position might not be the last position of the drone if the connection was interrupted at some point.
Today I tried for the first time to use Pix4Dcapture iOS software.
During mapping mission, the drone suddenly changed its route and flew somewhere else.
I tried to take control of the drone but unfortunately it was too late and it was gone.
I would like to find my drone, but it is quite difficult to locate it with your software…
Can you help me to access the flight log or the last location of my drone?
Please help me to get it back
here my log files
Hello,
The file you have forwarded doesn’t contain all the information. Can you try the below steps to extract the logfile and forward it to us? Connect your device to iTunes >> Your device(1)> File Sharing(2) >> Pix4Dcapture(3)>>LogFile(4)>>Save(5).
Hello @fadelrustam14,
To get the latest GPS coordinates recorded, you can go through this procedure and send us the relevant file:
With a file manager, go in the Pix4D folder and open the project folder you were flying while the issue occurs. (ex: Project 3).
Open the mission folder (ex: Mission 1).
In this folder, you should find a file called Mission 1.gpx or flightLogs.csv.
Analyzing this file, we will be able to get the last GPS coordinates recorded by our application. As a side note, if the connection between the drone and remote controller was lost and the drone continued to fly, we will only be able to see the last coordinate when the connection was established.
Keep in mind that the last recorded position might not be the last position of the drone if the connection was interrupted at some point.
Thank you for sending the document. If you extract the .gpx folder and open the file in notepad, or another basic text editor, you can find the last coordinates at the bottom of the text.
In this case, the last coordinates that were communicated by the drone are: lat=“7.677755416777316” lon=“-72.72993265151818”. Please keep in mind that the last recorded position might not be the last position of the drone if the connection was interrupted at some point.
Best,
Dr. Ryan Hughes (He/Him) | Technical trainer and content creator
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