DJIGo4 app crashing

[Denver]

Hi Guys, ive searched this already but not found an answer. I’m new to the spark and have flown about 10 flights with no problems till today. While in midflight my iPhone 6 went to the start up screen and the remote controller light turned from green to red and I lost control of my spark. Fortunately it returned to home safely, it was only 100 feet up about 50 metres away. Why did the app crash? On my phone I ensure Bluetooth is off, all other apps are off. I was in the countryside so unlikely interference. I then found the Go4 app would only work for around a minute then revert to the start up screen. I uninstalled it, downloaded it and it still does the same thing. I also have the same app on my iPad and this seems to work fine. Now don’t trust my iPhone to fly the spark anymore. Ant ideas please. Sorry for the long post.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

How much free space on the phone? No other apps running in the background right?
Also, You didn't mention what version iOS you are using. I have noticed that on my wife's 6+ iOS 11 has slowed it down dramatically.

 

[Virtual1]

Hi Guys, ive searched this already but not found an answer. I’m new to the spark and have flown about 10 flights with no problems till today. While in midflight my iPhone 6 went to the start up screen and the remote controller light turned from green to red and I lost control of my spark.

That's got nothing to do with the phone if your controller went red. That was a loss of connectivity (or a reboot I suppose) of your controller. The Go4 app was exceptionally crashy for me today, for some reason it just kept quitting and I finally got tired of messing with it and flew the rest of my day with only the remote. (I was done with my video and camera anyway) I've seen the app quit when it loses connection with the remote, so that's not surprising to hear that your app crashed when your controller lost connection with your Spark. I wish DJI would work on the stability of the app though. (first with iOS, then get android up to snuff also) Fortunately it's not a catastrophic problem, your drone won't come crashing to the ground if the Go app crashes, but it should still be considered a priority.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

That's got nothing to do with the phone if your controller went red. That was a loss of connectivity (or a reboot I suppose) of your controller. The Go4 app was exceptionally crashy for me today, for some reason it just kept quitting and I finally got tired of messing with it and flew the rest of my day with only the remote. (I was done with my video and camera anyway) I've seen the app quit when it loses connection with the remote, so that's not surprising to hear that your app crashed when your controller lost connection with your Spark. I wish DJI would work on the stability of the app though. (first with iOS, then get android up to snuff also) Fortunately it's not a catastrophic problem, your drone won't come crashing to the ground if the Go app crashes, but it should still be considered a priority.

My comment was directed to this quote from the OP...
"While in midflight my iPhone 6 went to the start up screen"
That implies that the phone crashed and rebooted. Maybe I read it wrong?

 

[Virtual1]

My comment was directed to this quote from the OP...
"While in midflight my iPhone 6 went to the start up screen"
That implies that the phone crashed and rebooted. Maybe I read it wrong?

My bet is something went wrong with the connection between the Spark and the remote, or the remote crashed. (it's running software too, it can crash and reboot itself) The app has been unstable enough in my experience that anything weird that happens can cause the app to crash. The remote crashing, or spontaneously losing connection to the Spark, would be a good candidate for something that can trigger the app to crash.
(we know something happened with the remote, and at the same time the app crashed, and I think it's safer to assume that the app crashing didn't cause the red-light problem with the remote)

 

[Denver]

How much free space on the phone? No other apps running in the background right?
Also, You didn't mention what version iOS you are using. I have noticed that on my wife's 6+ iOS 11 has slowed it down dramatically.

Hi, I have used 9.2GB of 32GB. My iOS is version 11.2.
The fact it works okay on my iPad, wondering if it’s the phone itself. Trying to borrow a friends phone to try that and see what happens. If I switch the phone on in the house( not connected to drone or remote) and open the DJI app after around 30 secs or so it reverts to the start up screen. My iPad still has its app open and working.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Hi, I have used 9.2GB of 32GB. My iOS is version 11.2.
The fact it works okay on my iPad, wondering if it’s the phone itself. Trying to borrow a friends phone to try that and see what happens. If I switch the phone on in the house( not connected to drone or remote) and open the DJI app after around 30 secs or so it reverts to the start up screen. My iPad still has its app open and working.

That sounds like the phone has issues. I recommend you back up the phone if you haven't recently, and then to restore the phone as new. Then just load the go4 app and see what happens. If it works, restore the backup and try again.

 

[Millar]

This also happened to me today for the first time. I’m iOS iPhone 8, never any issues before. Apple released an update yesterday, so will try again today.

 

[swan7926]

I am having similar issues. I can take off and fly for about 30 seconds and then the Go4 app just closes by itself. I still have control with the RC, but the app just closes. It all started yesterday when i kept getting this annoying message about taking a safety quiz. I answered about 10 questions and it said i had "passed". After that is when app started closing on it's own. I deleted app. re-installed and now waiting until i get home tonight to see if that fixed it. Is anyone else having this issue?

 

[Virtual1]

My comment was directed to this quote from the OP...
"While in midflight my iPhone 6 went to the start up screen"
That implies that the phone crashed and rebooted. Maybe I read it wrong?

FYI on iOS if an application crashes it will return you to the home screen. If the phone crashes, it will reboot and will start out with the apple logo for awhile before taking you to the unlock screen followed by the home screen. When an app crashes, other apps continue to run. When the phone crashes and goes back to the home screen, there will be no apps running. (open apps don't auto relaunch on reboot)

So by that description, it was the app (and not the entire phone) that crashed.

 

[Denver]

Don’t know if it’s good or not that some others are having the app crash as well, I hoped it was just my phone so possible easy fix. If it’s the app then why is it suddenly happening to some of us. It could be a recent iPhone update. I have flown my spark today using my iPad with no problems at all but didn’t want to risk using my iPhone till I know the problem is fixed. Loved the view using the iPad but a bit big to lug around.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

FYI on iOS if an application crashes it will return you to the home screen. If the phone crashes, it will reboot and will start out with the apple logo for awhile before taking you to the unlock screen followed by the home screen. When an app crashes, other apps continue to run. When the phone crashes and goes back to the home screen, there will be no apps running. (open apps don't auto relaunch on reboot)

So by that description, it was the app (and not the entire phone) that crashed.

If he had said it returned to the home screen I would agree, he said startup so I took that to mean the Apple appeared and the entire phone restarted. No worries, just a misunderstanding. Also, if you reboot the phone, if there were apps running before the reboot, they will be running when it reboots. Try it.

@Denver it is probably good news (in a way), that others have the same issue. That means it is most likely not the phone and they will create a fix for it.

 

[DameEdnaBrown]

I believe you have to delete video cache. There have been a lot of problems reported with release 0.18

 

[Povl H. Pedersen]

My phone was unusable. Upgraded to 11.2. Deleted the App, installed the app again, and last session it worked.

Be aware, the IPhone 6 has only 1GB of RAM, so if the developers are not thinking about memory management that could be a problem. Turning the phone on/off in airplane mode with WiFi before a session might help. No cell connectivity might prevent background apps from being launched.

 

[Virtual1]

My phone was unusable. Upgraded to 11.2. Deleted the App, installed the app again, and last session it worked.

Be aware, the IPhone 6 has only 1GB of RAM, so if the developers are not thinking about memory management that could be a problem. Turning the phone on/off in airplane mode with WiFi before a session might help. No cell connectivity might prevent background apps from being launched.

Yeah 5S here, and I am betting rebooting the phone to free memory would have helped. I wish there was an easy way to tell what the memory situation is like or how long since the last reboot. Is there an app for that? (it's not jailbroken... if it was, I'd SSH in and get that information myself)

 

[Lewisman]

I just had a very scary flight, with the App crashing every 20-30 seconds. I was running it on my iPhone X via the remote controller. Total pain, as I was trying to get some work-related footage, and just gave-up in the end.

I haven’t had any crashing issues up until today. The app is even crashing without being connected to the controller or drone, as I’m just sat here in my office. I’ve just deleted the cache, and am restarting the phone ....

.... ok, app seems stable again now, albeit I haven’t been back outside and tried to fly, but the crashing has gone away when the app is just open on my phone sat here in my office.

So either the cleaning of cache, or the phone restart seems to have solved it (for now).

 

[swan7926]

I just had a very scary flight, with the App crashing every 20-30 seconds. I was running it on my iPhone via the remote controller. Total pain, as I was trying to get some work-related footage, and just gave-up in the end.

I haven’t had any crashing issues up until today. The app is even crashing without being connected to the controller or drone, as I’m just sat here in my office. I’ve just deleted the cache, and am restarting the phone ....

.... ok, app seems stable again now, albeit I haven’t been back outside any tried to fly, but the crashing has gone away when the app is just open on my phone sat here in my office.

So either the cleaning of cache, or the phone restart seems to have solved it (for now).

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I deleted the app and reinstalled. Now everything is fine.

 

[Virtual1]

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I deleted the app and reinstalled. Now everything is fine.

That might be clearing the cache data when you uninstall. If that happens again you might try clearing the local cache first and see if that helps. Would be faster/easier than a reinstall.

 

[pmshop]

Has nothing to do with clearing the cache or any user controlled option.

DJI has acknowledged a problem with the app.

From DJI: Thank you for providing the information that we needed.

We already raised this issue with our software engineers os they can help us determine the issue with the app. While we are looking for the solution to this problem, you can temporarily try to use an Android mobile device to see if the app crash will not persist when using other devices.
End of line...

For me, everything was working perfectly until Dec 1 on my iPhone 7 with iOS 11.1.3 app version 1.1.18.
Then I could not upload my flight logs for a while.
App started to crash stitching panos and a while after that, randomly crashing.

Downloaded and behaved well on the 2nd but started having issues on the 3rd.
And before someone says "odd days", the issue continued on the 4th.

During this time, I uninstalled the app, rebooted and reinstalled a couple of times.
Did not solve it.

I also backed up the phone to the cloud, erased the phone and restored from the cloud backup.
That gave me a clean install by auto installing the app.
Did not solve it.

Also during this time, iOS 11.2 was released.
Did not solve the issue.

Had bad weather today.
I will try again tomorrow.

 

[pmshop]

I just had a very scary flight, with the App crashing every 20-30 seconds. I was running it on my iPhone X via the remote controller. Total pain, as I was trying to get some work-related footage, and just gave-up in the end.

I haven’t had any crashing issues up until today. The app is even crashing without being connected to the controller or drone, as I’m just sat here in my office. I’ve just deleted the cache, and am restarting the phone ....

.... ok, app seems stable again now, albeit I haven’t been back outside and tried to fly, but the crashing has gone away when the app is just open on my phone sat here in my office.

So either the cleaning of cache, or the phone restart seems to have solved it (for now).

Iphone X has the worst reports using app 1.1.18