Help! Almost lost it in ATTI mode!

[Rick Morton]

I was flying this morning in the hills. Nothing around. No problems. Using the remote connected with OTG cable. Had 13 GPS signals. The Spark was about 100 ft up and 100 ft out when all of a sudden I get some kind of GPS disconnect notice and then the voice saying something about ATTI mode and the ATTI sign on the screen. The Spark took off like a bat out of hell in what seemed to be the Sport mode. I lost sight almost immediately and figured it was not going to end well. I looked at the map and turned it to head to the home point, I was hoping, but not sure. I could hear the Spark... finally saw it up quite high. Then GPS came back and I flew it home. WTF? I have no idea what happened. What should I have done? Anything different? I assumed the compass still worked so pointing the arrow home seemed the right thing to do. Any thoughts? This was very scary. I was sure it was gone in the hills forever.

 

[DesertWindAero]

OTG doesn't seem to be too stable a lot of the time.

 

[Rick Morton]

The OTG cable should have no bearing on this at all! It's simply connecting the phone to the remote for video receive. Why would the OTG cause flyaway?

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

The OTG cable shouldn't have been an issue. When you lose satellites it will go into ATTI mode automatically, It is weird that it returned home with no satellites though as this shouldn't be possible. @msinger has a good flight log analyzer you may want to give that a shot.

 

[Dronason]

DJI Flight Log Viewer
You can upload your flight record from Go4 app and check for error messages.
There are 2 possibilities, either you had a compass error or you really get a low number of GPS satellites.

 

[J-4ce]

I was flying this morning in the hills. Nothing around. No problems. Using the remote connected with OTG cable. Had 13 GPS signals. The Spark was about 100 ft up and 100 ft out when all of a sudden I get some kind of GPS disconnect notice and then the voice saying something about ATTI mode and the ATTI sign on the screen. The Spark took off like a bat out of hell in what seemed to be the Sport mode. I lost sight almost immediately and figured it was not going to end well. I looked at the map and turned it to head to the home point, I was hoping, but not sure. I could hear the Spark... finally saw it up quite high. Then GPS came back and I flew it home. WTF? I have no idea what happened. What should I have done? Anything different? I assumed the compass still worked so pointing the arrow home seemed the right thing to do. Any thoughts? This was very scary. I was sure it was gone in the hills forever.

I had a very similar situation the other day. On the ground everything was fine and after takeoff the drone flew for about 2 minutes without problems. I started noticing that even though I aim to fly straight, the drone drifts a little sideways. After about 30 seconds from that point I was notified of magnetic interference and all GPS signal was lost. The drone started flying by itself and it was frightening. Luckily I was in an open area and after a minute it regained satellites and stopped flying. I could them safely land it. I gave the drone in to be checked.

 

[Rick Morton]

I had a very similar situation the other day. On the ground everything was fine and after takeoff the drone flew for about 2 minutes without problems. I started noticing that even though I aim to fly straight, the drone drifts a little sideways. After about 30 seconds from that point I was notified of magnetic interference and all GPS signal was lost. The drone started flying by itself and it was frightening. Luckily I was in an open area and after a minute it regained satellites and stopped flying. I could them safely land it. I gave the drone in to be checked.

Same here. I'm not sure if it was drifting or not... but thinking about it, it might have been. Then WOMP and it was off and running at sport speed. I DID get the satellites back after about 30 seconds so managed to get it home. But why? That's the question. I was in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Rick Morton]

DJI Flight Log Viewer
You can upload your flight record from Go4 app and check for error messages.
There are 2 possibilities, either you had a compass error or you really get a low number of GPS satellites.

Not sure how to do that. Will have to look it up.

 

[J-4ce]

Same here. I'm not sure if it was drifting or not... but thinking about it, it might have been. Then WOMP and it was off and running at sport speed. I DID get the satellites back after about 30 seconds so managed to get it home. But why? That's the question. I was in the middle of nowhere.

Exactly my question as well. The idea of an uncontrollable drone frightens me. I am going to send the log file in to DJI through the desktop software though.

 

[Rick Morton]

How do I do that? Don't know about the log file. ??

 

[J-4ce]

How do I do that? Don't know about the log file. ??

Install DJI Assistant 2 for your PC, plug your drone in and you should get a few options. Can't exactly check now as my drone is in for checks, but it allows you to transfer the recent flight logs from your drone to your PC and save it as a .dat file which DJI can inspect.

 

[AndrewA]

I got the same situation, here is my log analyses.

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[Rick Morton]

Install DJI Assistant 2 for your PC, plug your drone in and you should get a few options. Can't exactly check now as my drone is in for checks, but it allows you to transfer the recent flight logs from your drone to your PC and save it as a .dat file which DJI can inspect.

I found the playback flight on the Go4 app and see the flight pattern and the "Lost GPS" notice. Not sure how to get this data out. Is this the log file?

 

[J-4ce]

I found the playback flight on the Go4 app and see the flight pattern and the "Lost GPS" notice. Not sure how to get this data out. Is this the log file?

Make a copy of the MISC folder on the micro SD card, although as I mentioned I think you still need to install the PC software. Just google "DJI Spark Assistant 2 download". Download and install it and as I mentioned, connect your Spark to your computer and open the software. You should see an option there to save the log files.

 

[J-4ce]

I received feedback from the DJI authorized repair centre today and they told me that the issue may have been caused by a solar flare.

Sent from my Galaxy A5

 

[Rick Morton]

I received feedback from the DJI authorized repair centre today and they told me that the issue may have been caused by a solar flare.

Sent from my Galaxy A5

Hmmmm... that's almost like saying it could have been bird poop. Sounds pretty far-fetched tom me. A solar flare? I spoke with tech support this morning who said that since I didn't LOSE the drone, I don't need to send the log file. ?? He said I lost GPS. I said I KNOW I lost GPS. My question is WHY, in the middle of a flight, did this happen. He said there might have been a tree in between me and the drone. ??? Really? NO. Then he said it might have been I hit a no-fly zone. But I had been flying in the same area for 30 minutes before this. Basically, no help at all. Frustrating.

 

[WayneMHK]

Hmmmm... that's almost like saying it could have been bird poop. Sounds pretty far-fetched tom me. A solar flare?

It may very well be BS, but according to spaceweatherlive.com the 6 strongest solar flares of the year have occurred in the last 10 days, and a couple Kp indexes were up onto the 7-9 range. Just sayin'. Never hurts to check the Kp index in the UAV Forecast App. I've always felt the Spark's guidance systems were a little on the weak side, so who knows what it takes to interfere with them. A high Kp isn't completely unrealistic.

 

[Dronason]

How do I do that? Don't know about the log file. ??

There are 2 type of flight log/record.

• The Flight log generated by the Go4 app, but it contan only a minimum and only what the RC can see.
• The Flight record which is stored inside the Spark (not on the uSD card), here there are all details.

You can upload the flight log from your app here DJI Flight Log Viewer and also post the link to the forum to help other understanding the context. It gives an overview of the flight.

The best is usually to retrieve the .DAT flight record of the Spark as explained HERE. You can upload it to something like dropbox and post a link here if you need support from the forum.
There is limited space for these flight records in the Spark, older are deleted to have space for new, so retrieval should be done as early as possible.
You can also do it yourself from the DAT file and plot flight parameters using the CsvView tools available HERE.
This is what has used @AndrewA in his youtube video.

 

[Blue Baron]

A high Kp index may have caused the loss of satellites, esp. as there have been only 13 to begin with.

However, the flight behaviour of the Spark in Atti mode seems to be the real culprit here. It should be no problem for a DJI drone to auto-calibrate in P mode and remain more or less hovering in Atti mode. Drifting with the wind but no more. A phantom can be flewn in Atti mode with no problem.

Spark /Atti needs to be watched.

 

[sebip]

I had a very similar situation the other day. On the ground everything was fine and after takeoff the drone flew for about 2 minutes without problems. I started noticing that even though I aim to fly straight, the drone drifts a little sideways. After about 30 seconds from that point I was notified of magnetic interference and all GPS signal was lost. The drone started flying by itself and it was frightening. Luckily I was in an open area and after a minute it regained satellites and stopped flying. I could them safely land it. I gave the drone in to be checked.

Same problem yesterday. After 5 minutes of flight (not in sport mode) compass error , magnetic interference , gps signal lost and drifting for 20 secundes. Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones . I have extracted csv from dat also FLY057.csv . Kp index was ok , checked with uav forecast.