Active track issues - can't drag box

GirlOutdoors · Apr 1, 2016

I've just got a P4, my first phantom. I've read a lot of info and watched a lot of tutorials and had a good first few flights.

Today though when I went to try active track I had an issue. When I tap on the screen to drag the square over people, the tap just changes the camera's position. I then tried tap to fly, and again tapping just served to move the gimbal.

I'm pretty sure I've just changed some setting by mistake, but I can't figure out what it is. Any clues would be gratefully received!

msinger · Apr 1, 2016

Are you doing everything shown here?

GirlOutdoors · Apr 1, 2016

Thanks, but I'm trying all of that. Just I get a blue circle and the camera moves rather than any green boxes. The first time I tried it I got green boxes, go buttons, warnings if what I was trying to track was too small etc. I think it also offered a tutorial which I declined, but now it just doesn't work - it appears to go into the mode but then doesn't act like it's in it.

Karthikdoc · Apr 1, 2016

Active track is a useless function tried by dji to promote p4. The technology is in its infancy..

GirlOutdoors · Apr 1, 2016

I don't think it's useless, I got some decent results yesterday... just not today! Anyway regardless of whether it's useful, I feel like I want to understand why I can't use it anymore.

GirlOutdoors · Apr 1, 2016

I'm starting to wonder whether I was actually too low for active track... will give it another go later

Fitcherama · Apr 1, 2016

You've definitely flicked into a different setting - I did the same today but can't remember how I came out of it. I find the active tracking a really good function and on test today it worked perfectly.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

TN22 · Apr 1, 2016

Warning when in active track my P4 was doing just perfectly then it just took off like a bat out of hell and crashed into a building. I did not touch or change anything. ... so ... I won't try that mode again until litchi updates and is usable

Ibmftw · Apr 1, 2016

GirlOutdoors said:
I'm starting to wonder whether I was actually too low for active track... will give it another go later

There is a minimal height limit but it should have gave you a warning stating so.
Something else could have been throwing it off like one of the sensors thinking it was close to something. Try starting active track in a nice open space for fault finding, make sure you have a good gps lock and the phantom is in "p" mode and is of +10M altitude, make sure there is enough ambient light and lastly make sure you are selecting "active track" and not "go to" or "follow me". If after all them perimeters are checked and you have failure then there is something wrong.

I personally do not think active track is a gimmick at all I think it is a great feature, sure, "follow me" via gps (wristband etc) is nothing new, but there are many situations where active track will be a great feature, for example, if I am in wild cat territory and I want the uac to track a lion, have you ever tried getting a lion to wear a wristband? Like this I can concentrate on what's going on around me or do a few other things without having to have 100% concentration on the control whilst still confident I am still going to get some great footage. Just an example, I can already think of many more.

Techcop50 · Apr 1, 2016

TN22 said:
Warning when in active track my P4 was doing just perfectly then it just took off like a bat out of hell and crashed into a building. I did not touch or change anything. ... so ... I won't try that mode again until litchi updates and is usable

So that happened in the DJI Go app or the Litchi app?

Jussaguy · Apr 1, 2016

It's not useless and I use tracking software daily and it is actually amazingly well working for a v1 piece of software because other than the camera catching it, the track is ALL software.

It sounds to me that you are either too close or too far. Look at the manual, if memory serves, one of those colors tells you. You can move around once it figures out what you want to track you can move around but you need to be at the right distance in order to track it. It uses luminance (this tracker) and possibly saturation to figure out what your object is so you need a full shot that is fairly close but not too close. Maybe 15-20 feet off the cuff to start off.

If it still doesn't work, delete the DJI go app completely from your station (phone or tab) and reinstall it. As I said, it's completely software so the tracking issue (unless your camera is flat out not working) is either a software corruption (doubt it) of that you are not at the right distance to set the first track. Personally I would be careful messing around with tracking until I was more comfortable than you are but again to summarize:

Not possible that it's a hardware issue because it's tracking on the software. Also if you are using a crappy station, you'll have a problem. You need a phone or tab with enough power to track which is pretty amazing that we can track on our phones now. 15 years ago to get ago or so, you needed a $10,000 system designed for tracking like a Smoke or Inferno and now we do it on our phones with our flying cameras!

Best of luck!

sar104 · Apr 1, 2016

Jussaguy said:
It's not useless and I use tracking software daily and it is actually amazingly well working for a v1 piece of software because other than the camera catching it, the track is ALL software.

It sounds to me that you are either too close or too far. Look at the manual, if memory serves, one of those colors tells you. You can move around once it figures out what you want to track you can move around but you need to be at the right distance in order to track it. It uses luminance (this tracker) and possibly saturation to figure out what your object is so you need a full shot that is fairly close but not too close. Maybe 15-20 feet off the cuff to start off.

If it still doesn't work, delete the DJI go app completely from your station (phone or tab) and reinstall it. As I said, it's completely software so the tracking issue (unless your camera is flat out not working) is either a software corruption (doubt it) of that you are not at the right distance to set the first track. Personally I would be careful messing around with tracking until I was more comfortable than you are but again to summarize:

Not possible that it's a hardware issue because it's tracking on the software. Also if you are using a crappy station, you'll have a problem. You need a phone or tab with enough power to track which is pretty amazing that we can track on our phones now. 15 years ago to get ago or so, you needed a $10,000 system designed for tracking like a Smoke or Inferno and now we do it on our phones with our flying cameras!

Best of luck!

I was under the impression that the optical processing chip and tracking software were on the aircraft, not the tablet or phone.

Paul Nicolai · Jul 16, 2016

Were you able to find out what was wrong? I am having the same problems you are describing.

Croatian drone · Jul 16, 2016

Karthikdoc said:
Active track is a useless function tried by dji to promote p4. The technology is in its infancy..

Wrong, so wrong....
It is amazing technology!
You only have to know how to use it.

Croatian drone · Jul 16, 2016

GirlOutdoors said:
I've just got a P4, my first phantom. I've read a lot of info and watched a lot of tutorials and had a good first few flights.

Today though when I went to try active track I had an issue. When I tap on the screen to drag the square over people, the tap just changes the camera's position. I then tried tap to fly, and again tapping just served to move the gimbal.

I'm pretty sure I've just changed some setting by mistake, but I can't figure out what it is. Any clues would be gratefully received!

Try to set gimbal mode to "follow", not to "fpv"...
It might help

Paul Nicolai · Jul 16, 2016

I was able to fix it by reinstalling the DJI go app.

Todd Meidinger · Jul 16, 2016

Karthikdoc said:
Active track is a useless function tried by dji to promote p4. The technology is in its infancy..

I totally disagree that it is "useless". That's a bit harsh.

Disclaimer: I have only owned my P4 for two weeks now and don't have a lot of stick time yet because we have been getting a lot of rain and storms for the past week.

I tried out the active track feature for the first time on Friday so I have very limited exposure to it but I was mildly impressed. I tracked myself as well as my kids as we ran all over a parking lot and the P4 never lost track once. I am sure if I was out to intentionally try to outsmart it I could have done so but this was just my first go at it and I was mildly impressed how well it did in this relatively basic trial.

bdooley · Aug 4, 2018

Girloutdoors,

The blue circle you mentioned earlier sounds like the blue circle you get when you long press on the screen - that is the on screen gimble control.