New Litchi user with questions

[Fontinalis]

Hi,

I do mostly real estate stills and haven't had much need for waypoint missions. I bought Litchi yesterday, read the online manual, watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials, and set up a couple missions on the Mission Hub. Before sunset I went to a local park and did a couple test flights. I can definitely use this software for a lot of real estate stuff.

Flew two waypoint missions, orbit and pano yesterday, no problems whatsoever. Really like the software! Only problem was when I got home and got wifi connectivity i went to upload the log files to Airdata and Litchi said "no new log files". I thought it wasn't saving log files till I went to Airdata today and saw that they must have been uploaded automatically by Litchi before I tried to manually upload = cool.

On one of the waypoint missions I didn't have a start recording video action. I added last night and increased altitude of a couple waypoints as I was on the verge of losing VLOS yesterday flying the mission. This morning I went back to re-run the mission and capture some video.

For reference I'm running a P4P with latest firmware, iPad Mini 4 with the IOS version that was pushed out yesterday.

During initialization Litchi told me to calibrate the compass, so I did. Took off and the mission upload to AC failed with an error to the effect "can't upload". Landed AC, rebooted it, took off again and was able to upload the mission and off it went.

When it got to waypoint 9 of 12 I had 19 satellites, 100% RC connection. AC reached the waypoint and Litchi gave the message "Mission Ended" and the AC hovered. Brought it in, landed, and went home.

Looking at the Airdata log there is no indication of any kind of error. Sensors, notifications, etc, all good. The waypoint where the mission ended prematurely is 718ft from the home point when the log shows the mode changed from Waypoint to GPS_Atti.

A 00m 00s 2.0 ft 0 ft Mode changed to GPS_Atti
B 00m 20s 65.9 ft 15 ft Mode Mode changed to Waypoint
02m 17s 182.1 ft 483 ft

80% Battery
C 04m 27s 189.3 ft 718 ft Mode changed to GPS_Atti

I read in other threads that DJI Go 4 running in the background could create issues. It wasn't in the app switcher before any of the flights, but perhaps lurking somewhere running in the background? Next time will try rebooting the iPad before flight, but I suspect Go 4 was not running at all and I may face the same issues with no log files and missions ending early.

Any suggestions?

 

[Fly Dawg]

I think that in order to understand why the mission ended prematurely I'm going to need log files.

The log files will most likely not give you a "definative" reason for the mission ending prematurely. I use Litchi exclusively and have never had a single mission do this, UNLESS it was a
mission programming error by me. It is easy to miss something if you do not double and triple check everything before taking off. Also you stated "Took off and the mission upload to AC failed with an error to the effect "can't upload". Landed AC, rebooted it, took off again and was able to upload the mission and off it went.

It is not unusual to get a failed mission upload, what I found and this may not affect you, that the tablet I was using was inherently too slow. I have not had another mission upload error
since obtaining a faster tablet. Lastly, there is a setting in Litchi that will turn off the flight logs. Look in the "Aircraft" settings and make sure you have "Log Flights" turned on.

 

[Fontinalis]

The log files will most likely not give you a "definative" reason for the mission ending prematurely. I use Litchi exclusively and have never had a single mission do this, UNLESS it was a
mission programming error by me. It is easy to miss something if you do not double and triple check everything before taking off. Also you stated "Took off and the mission upload to AC failed with an error to the effect "can't upload". Landed AC, rebooted it, took off again and was able to upload the mission and off it went.

It is not unusual to get a failed mission upload, what I found and this may not affect you, that the tablet I was using was inherently too slow. I have not had another mission upload error
since obtaining a faster tablet. Lastly, there is a setting in Litchi that will turn off the flight logs. Look in the "Aircraft" settings and make sure you have "Log Flights" turned on.

Thanks for the response, Fly Dawg. I edited my post a little while ago: the logs were on Airdata. I didn't realize they must have automatically uploaded when I turned the iPad's wifi on back at the house. The logs were already uploaded and the message was "no NEW log files". my bad.

The Airdata log shows no errors and when the mission was ended it shows mode switching from Waypoint to GPS_Atti. I just checked the mission waypoints and there are no actions at the waypoint where the mission ended. What error could I make to have it end like that? Its possible that i opened that waypoint before takeoff and inadvertently added an action to stop the mission, then didn't save the file, but I think that's unlikely.

 

[Fly Dawg]

Airdata does not give nearly enough information. Try uploading the log file at the link below, then share the link back here so others can take a look.

DJI Flight Log Viewer

 

[Fontinalis]

OK, here is the log: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I didn't see this on Airdata, but it looks like might be related to satellite count dropping from 20 to 0 at 4m 27.5s. I have been having issues while flying with Go 4 recently whereby it loses sats and goes into ATTI.

I just opened a thread addressed to DJI on troubleshooting the lost GPS events.

I tried repeating the mission next day and couldn't get past "Failed to upload mission. timeout error-1003". I created a new mission at same site and flew it without error yesterday. Hopefully the Failed to upload mission can be prevented. What I did differently when it loaded, aside from different mission and day, is that I flew the AC to about 100' AGL and 100' from home point before trying to start.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I didn't see this on Airdata, but it looks like might be related to satellite count dropping from 20 to 0 at 4m 27.5s. I have been having issues while flying with Go 4 recently whereby it loses sats and goes into ATTI.

It appears you lost Satellites for approximately 600ms, and re-aquired fully after that. It should have been at that point that you got the "Mission Ended" notice. The bird did not go in to ATTI mode, since it re-aquired. Loss of Satellites will cause the mission to end, but it is rather odd that it dropped out completely for that 600ms, and came right back. This could be a "Glitch" or since you mentioned this has happened before, a hardware issue, which appears to be more likely. An intermittent issue at that.