Slave trying to take control on P3P?! (Plus: no signal)

[LaChassagne]

Hi folks,

Bit of a long post because I wanted to detail the strange things happening to my P3P, lately, and I wonder what you make of it all:

A couple of days ago, I have updated the firmware of the RC from v1.4.30 to v1.5.70, and the Phantom 3 Pro and batteries to v1.6.0040 (from 2015-12-22). I have since done a couple of successful flights, although I once shortly got a 'signal loss' during flight. I attributed that to using a new smartphone instead of the tablet I normally use.

Yesterday, I wanted to do another flight, but at the startup/check-up screen I got the warning that the radio channel quality was poor, probably due to interference, etc.. Also, the pre-flight calibrate button was just not there.

Furthermore, at some point a window popped-up with a slave (slave name: 9, I think it was) requesting control over the gimbal! Of course I denied it.

I have never seen this before. Also, as far as I know, the Phantom 3 Pro does not have the option to be controlled by multiple Rcs, only the Inspire has that option. (And I absolutely used the firmware update software from the Phantom 3 Pro).

I restarted all a couple of times, sometimes getting the message 'no-connection', sometimes getting the message 'no signal' and usually getting the slave-control request again as well. Always with the 'poor radio channel quality'-warning, and no calibration button.

And then, starting up all of the hardware once again, all over sudden, all was back to normal. I did a successful flight, although the Phantom was noticeably less stable when hovering in front of me in the air (I have had that a couple of times before, and attribute that to the weather, also because I had around 20 satellites to work with).

What do you make of that? I'm thinking there might actually have been some kind of radio interference. I'm not sure from what, because I live out on the countryside, with the nearest neighbors several 100s of meters away, no factories, no communication poles, etc...

Solar flares? (Trying to take over my phantom?! ).

Or is the latest firmware update unstable and to blame?

Please let me know what make of all this.

Cheers!

 

[alokbhargava]

It looks either you have upgraded to inspire RC FW or you have inspire RC.

Give us more details about model number of your RC. This opens up a new and interesting topic for us.

 

[4wd]

I understand the Inspire Controller will work with P3.
Is the tablet holder connecting thing made of metal or plastic?
Is there any chance at all of someone nearby with an Inspire accidentally trying to connect to your controller?
It is an odd one if firmware is all correct.

 

[Wolfiesden]

I understand the Inspire Controller will work with P3.
Is the tablet holder connecting thing made of metal or plastic?
Is there any chance at all of someone nearby with an Inspire accidentally trying to connect to your controller?
It is an odd one if firmware is all correct.

From what I was told in another post here, the P3 controller does not have the slave 5ghz transceiver modules installed. Even an Inspire remote locally shouldn't be able to do that. Unless he has an Inspire RC or a P3 that has the transceiver installed.

 

[LaChassagne]

As far as I know, it is a normal P3P RC, model: GL300B.
(@4wd - I'm not sure what you mean by the 'tablet holder connector thing'...the smartphone/tablet holder is almost completely made out of plastic, only then the barrel-shaped tightening..er..thingy, that thing that you have to tighten by hand [more often than I care for, t.b.h.] is made out of metal and the other connector point, for which you need a screwdriver, is made out of metal). I do not know of anyone in the neighborhood who has an Inspire, so, testing this is not really an option.

At first I thought that the RC might be "confused" because I only recently started to use a (new) smartphone (as a test) instead of the tablet I normally used. So, on this new smartphone, the DJI GO app was only very recently installed. I haven't checked it yet, but I think this is still the same version as the app installed on the tablet (I think this was in September 2015).

Anyhow, I think it must have something to do with the recent update I did, as well. I have updated the RC through the DJI GO app on my tablet. So, it sort of was an automatic update, as in: I did not get to chose which RC-update-zip-file to download, etc.. That means that I have no way of knowing with complete certainty that the RC did not used the inspire-update file. I think not, though, because one would expect that such an automated RC-update process has something built-in to detect what kind of RC it is to determine which update is needed.
Also, don't forget, I did do a couple of normal flights after the firmware update, and before I got these strange things happening...

At this point, I cannot really deduce what was going on. I hope it will not happen again. (I haven't had the chance to fly today). But even if it does not happen anymore, I'd still would like to know what was going on. So, if anyone has similar experiences or ideas, please let me know!

 

[Meta4]

if anyone has similar experiences or ideas, please let me know!

Delete your app and reinstall it.

 

[LaChassagne]

Quick update: I have not yet deleted and reinstalled my DJI GO app, but decided to try out the P3P one more time before doing that. I did not get the slave-request anymore. But during that flight, I did get 2-3 instances of 'signal lost's while not flying out very far (couple of 100s of meters). They occurred only for a very short moment, but frightened me into flying the P3P quickly back to me, as I feel I cannot trust it right now. I have flown in this same area a lot and NEVER had this problem before.

I will delete and reinstall the app, as suggested, but I must say, I am not sure that this will solve the signal-problem. I am leaning towards blaming the firmware update (especially since I saw others having the same problem after updating as well).

I understand that it is kind of difficult to down-grade to a former version, though...

 

[chamanea]

Getting the same signal lost here since I updated everything to the latest (firmware), even only 20-30 m away..... It not always happen though. One of the flights, the RTH even started, quite frightening although reassuring...
Will try reinstalling DJI go but can't see how that could help, seems to me it is more between the P3P and remote.
When looking at the channels - not very familiar with that - it seems the whole histogram range is changing rapidly from one color to the other, not sure I get what is happening here.
As for the environment (potential interferences), I was close to a hotel in town when I totally lost signal (RTH), and on the beach close to a resort another time, where I doubt I then had lot of the wifi interferences. But I wasn't in airplane more, nor was I connected to any wifi hotspot in the second case. using iPad mini 4

I'm surprised not to hear more on that - I' also really thinking it might be a firmware issue

 

[LaChassagne]

Update:

Today, I (finally) updated de DJI-GO app on the Android tablet from version 2.1.0 to version 2.6.0 and I did not get the 'poor radio channel quality'-warning anymore and was able to calibrate the gimbal again. So, that problem seems to be solved.

However, I did get the 'weak transmission link / signal lost warning again while flying out not even that far, but always at the same point. I did realize that it was just a tiny bit further than I would fly normally (only a couple of tens of meters more), plus, I came to realise that normally when flying in that direction, I'd be standing in front of the buildings, whereas with these last couple of tries, I was standing in between these stone buildings (no sky scrapers or anything, though). And sure enough, when standing in front of the buildings, I could fly further than normal, without getting the 'weak transmission link / signal loss'. It seems that it might just make the difference.

As for the 'slave trying to take control'-issue.. I'm thinking that this was a case of a confused P3, since I was normally using the tablet on the RC, and now I'd been trying out a smart phone and then back to tablet, etc... Still weird...