After updating to 3.16 version, all I get was bad flights with loss of control and one 300ft spinning crash. All efforts to get anyone at DJI to respond to the problems of 3.16 went unanswered. Which has left me with just one option, I returned shipped my phantom today for a full refund. If DJI cannot release working flyable updates, then who needs them? I'll take my refund and spend it somewhere else! With no support why continue this sick game? No answers for the cause of fly-aways or total control loss during flight. 4.0 is just more of the same crap! I am out of here DJI you lost my trust and now my money too!
3.16 equals control loss
- Thread starter jfalsken
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Wow!! That sounds like a really bad experience but I find it so difficult to believe that no one on here could provide some sort of advice. I guess I'm one of the few lucky ones to have not had any issues. Here's a question, when you upgraded to 4.0 did you download the default settings? I've heard that's a problem for some but it always seems so hit and miss. It's just odd. Good Luck!!
There are thousands of people running 3.16 with no issues at all, and some who feel it's the most stable to date (jury is still out on 4.0, just not enough reports in yet, but so far have not heard of major issues). Sorry you had a bad experience, but there are lots of things that can go wrong during a firmware upgrade -- bad flash, IMU and compass calibration issues, GPS issues, failure to restore the Phantom-specific settings, etc. -- that don't all have to do with the firmware being "bad." Lots of folks have had post-upgrade problems that were later traced back to something that went wrong in the process that was fixed the second time around. Sorry we won't have the opportunity to help you troubleshoot and fix it.
I tried 10 attempts to install 3.16 and yes I did download the default file too. The first 6 tries, I kept getting error 26, error 27 and a over-heating warning during advance Calibration, which wouldn't clear after waiting 5 minutes. I always preformed the preflight before every flight. After the seventh install and test flight. I found that all setting for the motor were removed and gain was set to 120%. On the ninth attempt, I redownloaded all 3.16 files including the default file. Kept running the advance calibration until all error messages disappeared. Did the preflight and at lift off things seemed to be fine, all flashing green lights, then the phantom shot up to somewhere between 300-400 ft. and began spinning on the horizontal axis. Rc controller was non responsive and the phantom dropped spinning all the way to the ground. Brought it back to computer and it said IMU needed no calibration. Once again the motor fields were empty. I took images of all the screens and data fields, that were creating problems and sent that with my report to DJI and DSLRPOS, Neither Company responded! Reading other people's problems with 3.16 and seeing DJI only response was telling the person to go back to their seller, who by the way has nothing to do with the 3.16 update!
I decided to contact Amazon.com my retailer and asked if they could help me with the 3.16 update. Amazon responded by first saying how sorry they were in hearing, I was having so many problems and the fact the phantom was no longer flyable. Even though Amazon's 30 day return policy was well beyond having been expired, they offer to give me a full refund. Sure, I will lose on all the Accessories such as; carbon fiber props, FPV Field Monitor Kit, Upgrade Board, Prop guards etc. I will get back the money spent on the phantom itself, and that is something! Where, I never heard a word from DJI Support. At least, Amazon stood behind their Product at a time they didn't have to. Where DJI created the problem by releasing a problem filled 3.16 update and never even said a thing! Trust is important in business and DJI has lost any they had with me! DJI always said what great improvements were made to each update, never a word about what it fixed or what problems to look out for. The fact there is no support and the 3.16 update crippled my phantom and left it un-flyable, I decided enough was enough and took Amazon up on their full refund offer.
I do not care what DJI now comes out with it, because it will just be more of the same, over-priced, with more Control loss and fly-away problems. With No support and bad update releases with no accountability. Where we the users are on the hook for any property damage or personal injury, DJI takes a do not call us policy! DJI has proven to me they do not stand behind the products they brought into the market. A phantom that cannot fly is worthless and so is DJI's word or lack there of. I was thinking of purchasing one for my son, but that isn't going to happen ever! Not with all of these problems going unsolved. It really is a shame too it wouldn't have taken much on DJI's part to have worked with us having problems with the 3.16 update. When the phantom did fly correctly it was great, but the trust is broken and there is no going back now! I know to keep all my money away from DJI now. So, DJI it's not your problem I got news for you yes it is and it's your problem now. Your Phantom taught me your products are not reliable and you do not stand behind what you market. The lack of support just adds to the mess!
I decided to contact Amazon.com my retailer and asked if they could help me with the 3.16 update. Amazon responded by first saying how sorry they were in hearing, I was having so many problems and the fact the phantom was no longer flyable. Even though Amazon's 30 day return policy was well beyond having been expired, they offer to give me a full refund. Sure, I will lose on all the Accessories such as; carbon fiber props, FPV Field Monitor Kit, Upgrade Board, Prop guards etc. I will get back the money spent on the phantom itself, and that is something! Where, I never heard a word from DJI Support. At least, Amazon stood behind their Product at a time they didn't have to. Where DJI created the problem by releasing a problem filled 3.16 update and never even said a thing! Trust is important in business and DJI has lost any they had with me! DJI always said what great improvements were made to each update, never a word about what it fixed or what problems to look out for. The fact there is no support and the 3.16 update crippled my phantom and left it un-flyable, I decided enough was enough and took Amazon up on their full refund offer.
I do not care what DJI now comes out with it, because it will just be more of the same, over-priced, with more Control loss and fly-away problems. With No support and bad update releases with no accountability. Where we the users are on the hook for any property damage or personal injury, DJI takes a do not call us policy! DJI has proven to me they do not stand behind the products they brought into the market. A phantom that cannot fly is worthless and so is DJI's word or lack there of. I was thinking of purchasing one for my son, but that isn't going to happen ever! Not with all of these problems going unsolved. It really is a shame too it wouldn't have taken much on DJI's part to have worked with us having problems with the 3.16 update. When the phantom did fly correctly it was great, but the trust is broken and there is no going back now! I know to keep all my money away from DJI now. So, DJI it's not your problem I got news for you yes it is and it's your problem now. Your Phantom taught me your products are not reliable and you do not stand behind what you market. The lack of support just adds to the mess!
Well, that is definitely a frustrating experience. I wish you could have posted here sooner, though, because there are a lot of folks here who love solving problems like that and are pretty good at it. I won't disagree that 3.16 is very difficult to install and get through the process, although eventually enough folks did figure out a very exact series of steps (including ignoring some of those error messages at certain times) that does work.
I don't have an answer as to how 3.16 can fly perfectly for some and terribly for others, but I suspect in the end it comes back to being able to do a successful advanced calibration of the IMU. Your spinning problem seems like some combination of that and a compass issue, but could also have been a failing motor, failing ESC, or lots of other things. That's always the problem with something that's made of hardware and software. It's really hard to tell which one is the problem.
I don't have an answer as to how 3.16 can fly perfectly for some and terribly for others, but I suspect in the end it comes back to being able to do a successful advanced calibration of the IMU. Your spinning problem seems like some combination of that and a compass issue, but could also have been a failing motor, failing ESC, or lots of other things. That's always the problem with something that's made of hardware and software. It's really hard to tell which one is the problem.
A last she went too soon, only 3 months old and maybe a few dozen flights. I was going to add a gimbal next, but 3.16 took her and she never recovered. Clearly the updates aren't worth preforming and sending the phantom back to factory for updates to be installed impractical and too costly. She was starting to look so good with her carbon fiber props, dual battery rigging and new landing legs. Just got the bugs out of the FPV field monitor Kit too. I had to ground her once before due to a cracked Radio Controller board, it took a month to find a replacement. Installing and calibrating the new radio board went very easy, after I downloaded the advance manual. But then 3.16 came out and the problems started. The final attempt to install 3.16 the info page showed she had updated to 3.16. I had run the preflight and taken her back to the computer to make sure the IMU was ok and it gave me a green check mark. Preflight again prior lift-off all green flashing LEDs. So, there was no way to prevent the final uncontrolled flight and 300 ft. spinning crash to the ground. I was lucky I found her a block away and no damage had been to anyone's property and there was no one injured. I had lost sight of her during her free fall. I took her home and ran the Naza assistant IMU reported no need to calibrate. I took photos of the settings and sent them to DJI and a week later sent them again. No answer ever came, I read a few posting on the DJI Phantom Facebook page of others having similar problems with 3.16 and control loss, fly away. All users said DJI told them to contact their sellers for help. So, I gave up on ever getting any help from DJI support. At that point, I was very disgusted with the whole mess and I contacted Amazon. It was hard to see her go and even harder looking at the hundreds of dollars in Accessories, that I am going to have to eat, because of DJI's failure! Their entire line up of products are experiencing Control loss, and fly aways as a result of updates. Which means DJI products are not very reliable or safe to fly. Until, These issues are addressed and fixed DJI has a big problem on their hands! I know this experience will effect any future purchases that, I might have. Not posting the exact install procedure on any update is criminal at best. When the future of the entire industry is at stake. That is something DJI missed the boat on understanding! The lack of support is going to hurt DJI in the end. If it takes hundreds of returned Phantoms to send that message then so be it!
The funniest thing in your situation is that you had a far from stock DJI phantom and so DJI really cant guarantee that everything will work properly on your setup. Its up to you to make sure all mods are done properly and also to read the info on how to properly do a firmware update. If anything I would suspect your new landing legs to be what was causing your issues if the compass wasn't reinstalled in the exact same orientation as it is on the standard legs.
There are thousands of people that have used 3.16 with no issues but that cant meant that your issues were possibly specific to your particular setup or mods now could it.
It must be a fault of DJI or the firmware even though your issues are isolated to your one far from stock Phantom.
There are thousands of people that have used 3.16 with no issues but that cant meant that your issues were possibly specific to your particular setup or mods now could it.
It must be a fault of DJI or the firmware even though your issues are isolated to your one far from stock Phantom.Well, I try to be somewhat sympathetic in these cases -- I know someday mine's going to fly away and I'll be furious and probably send all kinds of nasty letters to DJI. But yes, there are so many variables between our own mods and local flight conditions (interference, wires, metal, sunspots even!) it's kind of amazing these things don't crash a lot more often.
I think one thing DJI should "fix" that might have been helpful in this case is to take the feature out of NAZA Assistant entirely that says when the IMU doesn't need calibration. That indicator seems unreliable at best; I've read about people who have had an outright crash, plugged in the NAZA, and been told no calibration was necessary.
I ignore that indicator *always* and I always perform an advanced IMU calibration every time I have opened the shell, changed anything on the exterior, updated firmware -- even if I just feel like I had a landing that wasn't completely "soft."
But yes, there are so many variables between our own mods and local flight conditions (interference, wires, metal, sunspots even!) it's kind of amazing these things don't crash a lot more often.I think one thing DJI should "fix" that might have been helpful in this case is to take the feature out of NAZA Assistant entirely that says when the IMU doesn't need calibration. That indicator seems unreliable at best; I've read about people who have had an outright crash, plugged in the NAZA, and been told no calibration was necessary.
I ignore that indicator *always* and I always perform an advanced IMU calibration every time I have opened the shell, changed anything on the exterior, updated firmware -- even if I just feel like I had a landing that wasn't completely "soft."
I made sure after any modifications, that I always checked the IMU and ran a advance calibration. I would rather be enjoying watching a new video taken by my phantom. The stock landing legs allowed the Go Pro Camera to hit the ground at any take off or landing. So, I found a nice set of carbon fiber ones on line. They had a wider stance and provided at least two inches of clearance for the Go Pro mounted on a carbon fiber stabilize platform. My next purchase was going to be a gimbal, followed by buying my son one too.
I purchased the upgrade board before DJI released infomation that it could only be used with their high priced model. weird that it required a total rebuild just to add the zen gimbal. One would have thought given the price it would come with the upgrade board and the install kit, but it doesn't.
The new vision will only be a Apple device right out of the box and will only offer android in a future update, who knows if it will be a windows version. No way of knowing if the problems were addressed and fixed.
The bottom line is it was great when it flew right. It's a sad state of affairs with the lack of support followed up by blaming modifcations and the user. Which do not account for data entries being over-written or removed. The radio controller losing craft control. But, why not include a step by step update install information in the release notes? Instead of just listing the new features. It seems that could help prevent others from having issues with updates. I would hope support starts to show some effort in getting back to people having trouble, before they are forced to return their phantom. Until you experience a flight control loss or a fly away you might be happy keeping your head in the sand, but they are real and every effort should be made to find out why.
All my attempts were made on a glass table with the laptop plugged into the wall and not on it's battery. If the Naza cleared the phantom for flight and the preflight compass calibration didn't turn anything up, nor did the green flashing lights prior to lift off. How can you blame me or the modifcations? It seems things go deeper than that.
I purchased the upgrade board before DJI released infomation that it could only be used with their high priced model. weird that it required a total rebuild just to add the zen gimbal. One would have thought given the price it would come with the upgrade board and the install kit, but it doesn't.
The new vision will only be a Apple device right out of the box and will only offer android in a future update, who knows if it will be a windows version. No way of knowing if the problems were addressed and fixed.
The bottom line is it was great when it flew right. It's a sad state of affairs with the lack of support followed up by blaming modifcations and the user. Which do not account for data entries being over-written or removed. The radio controller losing craft control. But, why not include a step by step update install information in the release notes? Instead of just listing the new features. It seems that could help prevent others from having issues with updates. I would hope support starts to show some effort in getting back to people having trouble, before they are forced to return their phantom. Until you experience a flight control loss or a fly away you might be happy keeping your head in the sand, but they are real and every effort should be made to find out why.
All my attempts were made on a glass table with the laptop plugged into the wall and not on it's battery. If the Naza cleared the phantom for flight and the preflight compass calibration didn't turn anything up, nor did the green flashing lights prior to lift off. How can you blame me or the modifcations? It seems things go deeper than that.
There is no doubt you had issues its just that your issues are not all that common and unique to just your setup, if it was a fault in the firmware everyone would have the same issues.
The main reason I mentioned your landing gear is that if the compass is not orientated in the exact same direction as it is on the stock legs this will cause stability issues. The way it is on the standard legs is the only way that the NAZA will get any useable data out of it, if you put this back onto 3rd party landing gear even a few degrees out you will have pretty major issues in GPS mode.
Use this image of a traditional compass as an example, lets say that on the stock legs the compass will be orientated in a way that the nose is at heading 0 and its parallel to the ground. It will also be orientated level with the NAZA on a parallel plane not pitching in any direction.
Now if you put the compass on any other landing gear that doesnt mount in exactly the same orientation it will cause issues. If the nose is no longer at north "heading 0" then no matter if you do a calibration or not it will still be feeding incorrect heading information to the NAZA. Also if its pitched in any direction relative to dead level on the phantom and not parallel to the NAZA and ground this will also cause issues. The calibration doesnt tell the NAZA where the compass is pointing it just allows it to get proper readings but this still needs to be properly aligned for it to actually give useful info to the controller.
The main reason I mentioned your landing gear is that if the compass is not orientated in the exact same direction as it is on the stock legs this will cause stability issues. The way it is on the standard legs is the only way that the NAZA will get any useable data out of it, if you put this back onto 3rd party landing gear even a few degrees out you will have pretty major issues in GPS mode.
Use this image of a traditional compass as an example, lets say that on the stock legs the compass will be orientated in a way that the nose is at heading 0 and its parallel to the ground. It will also be orientated level with the NAZA on a parallel plane not pitching in any direction.
Now if you put the compass on any other landing gear that doesnt mount in exactly the same orientation it will cause issues. If the nose is no longer at north "heading 0" then no matter if you do a calibration or not it will still be feeding incorrect heading information to the NAZA. Also if its pitched in any direction relative to dead level on the phantom and not parallel to the NAZA and ground this will also cause issues. The calibration doesnt tell the NAZA where the compass is pointing it just allows it to get proper readings but this still needs to be properly aligned for it to actually give useful info to the controller.
You know after losing the Go pro lens to a hard landing, I could see there are issues and short coming to the stock landing legs. The new Carbon Fiber Landing Legs places the compass in the same position, same height and same leg strut.
So, if the Naza Assistant Software failed to catch your so called out of position and gave all green check marks and the preflight compass calibration also failed how is it you keep insisting that the landing legs were the problem? When Phantom flew with 3.14 update just fine with these non-stock landing legs. I was glad, these landing legs were installed. When the phantom dropped out of the sky from 300 ft. and I didn't lose another lens on the Go Pro.
Had, I added any gimbal to the stock rig the Go pro Camera would have been the main landing leg holding the phantom up. There just isn't enough clearance with the stock ones. All parts, came from one of your approved retailers and all modifications were tested and approved for the Phantom by them! Even so, this doesn't account for the lack of response from DJI Support or the craft not responding to the Rc controller and all defaults being removed from the fields inside the Naza Assistant Software! I see that attacking me allows you to sleep at night and make you feel better about what you sell to others. It doesn't fix the control loss issues or the fly away problem in the slightest. Because they happened even with a stock phantom.
Moving from 3.12 to 3.14 I had similar control issues. Advance Calibration and preflight check list were run every time. If there was a compass issue, than the Naza Assistant Software should have given a warning, that it needed to be repaired. Nothing is in the release notes, but what new features were added. No install steps other than what is on the update pop up. You hook up to computer power everything up and run the install, then import the default file. Follow the steps in the pop ups during the install and preform a advance calibration and compass calibration before flight attempt. What could be simpler? Except the 300 ft total control loss and crash that followed.
At no time, was the Go Pro Wi-Fi ever engaged during a flight and the 5.8GHz FPV Field Monitor Kit from DSLRPROS was approved and tested for use with the Phantom. Which even had a line noise suppressor attached to the power cable for the TX. So, why even play this blame game with me? You were given the chance to debug the problem and your support decided to stay silent. Not just once but twice the data was sent to your support staff. Attacking me, over a dead issue just screams your not a company to do business with! You had your chance to help and you blew it badly!
So, if the Naza Assistant Software failed to catch your so called out of position and gave all green check marks and the preflight compass calibration also failed how is it you keep insisting that the landing legs were the problem? When Phantom flew with 3.14 update just fine with these non-stock landing legs. I was glad, these landing legs were installed. When the phantom dropped out of the sky from 300 ft. and I didn't lose another lens on the Go Pro.
Had, I added any gimbal to the stock rig the Go pro Camera would have been the main landing leg holding the phantom up. There just isn't enough clearance with the stock ones. All parts, came from one of your approved retailers and all modifications were tested and approved for the Phantom by them! Even so, this doesn't account for the lack of response from DJI Support or the craft not responding to the Rc controller and all defaults being removed from the fields inside the Naza Assistant Software! I see that attacking me allows you to sleep at night and make you feel better about what you sell to others. It doesn't fix the control loss issues or the fly away problem in the slightest. Because they happened even with a stock phantom.
Moving from 3.12 to 3.14 I had similar control issues. Advance Calibration and preflight check list were run every time. If there was a compass issue, than the Naza Assistant Software should have given a warning, that it needed to be repaired. Nothing is in the release notes, but what new features were added. No install steps other than what is on the update pop up. You hook up to computer power everything up and run the install, then import the default file. Follow the steps in the pop ups during the install and preform a advance calibration and compass calibration before flight attempt. What could be simpler? Except the 300 ft total control loss and crash that followed.
At no time, was the Go Pro Wi-Fi ever engaged during a flight and the 5.8GHz FPV Field Monitor Kit from DSLRPROS was approved and tested for use with the Phantom. Which even had a line noise suppressor attached to the power cable for the TX. So, why even play this blame game with me? You were given the chance to debug the problem and your support decided to stay silent. Not just once but twice the data was sent to your support staff. Attacking me, over a dead issue just screams your not a company to do business with! You had your chance to help and you blew it badly!
I had loads of issues with 3.16 but managed to resolved them all 90% were me. I had all the errors that you had and I worked through them and resolved them. The only thing that was an issue was that my IMU did need calibrating but the assistant software said it didn't. Once calibrated mine flew fine. I did post a huge post on here about the issues I had and what I did to fix them.
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