Brand new P3 Std 'bricked' before 1st flight! Help?

[Brian Corkill]

Hello, Just bought a new P3 Std and was getting acquainted with the DJI GO app. All batteries fully charged. Did a little 'practice' with the app's simulator. Eventually I decided to react to the red banner that showed up when I started DJI GO that informed me that firmware updates were required. I watched a quick youtube video and it looked pretty straight forward. ... Anyhow, I pushed the 'button' to do the update, the first step went great.. i connected tablet to internet and downloaded update file, then i connected tablet back to Phantom_xxxx wifi network and hit the button to start the install. Things looked great until it stalled at 47% complete... I let it sit there for about 20 minutes while i investigated google searches where there were many folks reporting the same problem... stopped at 47% .... Prognosis for fixing this didn't look good... it appeared that if you had a P3A or P3P then you might get some relief by formatting your SD card and reinstalling the BIN file and put it in the camera and then start up the P3, and he might resolve it in time.... but for a P3 std you had to update via DJI GO .... I'm not really clear about the rules for STD vs ADV/PRO, but I digress, in my case I finally got an upgrade failed message on the app, and so I shut the PS3 and RC down. When I powered them back on, the PS3 is making a LOUD constant beep, no status light on any of it's wing/arms.
I let it beep for a good 30 minutes, again checking Google for PS3 Standard Beeping with no lights. And found much material, that unfortunately makes me think I should be sending this back to dealer. It makes me sick, cuz I haven't even flown it yet!!!! It seemed like everything was working just fine before the failed firmware update. Anybody got any optimistic thoughts?

 

[yankee65]

was this the one you updated?


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[twisted1504]

My update failed at 20% on my standard, I switched it all off and back on again and it offered me another chance to update, so I did it and it apparently succeeded, however I have been having really bad signal and from what I've read the update could be the culprit.

Best of luck with your drone.

 

[CaptainDrone798]

No worries. The Phantoms are all designed to check for firmware updates upon start up (the bird itself), so I'm guessing your Phantom has found a sign that an update had begun. Once an update gets to around the 40 something mark the Phantom begins to load some of the files regardless that it has not yet reached 100% (around 40 something percent you'll hear the Phantom reading files as if it's reading an old computer floppy disk).

My guess is that when an update fails it's not the Phantom's fault but rather the fault of the device used to update the Phantom (i.e., your tablet). Try and reboot your tablet (a clean boot), or for those using a cell phone, a clean restart or boot. Then turn on your RC controller, then turn on your Phantom. Open the App on your tablet or phone and make certain you select Phantom Standard, then attempt to connect to the camera. If you can connect, then click on the top centre of the APP which should be an Orange/Red colour since you don't have satellite lock, and see what the Firmware says. If it says update, try again. Good luck.

 

[OrderFromChaos]

Sorry to hear that, it can be so frustrating. I had a very similar issue and the solution was surprisingly simple. I got a firmware update failed message but the DJI app wasn't showing me the firmware update afterwards.

What I had to do was to uninstall the DJI Go app and then reinstall it. Now my software saw the firmware updates again and I started the update process over again.

I had to do the update process three times before I had a successful firmware update.

Hope that helps you.

 

[telescott]

Pull the update file from your phone or tablet and put it on the SD card and turn the quad on. it will update from the SD card just like the Adv/Pro

 

[OrderFromChaos]

That's good to know. Thanks.
I had no luck doing it that way.

 

[Brian Corkill]

That's good to know. Thanks.
I had no luck doing it that way.

Thanks so much for the replies guys! ... I was on a trajectory to be sending this back to the dealer, but gave it one more try today. Here's what I did (hopefully help someone else):
1. I erased the P3_FW_RESULT_AB.txt and P3_FW_V99.99.9999.bin files from SD card.
2. Powered up RC and P3.... still loud beeps and no status lights.
3. My attempts yesterday were running DJI GO on iPhone 6, today I used an Android Insignia Flex Elite tablet instead.
4. Updating the firmware as far as I can tell is at least a 2 part operation. First you connect your device to internet to download the file. As yesterday, that part worked great. Then you connect your device to P3 and 'install' the upgrade. This is where I failed yesterday at 47%. Anyhow, even though my wireless was connected to the P3, initially the app couldn't connect to the P3. It said to keep trying, and on around the 4th attempt it connected, and the 'install' began immediately.
5. After about 15 minutes we hit the 72% mark and suddenly the beeping stopped (hallelujah!) and the status lights came on (red in front, blinking yellow in back).
6. At about 26 minutes it said it was 100% complete. )
When I entered camera mode on the app, it indicated that updates are still required?!??!? How can I tell what version of firmware is in the bird/gimbal, battery and/or RC?

I shut everything off and looked at the SD card again by using a card reader on my macBook. It now has 3 files:
P3C_FW_V99.9999.bin: 57.8MB MacBinary Archive
P3C_FW_DEBUG: 4 byte Unix Executable file
PSC_FW_RESULT_AB.txt: Didn't say SUCCESS ....
========== 2016.02.13 12:07:34 =====================
Packet: P3C_FW_V99.99.9999.bin
Upgrading ...

-- So, should I delete everything and follow the upgrade path in the DJI GO app? Or do I erase everything except the .bin file? Or what??? I know there's lots of videos about firmware updates and foolproof ways to do it but they seem to be for P3A and P3P and not so much for the P3S.

Why do I have a USB port on the shell of my P3 (just below the Phantom Standard medallion)? thanks again for all the help.

 

[Dirty Bird]

If you didn't see "Success" in the Result file, delete the files and do it again.

The USB port on the front of the Phantom is for extracting flight records from the aircraft's flight log. These are stored internally on a Micro-SD card on the mainboard.

Thanks so much for the replies guys! ... I was on a trajectory to be sending this back to the dealer, but gave it one more try today. Here's what I did (hopefully help someone else):
1. I erased the P3_FW_RESULT_AB.txt and P3_FW_V99.99.9999.bin files from SD card.
2. Powered up RC and P3.... still loud beeps and no status lights.
3. My attempts yesterday were running DJI GO on iPhone 6, today I used an Android Insignia Flex Elite tablet instead.
4. Updating the firmware as far as I can tell is at least a 2 part operation. First you connect your device to internet to download the file. As yesterday, that part worked great. Then you connect your device to P3 and 'install' the upgrade. This is where I failed yesterday at 47%. Anyhow, even though my wireless was connected to the P3, initially the app couldn't connect to the P3. It said to keep trying, and on around the 4th attempt it connected, and the 'install' began immediately.
5. After about 15 minutes we hit the 72% mark and suddenly the beeping stopped (hallelujah!) and the status lights came on (red in front, blinking yellow in back).
6. At about 26 minutes it said it was 100% complete. )
When I entered camera mode on the app, it indicated that updates are still required?!??!? How can I tell what version of firmware is in the bird/gimbal, battery and/or RC?

I shut everything off and looked at the SD card again by using a card reader on my macBook. It now has 3 files:
P3C_FW_V99.9999.bin: 57.8MB MacBinary Archive
P3C_FW_DEBUG: 4 byte Unix Executable file
PSC_FW_RESULT_AB.txt: Didn't say SUCCESS ....
========== 2016.02.13 12:07:34 =====================
Packet: P3C_FW_V99.99.9999.bin
Upgrading ...

-- So, should I delete everything and follow the upgrade path in the DJI GO app? Or do I erase everything except the .bin file? Or what??? I know there's lots of videos about firmware updates and foolproof ways to do it but they seem to be for P3A and P3P and not so much for the P3S.

Why do I have a USB port on the shell of my P3 (just below the Phantom Standard medallion)? thanks again for all the help.

 

[FlyinBrian]

Keep in mind that both the bird and the controller need to be updated. I flew mine successfully, however, before updating the controller (because I didn't know).

 

[OhioEagleOne]

How is the controller updated? Via the app?
My bird hasn't flown yet due to similar firmware issues. Following thread for ideas.

 

[FlyinBrian]

You can connect the controller via USB to the Phantom with the SD card in it (that's how I did it) or copy the file to a USB thumbdrive and connect that to the controller (according to this forum). I'm not sure how you get a USB thumbdrive to connect to the mini-USB on the controller for the second method.

 

[OhioEagleOne]

Got it working (I think!) tonight.

 

[Hank Terrebrood]

Hello, Just bought a new P3 Std and was getting acquainted with the DJI GO app. All batteries fully charged. Did a little 'practice' with the app's simulator. Eventually I decided to react to the red banner that showed up when I started DJI GO that informed me that firmware updates were required. I watched a quick youtube video and it looked pretty straight forward. ... Anyhow, I pushed the 'button' to do the update, the first step went great.. i connected tablet to internet and downloaded update file, then i connected tablet back to Phantom_xxxx wifi network and hit the button to start the install. Things looked great until it stalled at 47% complete... I let it sit there for about 20 minutes while i investigated google searches where there were many folks reporting the same problem... stopped at 47% .... Prognosis for fixing this didn't look good... it appeared that if you had a P3A or P3P then you might get some relief by formatting your SD card and reinstalling the BIN file and put it in the camera and then start up the P3, and he might resolve it in time.... but for a P3 std you had to update via DJI GO .... I'm not really clear about the rules for STD vs ADV/PRO, but I digress, in my case I finally got an upgrade failed message on the app, and so I shut the PS3 and RC down. When I powered them back on, the PS3 is making a LOUD constant beep, no status light on any of it's wing/arms.
I let it beep for a good 30 minutes, again checking Google for PS3 Standard Beeping with no lights. And found much material, that unfortunately makes me think I should be sending this back to dealer. It makes me sick, cuz I haven't even flown it yet!!!! It seemed like everything was working just fine before the failed firmware update. Anybody got any optimistic thoughts?

Mine did the same thing. Just let it keep squawking that God awful noise.It took around 45 - 50 minutes for mine to complete. It was a terrible first experience with a DJI product.