Compass Error ... nearly Crashed

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The weather warmed up substantially today and I decided to fly my P3S again. Tried the RTH twice maybe 30 ft from the 'home' location and it worked fine. Then, I decided to do some 'real' flying. I was in P-GPS mode (only mode I fly now), did an auto take-off, drone hovered for few seconds, I pushed it up to about 10 ft (3 m), then suddenly id decided to head straight towards the neighbor's house at high speed (15 mph, 24 km/h). It almost hit the house, but I somehow managed to regain control of the drone, landed it, and that was it for the day.

Upon examining the log file (from the tablet), there was a Compass Error, and that caused the AC to switch to ATTI mode. Such error lasted for only 2.5 seconds, but gave me a real scare.

Now, a question to the experts:

1. What would cause a sudden compass error?
2. I did upgrade the firmware yesterday, and the upgrade did not go smooth the first time.

Also, there was a bit of wind today, but nothing extreme, though it is likely the wind pushed the AC. But still, for me the basic question is: Why would the AC suddenly register a Compass Error?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You,
JB
 
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Did you do a compass calibration before you took it up? I have read on forums that you're not supposed to calibrate the compass every time you fly, but I do, and I haven't had a problem
 
Interesting you bring that up. In all prior times, whenever I launch the DJI Go App, it automatically asks for a compass calibration. This time it did not.
So, no I did not calibrate the compass this time. I was debating whether the 'COmpass Error' was due to:

1. Not calibrating the compass
2. New firmware
3. Something else?

Does this mean that the controller by itself can switch off P-GPS mode and revert to 'manual' flying WITHOUT any warning? ... That's a rather scary thought!
 
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As far as I understand if the A/C loses GPS it will (without warning) switch to ATTI mode, but not sure on what is supposed to happen when you get a compass failure in the air. You would hope it would at least just hover waiting for your input. Obviously in this case you would not expect the RTH to work, or any waypoint missions would probably get cancelled. You're right, scary thoughts
 

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