First Flight, BUT.....

Gary M · Feb 14, 2016

I got my P3S in the mail yesterday. I got everything put together, charged, latest firmware downloaded, etc etc etc. Everything seemed to be working just fine until earlier this afternoon I fired it up and on the screen it saidm "no signal" at the top and had no view from the camera. I didn't think much of it, figured something wasn't picking up right in my house. Took it outside for my first flight,,, no signal. I finally got frustrated and went back inside. Fired it up again inside and boom,,,everything was perfect. Took it back outside and set up again. No signal. WTH?!?! I thought, just for the heck of it I'd try to see if it would take off. Hit auto take off and it picked right up. All controls worked perfect. Flew it around a bit, tried RTH, etc, everything perfect. Just no signal the whole time and of course, no video of my first flight... What could be wrong here? I'm sure, knowing me, I'm just missing something here.

Stoft63 · Feb 14, 2016

Did you connect to the drone via wifi?

Edit: I guess you must of because you did say it worked once inside.

Gary M · Feb 14, 2016

Yeah, I did all of that. I brought it inside and recharged after first flight then went back out for a second one and everything worked perfectly. Did everything the same as before, I don't get it. Got a nice video of that one. Gonna post it when I figure out how, lol

buford · Feb 14, 2016

Gary M said:
Yeah, I did all of that. I brought it inside and recharged after first flight then went back out for a second one and everything worked perfectly. Did everything the same as before, I don't get it. Got a nice video of that one. Gonna post it when I figure out how, lol

So you could see video on the second flight? Everything worked like it should? I've found that in different locations, the app hooks up at different speeds, if at all. if at all. I've sat here in my living room, and waited on the app to hook, had no video, and waited, and waited. I think other wifi in proximity to you can screw you up. I just got a tablet, its a fire, so I had to go thru all the bs just to get google play on it so I could load the dji app. When I fired it up the first time it didn't work, but, I was sittin here in my living room in a wifi warzone, and I had my phone hooked up too, so it was never gonna work. Took it down to the beach, away from all the wifi, only turned one on, my phone or my tablet, and everything worked perfect.

Gary M · Feb 14, 2016

buford said:
So you could see video on the second flight? Everything worked like it should? I've found that in different locations, the app hooks up at different speeds, if at all. if at all. I've sat here in my living room, and waited on the app to hook, had no video, and waited, and waited. I think other wifi in proximity to you can screw you up. I just got a tablet, its a fire, so I had to go thru all the bs just to get google play on it so I could load the dji app. When I fired it up the first time it didn't work, but, I was sittin here in my living room in a wifi warzone, and I had my phone hooked up too, so it was never gonna work. Took it down to the beach, away from all the wifi, only turned one on, my phone or my tablet, and everything worked perfect.

Oooook,,, this might be starting to make more sense now. While in my house the home WiFi was probably messing with it. When outside the first time maybe something from in the neighborhood was still affecting it.

kmaluo · Feb 15, 2016

After you turn on transmitter, turn on Phantom, then go into your wifi settings and manually connect to the Phantom wifi. Then open up the DJI Go app. Sometimes you need to wait several seconds between the last few steps.

buford · Feb 15, 2016

kmaluo said:
After you turn on transmitter, turn on Phantom, then go into your wifi settings and manually connect to the Phantom wifi. Then open up the DJI Go app. Sometimes you need to wait several seconds between the last few steps.

The go app is the first thing I initiate, then the rc, then the drone, then I connect the tablet. For some reason, and this could be normal, my tablet knows the phantom is on and connects wifi automatically, something my phone doesn't do. Who knows? It works....LOL

Also neither one of my mobile devices are listed on the "approved devices" list. The lg70 phone and the fire tablet.

Gary M · Feb 15, 2016

Thanks for all the input guys! I have been, in this order: Turn on RC, turn on drone, connecting tablet to RC WiFi, then starting Go App. So maybe I'll try starting app first and then the others & see what happens. Now if I could get the weather here to cooperate maybe I can get some more flights in to test more stuff out.

buford · Feb 15, 2016

Gary M said:
Thanks for all the input guys! I have been, in this order: Turn on RC, turn on drone, connecting tablet to RC WiFi, then starting Go App. So maybe I'll try starting app first and then the others & see what happens. Now if I could get the weather here to cooperate maybe I can get some more flights in to test more stuff out.

That's the way it goes, if you want to do anything outside, you have to get mother natures permission.

GodFear17 · Feb 15, 2016

What phone/tablet are you using?

Tony Cowan · Feb 15, 2016

Gary M said:
Thanks for all the input guys! I have been, in this order: Turn on RC, turn on drone, connecting tablet to RC WiFi, then starting Go App. So maybe I'll try starting app first and then the others & see what happens. Now if I could get the weather here to cooperate maybe I can get some more flights in to test more stuff out.

I do it like this as well. Either tablet or phone will look for my other networks first. Like my home. But if I tell it to forget all other networks it will connect to the phantom and no need to mess with wifi. It will do it automatically.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

Gary M · Feb 15, 2016

GodFear17 said:
What phone/tablet are you using?

Using a Nvidia Shield K1

Gary M · Feb 16, 2016

OK,,, getting pretty frustrated here. Went out for flight #3 today. No signal again. Was a pretty good distance from any home where WiFi interference could be an issue. Flew anyway, and hit "Record" on camera and hoped. Made full flight with no FPV, but did end up with good video of flight.

buford · Feb 17, 2016

Gary M said:
OK,,, getting pretty frustrated here. Went out for flight #3 today. No signal again. Was a pretty good distance from any home where WiFi interference could be an issue. Flew anyway, and hit "Record" on camera and hoped. Made full flight with no FPV, but did end up with good video of flight.

Do you have a cell tower in the area?

Gary M · Feb 17, 2016

Not really. Closest one is maybe 2-3 miles away. Did a lot of research last night. A bunch of people are saying that they have been having the same issue since downloading the latest firmware and some are saying the Go App's latest version is causing them the trouble too.

buford · Feb 17, 2016

Gary M said:
Not really. Closest one is maybe 2-3 miles away. Did a lot of research last night. A bunch of people are saying that they have been having the same issue since downloading the latest firmware and some are saying the Go App's latest version is causing them the trouble too.

I'm not a big fan of constant updates. Seems to me once you buy something, you shouldn't have to be connected to the company you bought it from. Probably think that way due to my experiences with dji 5 months ago. There's a bunch of guys that don't agree with me, but, this is my drone, I'll do whatever I want.
And, as far as a lot of guys having trouble with the new update, a number of them get online and pitch a ***** saying the updates bad, and it could very well be, but I'm running 1.2.4 (I think that's the number, 1.2.?), but some of them just disappear after a short while, due to the guys telling them what they did wrong, or them figuring out what they did wrong. There are 10;s of 1000;s of guys running 1.3.5, and apparently having no trouble. This site gets everybody that is having trouble and has already gone through dji, and they show up looking for solutions.
Hence the reason I don't like updates. They could come out with an update that would ground every phantom in America. But everyone would have to do the update. That's why I don't do em. Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it just gets my goat. BTW, have you tried getting out away from your area, just to see if it makes a diff? I'm from a medium size town in Missouri, Independence, and that town is covered with cell towers. I tried flying there before the winter, and gave up. Too much interference. My buddy still lives there, and he wrecked his P2V+ the first time he flew it there. He and I learned together down at the lake of the Ozarks. He was fine, a little skiddish, but he knew how to fly it. Again I apologize for the rabling.

buford · Feb 17, 2016

Gary M said:
Not really. Closest one is maybe 2-3 miles away. Did a lot of research last night. A bunch of people are saying that they have been having the same issue since downloading the latest firmware and some are saying the Go App's latest version is causing them the trouble too.

I bought a fire tablet and hacked it so it would get google play to download the dji app. That was about 2 weeks ago. Since I don't know how go backwards as far as downloading the app, my phone has 1.2 and my tablet has 1.3.5. So I do use it, just not always.

Techcop50 · Feb 17, 2016

I've had similar issues since the last update. Normally, I just close out DJI GO and reopen it, then the video feed is there. Seems like a issue with the sequence of events, to me.

Gary M · Feb 17, 2016

Techcop50 said:
I've had similar issues since the last update. Normally, I just close out DJI GO and reopen it, then the video feed is there. Seems like a issue with the sequence of events, to me.

I usually do that too when it acts screwy but to no avail. Is what burns me up is when Turn everything on and it's good and then the next time I fire it up it's "no signal." Grrrrr!

buford · Feb 17, 2016

My buddy has a P2V+. It uses a completely different app than a P3. And to my knowledge, which could be wrong mind you, we didn't have to update the app once in 4 months. I don't know how many times I wished the P3 would use that app when I got on to download dji go, or to reload dji go. How many updates have P3 owners had? And I don't really expect an answer, since it wouldn't change my mind on constant updates anyway.