Camera Stopped Working: Worked Fine Yesterday (P3A)

[Just Mark]

So today my camera stopped working on my P3A

It worked fine yesterday.

By stopped working, the gimbal still moved, just there was no feed to the app and the menu buttons for the camera were all grayed out and I couldn't get the camera menus to expand / function at all.

Tried rebooting the phone, restarting the radio, and restarted the P3A.

One other strange thing I noticed is that when turning OFF the batter for the P3A, it would turn off but then the red light on the battery stayed on for 10 seconds or so before fully turning off.

I only had one charged battery so I couldn't swap out batteries to see if the problem was caused by a battery error.

Of course, I was trying to rush through it so I forgot to try and take a photo using the buttons on the side of the controller. Guess I will have to try that in the morning.

Any suggestions on how best to troubleshoot this quickly?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted member 120647]

The battery's red light staying on for a prolonged period during switch off means, I think, that the drone is finishing some internal 'work', maybe saving video etc. I have seen it quite a few times and it does not appear harmful.

When you say there is no feed to the app do you mean that with the drone switched on and connected to the controller there is no feed AT ALL, including telemetry, to the viewing device? Asked another way, if the controller is powered up does connecting the viewing device trigger the opening of the go app?
If there is no telemetry or the go app is not opened etc. have you checked the cable that links your viewing device to the controller, could it be that the cable or the viewing device's socket have been damaged? Have you tried another cable, it needs to be a cable capable of transmitting data, some cables seem to be power only.

 

[Just Mark]

The battery's red light on staying on for a prolonged period during switch off means, I think, that the drone is finishing some internal 'work', maybe saving video etc. I have seen it quite a few times and it does not appear harmful.

When you say there is no feed to the app do you mean that with the drone switched on and connected to the controller there is no feed AT ALL, including telemetry, to the viewing device? Asked another way, if the controller is powered up does connecting the viewing device trigger the opening of the go app?
If there is no telemetry or the go app is not opened etc. have you checked the cable that links your viewing device to the controller, could it be that the cable or the viewing device's socket have been damaged? Have you tried another cable, it needs to be a cable capable of transmitting data, some cables seem to be power only.

Thank you for your reply.

I am pretty sure I was getting telemetry, just no camera feed.

It did tell me that "the home point has been updated, please check it on the map." I am pretty sure the map was right.

I tried it with two different phones and two different cables. Same problem. Both those cables and phones have worked fine in the past. (one of them was the same phone and cable combo that worked fine the day before.)

 

[Deleted member 120647]

That you saw the home point message etc.means the cable etc. is fine

 

[Just Mark]

That you saw the home point message etc.means the cable etc. is fine

Thanks, that should at least help me rule out one thing.

 

[JeffreyS]

Things that just broke often worked fine the previous day.

 

[Just Mark]

Things that just broke often worked fine the previous day.

Ok, I understand that. Any thoughts on how to diagnose / fix the problem?

 

[Oso]

One other strange thing I noticed is that when turning OFF the batter for the P3A, it would turn off but then the red light on the battery stayed on for 10 seconds or so before fully turning off.

Check this post for info about a delayed battery power down.

P3A battery flashes red when turning off/no video

Ok I have looked and cannot find anything on this subject. My P3Advanced was flying fine last night and I landed it and pushed the battery power to turn it off and it flashed red for about 20 seconds or so before it turned off. I put another flully charged battery in it and the waited to warm...

phantompilots.com

Also, if you haven’t already, you can try going through these frequently referenced troubleshooting steps:

Fix no video feed / black screen / no image transmission / no FPV on Ph3 Pro

 

[Just Mark]

Check this post for info about a delayed battery power down.

P3A battery flashes red when turning off/no video

Ok I have looked and cannot find anything on this subject. My P3Advanced was flying fine last night and I landed it and pushed the battery power to turn it off and it flashed red for about 20 seconds or so before it turned off. I put another flully charged battery in it and the waited to warm...

phantompilots.com

Also, if you haven’t already, you can try going through these frequently referenced troubleshooting steps:

Fix no video feed / black screen / no image transmission / no FPV on Ph3 Pro

Thanks for the reply.

One thing that was mentioned in that thread - and what PhiliusFoggg mentioned, was the possibility of something going on with the SD card.

So I took the SD card out and restarted the AC and the transmitter and app, and voila, the video feed came back.

I put the SD card in and formatted it, and it seems to be fine. I haven't had much of a chance to test it because of strong winds right now.

Keeping fingers crossed.

 

[Deleted member 120647]

Thanks for the credit but in truth I wasn't thinking of an SD card problem, rather that it might be saving an unsaved video etc.. I hope you saved the contents of the SD card if you wanted it.
If you didn't and you do want the contents try putting the card in a reader and connecting it to a compute, then running the like of the recovery program ZarX on the card, I have had good results doing that.
I have also used a program (forgotten which) that output the recovered files as CONVAR****.