DJI Phantom 4 standard Return to home feature not working

[JVise]

I bought this drone brand new from a real estate company that had bought 2, but only needed one. I have flown this drone 4 times and I am unable to get the Return Home feature to work. When I click it (button or on phone) it shows returning home and makes beeping noises, but just stays in the same place and will not go anywhere else. Does anyone know what to do? Thanks!!!

Jhonas

 

[kndll]

What is the RTH setting in the app ? Is it set to hover ?

 

[Meta4]

I bought this drone brand new from a real estate company that had bought 2, but only needed one. I have flown this drone 4 times and I am unable to get the Return Home feature to work. When I click it (button or on phone) it shows returning home and makes beeping noises, but just stays in the same place and will not go anywhere else. Does anyone know what to do? Thanks!!!

If you can post flight data from one of your unsuccessful attempts, that might show the cause of the issue.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.

What is the RTH setting in the app ? Is it set to hover ?

You are thinking of the Loss of Signal options.
The LoS action set will make no difference to RTH initiated from the controller.

The only setting you can change for RTH is the RTH height.

 

[JVise]

What is the RTH setting in the app ? Is it set to hover ?

The RTH is set to return to home not hover. What is happening is when I get out at any distance, I hit the button the drone automatically goes to the set height, and turns toward me, but does not come home it sits at the same distance. I contacted the DJI support yesterday, tried a few things and then they told me to refresh my update. I haven't had a chance to test it after the refresh due to having to work, but also it has been raining.

 

[JVise]

If you can post flight data from one of your unsuccessful attempts, that might show the cause of the issue.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.


You are thinking of the Loss of Signal options.
The LoS action set will make no difference to RTH initiated from the controller.

The only setting you can change for RTH is the RTH height.

Ok I followed the instructions and I downloaded the flight logs; However, when I open the log it looks like a bunch of code.

 

[Oso]

Ok I followed the instructions and I downloaded the flight logs; However, when I open the log it looks like a bunch of code.

See the post above regarding how to upload the logs to the flight log viewer and then post a link to the viewer's report here on the forum.

Here are examples (from your logs) of what the earlier post was asking for:

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

I don't have a P4, but I seem to recall several posts a few months ago from different people noting a similar issue. Their P4s would just ascend to the max set altitude and then hover. IIRC it was related to an issue with the OA. Try to search the forum. I'm going into a call now so I can't do it for you.

@Fly Dawg - do you remember the several posts similar to this one? P4s would just ascend to the max set altitude (even if already above set RTH altitude) and then just hover. No RTH. I don’t remember it being a VPS (or a guard) issue but it was a FW glitch with OA, correct? Maybe fixed by disabling it or doing a reset and FW reinstall? I’m just reaching into my faulty memory banks, so I may be wrong on this one.

 

[Meta4]

Ok I followed the instructions and I downloaded the flight logs; However, when I open the log it looks like a bunch of code.

The usual suspect of obstacle avoidance doesn't appear to be involved.
And VPS isn't acting up - but that usually caused a failure to descend so it's not really suspected in this case.
I've tracked down something deep in the data regarding RTH that is different from normal but it's not self-explanatory so I'm not sure what it means.
Perhaps @sar104 could work it out.

Looking at the columns for OSD.goHomeStatus & OSD.goHomeStatus.RAW, in a normal RTH, the steps should be:
Standby 0
Preascend 1
Align 2
Cruise 4

But yours shows:
Standby 0
Cruise 4 - (one line only)
Other 7 - (for the rest of the time it is in RTH but going nowhere)

Not preascending is because the drone was already higher than the set RTH height, that's no problem.
But what is GoHomeStatus Other 7 and why is it happening after only one line of Cruise?

For the second flight those data columns show Other 7 for the whole flight, and not just when RTH is initiated.

Any suggestions @sar104 ??

 

[Oso]

I was just reading through some of the dozen or so posts from different people noting a similar issue with RTH in that the AC ascends to max set altitude and then just hovers. Most also note that the AC also turns (rotates) towards home.

In this particular thread, @msinger worked with a few people who had the problem and he seemed to think that there were enough reported instances to consider that there may be (or was at one time) a bug with FW v02.00.0810. The suggested workaround was to downgrade to an earlier FW version which cured it. Others have noted that resetting / reinstalling FW had cured the issue.

As I noted, I don't have a P4. I only know that this has been reported here and on other forums several times so this issue sounds familiar to me. I'm sorry that I don't know enough to be of any more specific help. For sure I would put more weight on what the others suggest as you decide how you want to proceed.

 

[Meta4]

Ok I followed the instructions and I downloaded the flight logs; However, when I open the log it looks like a bunch of code.

In both of these examples, there was a Max Altitude Limit set and the drone was already up at the limit when RTH was engaged.
To see if the limit was somehow involved in the issue, try initiating RTH well below the Max Height Limit and see if the drone comes home as it should.

 

[sar104]

The usual suspect of obstacle avoidance doesn't appear to be involved.
And VPS isn't acting up - but that usually caused a failure to descend so it's not really suspected in this case.
I've tracked down something deep in the data regarding RTH that is different from normal but it's not self-explanatory so I'm not sure what it means.
Perhaps @sar104 could work it out.

Looking at the columns for OSD.goHomeStatus & OSD.goHomeStatus.RAW, in a normal RTH, the steps should be:
Standby 0
Preascend 1
Align 2
Cruise 4

But yours shows:
Standby 0
Cruise 4 - (one line only)
Other 7 - (for the rest of the time it is in RTH but going nowhere)

Not preascending is because the drone was already higher than the set RTH height, that's no problem.
But what is GoHomeStatus Other 7 and why is it happening after only one line of Cruise?

For the second flight those data columns show Other 7 for the whole flight, and not just when RTH is initiated.

Any suggestions @sar104 ??

Yes - look at the VPS height. It's zero for most of the flight. The aircraft was above the RTH height when the RC RTH button was pressed, but notice that it climbed anyway until it hit the flight height limit of 120 m. The VPS height was confusing the FC, and it would not start the RTH until it had fixed that, which it never could because it stayed at zero.

 

[Meta4]

The VPS height was confusing the FC, and it would not start the RTH until it had fixed that, which it never could because it stayed at zero.

Comparing the data in these two logs with some flights with my own drone, I can't see any difference in the way OSD sWaveHeight is displaying.
His goes to zero when out of sensor range and so does mine.
In the data, the VPS height shows zero when the drone is on the ground and increases as the drone climbs to the limit of the sensors and then shows blank (not zero) when the drone is above VPS height, just the way it normally is.

What's causing the drone to climb when it's not required to?
And what's preventing RTH from moving towards home?

 

[sar104]

Comparing the data in these two logs with some flights with my own drone, I can't see any difference in the way OSD sWaveHeight is displaying.
His goes to zero when out of sensor range and so does mine.
In the data, the VPS height shows zero when the drone is on the ground and increases as the drone climbs to the limit of the sensors and then shows blank (not zero) when the drone is above VPS height, just the way it normally is.

What's causing the drone to climb when it's not required to?
And what's preventing RTH from moving towards home?

In this log the VPS data don't go blank - they go to zero. That doesn't seem correct - at least that's not how I'm used to seeing them behave. My hypothesis is that it's climbing because it's seeing zero height above the ground, and it doesn't switch to cruise because of that. I'd have to dust off my P4 to test that however, if you think that zero for VPS height is normal when out of range.

 

[Meta4]

In this log the VPS data don't go blank - they go to zero. That doesn't seem correct - at least that's not how I'm used to seeing them behave. My hypothesis is that it's climbing because it's seeing zero height above the ground, and it doesn't switch to cruise because of that. I'd have to dust off my P4 to test that however, if you think that zero for VPS height is normal when out of range.

The Phantomhelp viewer, seems to be able to tell the difference and shows N/A when the drone is higher than VPS range although the spreadsheet data shows zero when on the ground as well as up high.

 

[sar104]

The Phantomhelp viewer, seems to be able to tell the difference and shows N/A when the drone is higher than VPS range although the spreadsheet data shows zero when on the ground as well as up high.

Interesting. I'm not using PhantomHelp - I'm just reading directly from the file, and that shows zeros. I doesn't generally do that for out of range.

 

[JVise]

Interesting. I'm not using PhantomHelp - I'm just reading directly from the file, and that shows zeros. I doesn't generally do that for out of range.

My bad guys I over looked how to attach the file for the report. So if refreshing the update does not fix the problem, what do you guys suggest my next course of action should be?

 

[Meta4]

My bad guys I over looked how to attach the file for the report. So if refreshing the update does not fix the problem, what do you guys suggest my next course of action should be?

Waiting to identify the cause of the issue before acting is probably the best thing to do.
If the issue remains a mystery, updating firmware probably won't help but maybe resetting everything to factory defaults might?
If you do reset, try this before and afterwards......
Do a test flight in an open area with RTH height set at 100 ft and see what that does.

 

[JVise]

Ok if it doesn’t work today, I will reset it to factory reset. I’ll test it to see if the results are the same and then I will update it and see if anything has changed.

 

[JVise]

Yes - look at the VPS height. It's zero for most of the flight. The aircraft was above the RTH height when the RC RTH button was pressed, but notice that it climbed anyway until it hit the flight height limit of 120 m. The VPS height was confusing the FC, and it would not start the RTH until it had fixed that, which it never could because it stayed at zero.

View attachment 117504

So I just had a chance to try out the refreshed update. Still the same problem is occurring. Here is the report.

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

 

[sar104]

The Phantomhelp viewer, seems to be able to tell the difference and shows N/A when the drone is higher than VPS range although the spreadsheet data shows zero when on the ground as well as up high.

I don't understand the VPS zero height data, but looking at the sWave flag you are correct that it should be ignoring it.

 

[JVise]

Waiting to identify the cause of the issue before acting is probably the best thing to do.
If the issue remains a mystery, updating firmware probably won't help but maybe resetting everything to factory defaults might?
If you do reset, try this before and afterwards......
Do a test flight in an open area with RTH height set at 100 ft and see what that does.

So I downgraded the upgrade on my drone and the RTH feature works; only problem is it seems to be kind of squirrelly during flight and after take off and when the RTH is engaged it comes home at like 18 mph. Any thoughts? Thanks! Here is the newest report.

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com