New P4P+ owners...careful what you name you give it (long)

[RandyHat]

Got my P4P+ yesterday and started the initial setup and activation process. Everything was going fine until I hit the activate button and got the response that activation failed. I tried numerous times before I contacted DJI chat support. After spending more than an hour with DJI support they finally recommended that I send it back for a replacement. Later in the evening I made some attempts on my own to activate the P4P. I had gone through the activation steps so many times that I was getting weary of re-entering the "name" of my aircraft so the more attempts I made the shorter the name became. The name which started out as Randy's P4P+ was eventually shortened to simply the letter "p". When I entered the name "p" and submitted the activation it was successful! At the time I didn't associate the activation with the aircraft name...I was just happy to have it working. Later at night I was watching a P4P+ unboxing and setup video on YouTube and noticed that the guy had the same problem activating his P4P+...he was trying to name it "My P4P+". After a number of attempts he recalled having a similar problem with his Osmo. He was able to correct it by removing a special character he had put in the name...and it worked. When he did the same thing with is P4P+ it finally activated. The special character he had to remove...and I removed was the "+". Apparently the activation process does not accept special characters in the aircraft name. I am guessing that many owners will probably do as I did and attempt to use some form of P4P+ in the name. If you do this and your activation fails you might try removing the "+" and see if that works.

 

[msinger]

Do you recall the exact error message you saw when the activation failed?

 

[alokbhargava]

Got my P4P+ yesterday and started the initial setup and activation process. Everything was going fine until I hit the activate button and got the response that activation failed. I tried numerous times before I contacted DJI chat support. After spending more than an hour with DJI support they finally recommended that I send it back for a replacement. Later in the evening I made some attempts on my own to activate the P4P. I had gone through the activation steps so many times that I was getting weary of re-entering the "name" of my aircraft so the more attempts I made the shorter the name became. The name which started out as Randy's P4P+ was eventually shortened to simply the letter "p". When I entered the name "p" and submitted the activation it was successful! At the time I didn't associate the activation with the aircraft name...I was just happy to have it working. Later at night I was watching a P4P+ unboxing and setup video on YouTube and noticed that the guy had the same problem activating his P4P+...he was trying to name it "My P4P+". After a number of attempts he recalled having a similar problem with his Osmo. He was able to correct it by removing a special character he had put in the name...and it worked. When he did the same thing with is P4P+ it finally activated. The special character he had to remove...and I removed was the "+". Apparently the activation process does not accept special characters in the aircraft name. I am guessing that many owners will probably do as I did and attempt to use some form of P4P+ in the name. If you do this and your activation fails you might try removing the "+" and see if that works.

It's possible that computer system doesn't accept special characters in its name. Good catch.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[RandyHat]

Do you recall the exact error message you saw when the activation failed?

I do not recall the exact message. However I seem to recall some reference to a "back server error?". There was no helpful information in the message other than retry and contact DJI support if problem persists.

 

[enborgstrom]

RandyHat, I want to thank you for saving me who knows how much time trying to figure this one out. I've not yet dealt personally with support staff at DJI, but somehow I have a feeling that they wouldn't have figured out that my problem was indeed the "+" character in my drone's name. Once I changed it to eliminate any special characters, activation went through instantly. Its unfortunate that there is no message or instruction to alert you to the naming restrictions. I've also got a plain ol' Phantom 4 and Inspire 1, and didn't encounter this problem with either of them (for obvious reasons).

 

[smiller]

As a general rule I never use spaces or special characters in electronic names, just ends up being likely to cause a problem sooner or later.

 

[CaptainDrone798]

At least you made it to the "naming your drone" in English. My entire setup was in Chinese. I never gave my drone a name so it defaulted to Phantom 4 Pro.

Sent from my SM-P550 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[azgeek]

Just watched this video yesterday which pinpointed the same issue. I'm glad I've got some time to burn waiting for my P4P+ to come in a couple days. This would have frustrated me big time.

 

[Orion7_11]

I had the exact same issue. I was trying to name it P4P+ I tried several times but kept getting "Activation Failed(ServerBackFail)"

I tried to Google my error message but couldn't find anything. I then decided to try without the + on the end and it went through just fine.

Error message attached.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[richparry]

I just wanted to thank you, I had the exact same problem, I was about to call DJI support when I found your thread. I removed the "+" character and the activation was successful.

thank you so much,
Rich

 

[Dirby]

good find.

 

[michaelshaw]

This is some months later, but very helpful. I, too, was trying to be crafty and include the "+" in the aircraft name. Ouch. How long would that have taken. Excellent tip to find here. Thanks!