P4A will not talk with DJI Go 4 app

Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
46
Reaction score
33
Age
68
Over the course of the last several months (May to now mid-July), I have had increasing difficulty connecting the DJI Go 4 app to my P4A. Quite simply, it does not recognize the aircraft. In the past, increasing number of tries would get them to talk, but in the last several days, there has been no joy at all.

First, when this happens, the RC and the AC are connected, and the AC will fly normally with just the RC unit.

I have reloaded the DJI application, changed through numerous USB cables, checked USB debug configurations, tried sequencing power of AC and RC and tablet through numerous exhaustive sequences, tried different tablets and phones, all known to work prior in this configuration. I am about ready to give up.

And then it occurred that I had loaded Kittyhawk, but never tried the app. It worked just fine. I did several flights, and it continued working fine. There were a few glitches...at one point when I was in a field, low, boxed in by trees, I did RTH, and the P4A took off for the trees. I overrode and manually flew it back. Obviously the RTH altitude was off, and I have not found where to change it in the Kittyhawk app, yet. Minor near term issue.

So what do I do? I have written DJI about the problem and they write back citing a different aircraft and a possible battery problem, which are not my problems.

Has anyone else experienced this same issue? I suppose I could simply use kittyhawk, or perhaps Litchi (which I have not tried as of yet). But it would be nice if the factory app would at least recognize the drone.
 
Was KittyHawk running in the background while you were trying to fly in Go? Flight Apps are known for interfering with each other. And I assume you’ve already done ALL of your RC calibrations which could also cause similar problems. Best of luck.
 
Was KittyHawk running in the background while you were trying to fly in Go? Flight Apps are known for interfering with each other. And I assume you’ve already done ALL of your RC calibrations which could also cause similar problems. Best of luck.

When you say ALL of the RC calibrations which could also cause similar problems...I am not certain I fully know what you mean. What I can say is that the drone flew just fine in various attitudes, lateral movements, etc. with just the RC and the AC, and there has, not that I have noticed, been any issues with the RC and AC link.

Concurrent execution of Kittyhawk: Actually, I had never used Kittyhawk. I had loaded it but never started it up.

So I did go back several times and make sure that there was nothing running. In fact on at least two of the phones I tried connecting with there was only the DJI Go 4 app installed, so Kittyhawk would not have been a possibility.

I did hear back from DJI and they want serials, etc. and proof that the drone is running on Kittyhawk. Hmm.
 
I made the mistake myself of not finishing the remote control calibration. Did not do the gimbal roller calibration at the end. Another time it was my sticks calibration. Dumb but it happens, hope you find your answer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phantom_Al
Question. Which platform do you use? Android or iOS? On Android you may have chosen an app as the default one for flying, which won't allow any other to connect. On iOS by simply clearing the cache inside the app, should fix your problem, at least it did when I had it and used iOS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Capt KO
I made the mistake myself of not finishing the remote control calibration. Did not do the gimbal roller calibration at the end. Another time it was my sticks calibration. Dumb but it happens, hope you find your answer.

I have completed the calibration several times, and once again, the RC and AC work fine together without the application. And all three have worked fine in the past, that is the third component being the phone/tablet.
 
Question. Which platform do you use? Android or iOS? On Android you may have chosen an app as the default one for flying, which won't allow any other to connect. On iOS by simply clearing the cache inside the app, should fix your problem, at least it did when I had it and used iOS.

Android tablets and phones. Several known to work with this RC and AC.
 
Android tablets and phones. Several known to work with this RC and AC.
Go to Settings>Apps and look for all of the apps related to your drone. In the option of Default, make sure to hit clear or reset as to force your phone/tablet to give you a menu with the various apps you can choose to fly when you connect it to your controller. Just make sure to chose "Just once" every time or if you plan to fly only with DJI Go, choose that one permanently.
20190722_163629.jpg
 
Go to Settings>Apps and look for all of the apps related to your drone. In the option of Default, make sure to hit clear or reset as to force your phone/tablet to give you a menu with the various apps you can choose to fly when you connect it to your controller. Just make sure to chose "Just once" every time or if you plan to fly only with DJI Go, choose that one permanently.
View attachment 113075
Done that, no change. The DJI Go 4 app will not connect when I start it up, and the Kittyhawk app will connect.
 
Last edited:
Uninstall kittyhawk. Most likely your phone set kittyhawk as the default app.
The drone/app relationship is the same on a platform where Kittyhawk has never been installed. I have two phones which I have tried, which have always been Kittyhawk free, and the behavior is the same there. No connection.
 
Looks like everybody’s striking out. Any chance that you have changed your cable to your phone?Or have tried another one? Hated to even mention it it’s talked about so often.
 
Looks like everybody’s striking out. Any chance that you have changed your cable to your phone?Or have tried another one? Hated to even mention it it’s talked about so often.

I tried several different cables, and the one that I try the most worked just fine with Kittyhawk.
 
Although the "failure" is hard right now, it has had a gradual onset with increasing failure rates. Just now, it is a hard failure. I tried again today, and no joy with DJI Go 4.
 
Have you ever deleted Go and reinstalled, in case the whole problem is a corrupted app?
 
Have you ever deleted Go and reinstalled, in case the whole problem is a corrupted app?
I know you have it on a couple different devices, but are you just copying the original or getting new apps each time? Just thinking that the original might be the problem. Just grasping at straws hope you don't mind.
 
I know you have it on a couple different devices, but are you just copying the original or getting new apps each time? Just thinking that the original might be the problem. Just grasping at straws hope you don't mind.
From what he has said, I strongly believe Kittyhawk is the source of his problems. He never replied if he deleted Kittyhawk and verified or not, so I dont know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Capt KO
From what he has said, I strongly believe Kittyhawk is the source of his problems. He never replied if he deleted Kittyhawk and verified or not, so I dont know.
Well we are all grasping at straws, and I have tried numerous configurations. To be clear, and to address some of the suggestions:

-the DJI app on some of the platforms remains the same version of the app which I installed in March 2019, and have had no problems with until recently.
-some of the platforms have NEVER had Kittyhawk or any other similar app installed.
-on the main Samsung device, which I normally use, I tried reloading the DJI app from the app store, to assure the latest version. Things did not work after doing so.
-on one of the many phones, I had DJI Go 4 installed, which did not work. That phone just happened to have Kittyhawk on it, so I fired it up, and voila, it worked!
-then I installed Kittyhawk on the Samsung device I normally dedicate to the RC and AC, and found that it worked there. I made a couple of flights, without incident.

For the last two weeks, I have been unable to get the RC/AC combination to work on ANY of my almost dozen platforms (all Android) which I have available. Prior to two weeks ago, I had increasing difficulty getting the AC and platform (Samsung) to connect to each other, but eventually they did.

Thanks for your persistence and ideas. I appreciate the ideas, and someone may come up with one which resolves this issue. For that I will be grateful.

Finally, the aspect of this which I find most interesting, is that doing extensive google searches, I can find no other cases of anyone experiencing a problem like this. I would have expected otherwise. What I also find interesting is that my hardware remains static, and no software or firmware was altered, at least that I am aware of, and that this happened with a gradual failure rate.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,935
Latest member
Pauos31