Phantom 3 Advanced losing signal during flight

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Hey all,

I am a new Phantom 3 pilot and I have experienced two signal loss issues within my last 20 flights. The first instance happened when I was flying in a park with clear skies and low wind. The drone was about 200ft up and maybe 300-400 feet away. I was recording some video and flying in GPS mode and suddenly the video feed goes black and I get the signal lost message on the top of the screen. Luckily I was still getting speed, altitude, distance, and heading information so I was able to bring it back and land it safely. What really worried me about that instance was that the video feed didn't come back up until I powered off the drone and powered it back up.

The second instance was this past weekend when I took the drone out to a lake. I was about 200-300 feet up and around 1,000 ft away when I lost the video feed and the speed, heading and altitude information. Thankfully the controller was still connected with the drone so I was able to use the RTH button to bring it back. Once the drone was a little closer I regained video feed and flight data. When I looked at the video later I could see that the drone was reacting to my stick input even though I wasn't receiving data. Has anyone experienced this, and if so, how have you fixed it? Does this sound like a hardware problem or could it be something with the software? I am really worried about it being a hardware issue.

I am flying a Phantom 3 Advanced with the latest firmware. I am using an iPad mini to control it with the latest DJI app installed. I have also uninstalled the app and reinstalled it to make sure that it wasn't a bad install causing problems.
 
FPV loss is not entirely unusual, though it can be a bit scary at first. The latest firmware has been reported to cause problems with FPV. You can read some of the reports here in this thread:
Downlink Video completely unstable since upgrade | DJI Phantom Forum

As for losing FPV. It does happen from time to time. Don't panic. Keep in mind however that almost always you still have control. Just remember that you don't even need a mobile device to fly. If you lose FPV and are still in line of sight, just fly it home and land. Easy. If out of sight, hit RTH and it will
come back. If you lose RC control, the P3 will come home. Again, don't panic.

Practice these situations so you grow confident.

After a while you will be more comfortable when you lose FPV. When it happens to me, I mostly just shut down the app and then restart it again even with the P3 in the air. No worries.
 
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Yeah, the first time it happened I was a little less nervous since I had flight data going back to the app. The second time was a little more stressful since it was over water and I wasn't getting any data back. It's good to know that you can shut down the app and restart it and the drone won't be affected.

People were also talking about having their device in airplane mode so I may try to do that too.
 
Yeah, the first time it happened I was a little less nervous since I had flight data going back to the app. The second time was a little more stressful since it was over water and I wasn't getting any data back. It's good to know that you can shut down the app and restart it and the drone won't be affected.

People were also talking about having their device in airplane mode so I may try to do that too.
Airplane mode makes no difference at all for me while flying. I do use airplane mode to save battery while flying, but thats the only reason.
 
Are you on new firmware?this seems to be happening to a number of people.
 
I just updated to the latest firmware yesterday and last night my P3P kept losing radio signal. But I still had some video. On my last trip back I completely lost signal and the app said disconnected. I tried to restart the app and re-plugged in my phone but couldn't get it to reestablish connection. First time this has happened to me while out of sight. Needless to say I started to panic and pressed the RTH on the controller. I never saw it fly back then above and behind me and it was slowing coming down. It felt like the relief you get after a orgasm. I never could get it to reconnect until I powered down everything and pulled the battery. Once I put the battery back in the app reconnected.

This was the first time I had to trust the RTH would work. I am so happy that it did.
 
Yes I am on the latest firmware. I used RTH to bring the drone back and it worked out well. Thankfully the connection came back when the drone got closer to me. One thing that I've noticed is that RTH seems to land a few feet away from where the home point is actually set. Is that normal?
 
Are you on new firmware?this seems to be happening to a number of people.
Agreed. I put the link to reports in my earlier post.
 
so what is the best firmware that can be used in order to get good range?
 

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