Strange happenings with Litchi - first time use

chessman · Jan 24, 2016

I sat indoors this morning designing an 18 way point mission around a local lake and golf course for my first venture into using Litchi. A bit ambitious some might say, which is exactly what I thought two minutes from launch. So I basically bottled out in favor of some manual flying using the Litchi app so I could get accustomed to the UI as I am used to the DJI GO app.
So fired her up and launched.
5 minutes into the flight I was at 50m altitude but there were some trees preventing my line of sight at this point. In this situation when using the stock DJI app I am used to some crackly streaming video. Litchi did the same, but instead of merely crackling it crackled once and froze.... Then Litchi crashed... Black screen, then closed altogether. Great....
I rebooted Litchi only for it to refuse to connect to my bird now hovering at 50 metres around 200m from home (I hoped) .
I immediately hit RTH and waited a minute to hear the humm which thankfully did as it crested above the trees.

I landed the bird, rebooted both units and tried to fire her back up using DJI GO but was getting 'calibrate IMU' warnings. This I did successfully and relaunched her with DJI GO which seemed this time to be OK.

A complete software crash from Litchi on flight 1 has not filled me with optimism and I am relieved I didn't go ahead with the initial planned Misson.
This will need quite a few dry runs until I'm confident.

Sorry, I should mention that I was using Litchi on a virtually new Samsung Tab S 10.5

Anyone else found Litchi Glitchy? (see what I did there).

Jtrjr · Jan 24, 2016

chessman said:
I sat indoors this morning designing an 18 way point mission around a local lake and golf course for my first venture into using Litchi.

Chessman,

I have been using Litchi (Android) since it was in beta, maybe a year to year and 1/2? With both my P2 and P3 Pro. I have also tested a dozen other 3rd party apps. I have flown with Litchi exclusively most of that time. I use DJI Go for settings only. I am also a beta tester for Litchi iOS but haven't spent much time with it for two reasons, the weather has been horrible in the Boonies and Litchi iOS is so very limited at this point. I have done a few test flights with it but that's it.

I agree that your first flight would have been much too ambitious. I would definately do so very short test flights first before tackling something like you described. I have done 6 mile autonomous runs with Litchi (Android), only limited by battery and it works flawlessly.

A couple of things to remember. Litchi will work best when it has the control of the most available resources from your FPV device. Turn off all unnecessary background apps. Most everyone has encountered an app crash while flying, whether DJI Go, Litchi, Ultimate Flight, etc. Even if the app crashes you still have RC control of the bird, you just can't view things on screen. The reason for the app crash could be many different things but usually has to do with other apps or the setup on your device, it's typically not a hardware or Litchi issue.

Litchi iOS has a long way to go before it mirrors Litchi Android. Start out with short flights, make sure everything else is shut down and get comfortable with "how it flies using Litchi". I've become very comfortable with Litchi and have done some incredible flying with it. You just need to work with it a bit. Good luck, be safe and happy flying!

Jerry

chessman · Jan 24, 2016

Hello Jerry, and thanks.
Yes I agree it was definitely a case of diving in the deep end.
I'm confident the mission would have gone Ok but thought I'd best not release it until I got a grip of the User Interface.
You could be right with other apps running as this tablet seems to keep running most apps recently used. Ill have to make sure the ram is idling unhindered in future. Saying that, it had no effect on the DJI Go app right after, but I will err on the side of caution next time out, and keep her low.
Thank god for RTH.
On the subject of the UI, is there a radar setting on Litchi as on the stock app which constantly gives a coloured straight line pointing to the home point? I always find this helpful on DJI Go.

mwg27 · Jan 24, 2016

I've gotten the "unfortunately Litchi has stopped" message twice in a 9 minute mission with the Shield K1 in airplane mode and all background apps off.

I simply hit ok and reopen it. Luckily it has always reopened.

Anything else I should try?

Note not a purposeful thread hijack but it's a good title to rope onto ;-)

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

mwg27 · Jan 24, 2016

Just went out and flew it a second time. It happened again but onlyonce this time.

I deleted and reinstalled the app before I flew it again.

Report sent to Litchi during the second crash.

Is it always this glitchy?

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

Jtrjr · Jan 24, 2016

chessman said:
Hello Jerry, and thanks.

Chess,

I just looked at the iOS version and I don't see the radar/compass. It's not the same in Android. I have to be a little careful here because aside from a few test flights with the iOS beta version, I haven't used the iOS version much. You should be able to see your orientation (if that's what you're looking for) in the map view.

Jerry

Jtrjr · Jan 24, 2016

mwg27 said:
Anything else I should try?

Mwg,

Now you're taking this to the Droid version. The OP was asking about the iOS version. I don't want to be responsible for taking this off-topic. However, I use the Sheild 90% of the time. The key for me was to "lock" the pad down, a fresh reset, no auto updates, only the apps I use for flying installed. I do not use my Sheild for anything but flight apps. It has worked flawlessly for months since I did the reset and locked it down.

Jerry

shockwave199 · Jan 24, 2016

For my first ios litchi flight last week I was ambitious enough to do a 34 point mission, lol. It went perfectly. For me, IOS litchi is not something to manually fly in right now. I would only do that in the go app, where I have all my visuals and guides for manually flying. Litchi for me is mission only, comfortable in the knowledge that it will fly my mission no matter what. The app and the mission performed perfectly, using my air2. What I don't do is record the screen during the mission. I don't want to put added processing in the mix for now and I don't really care about screen recording. I can't wait to fly all the missions I've been plotting! This is the first, very ambitious mission from last week. However what I was careful to do just for my own comfort was to have the bird true los the whole time. Good luck with your missions.