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Anafi control disconnect mid-flight

Satdiver

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Oct 26, 2019
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Location
Vancouver Washington
All,

I'm hoping someone might be able to explain why this happened as I have since lost all confidence in my Anafi due to it's unpredictable behavior. Yesterday while flying for a real estate photo shoot, I have the Anafi hovering at about 45-50 ft, AGL while I'm setting up for the next shot and when I look down, the screen is nothing but static and I have no control. I had only been in the air about 6-8 minutes or so so I knew I had some time to try and reconnect.
I tried everything I could think of to reconnect. Closed and opened the controller, unplugged and plugged in the USB cable, rebooted the iPad Mini, etc. I tried to connect it to my iPhone also which I have used to fly the Anafi in the past and while the phone indicated it was connected to the Anafi's WiFi, it still showed nothing but static and had no control input whatsoever. I have had this happen once with our Anafi Thermal at work and when I unplugged and plugged the cable from the controller, it would reconnect. No luck on this one.
I was feverishly trying to reconnect while keeping an eye on it as I expected it to fly-away! Since I could not get anything to reconnect, my last hope was that it would RTH when the battery got low. Fortunately, it didn't fly-away but it did end up landing on the roof of a house that it was now hovering over the edge of as you can see by the short video attached here. The only other time I had any sort of an issue with this drone was in this very same neighborhood over a year ago. At that time, upon launching, it was acting weird and somewhat uncontrollable while hovering and as it started to pitch to the right I was able to make it land. Because of this earlier incident, I made sure to shift over to a completely clear 5GHz channel before this flight. I still think it might be something in that neighborhood but I can't see anything that sticks out like it would cause any interference other than the normal WiFi signals.

Prior to the disconnection I did not receive any warnings or errors. This is a refurbished unit that I got off of Amazon but have had no issues other than the two mentioned above. The controller, drone and all batteries are updated to the latest firmware.

I've attached the JSON file as well to see if any of the pros out there can tell me what might have happened.

Thank you.
 
Last edited:
All,

I'm hoping someone might be able to explain why this happened as I have since lost all confidence in my Anafi due to it's unpredictable behavior. Yesterday while flying for a real estate photo shoot, I have the Anafi hovering at about 45-50 ft, AGL while I'm setting up for the next shot and when I look down, the screen is nothing but static and I have no control. I had only been in the air about 6-8 minutes or so so I knew I had some time to try and reconnect.
I tried everything I could think of to reconnect. Closed and opened the controller, unplugged and plugged in the USB cable, rebooted the iPad Mini, etc. I tried to connect it to my iPhone also which I have used to fly the Anafi in the past and while the phone indicated it was connected to the Anafi's WiFi, it still showed nothing but static and had no control input whatsoever. I have had this happen once with our Anafi Thermal at work and when I unplugged and plugged the cable from the controller, it would reconnect. No luck on this one.
I was feverishly trying to reconnect while keeping an eye on it as I expected it to fly-away! Since I could not get anything to reconnect, my last hope was that it would RTH when the battery got low. Fortunately, it didn't fly-away but it did end up landing on the roof of a house that it was now hovering over the edge of as you can see by the short video attached here. The only other time I had any sort of an issue with this drone was in this very same neighborhood over a year ago. At that time, upon launching, it was acting weird and somewhat uncontrollable while hovering and as it started to pitch to the right I was able to make it land. Because of this earlier incident, I made sure to shift over to a completely clear 5GHz channel before this flight. I still think it might be something in that neighborhood but I can't see anything that sticks out like it would cause any interference other than the normal WiFi signals.

Prior to the disconnection I did not receive any warnings or errors. This is a refurbished unit that I got off of Amazon but have had no issues other than the two mentioned above. The controller, drone and all batteries are updated to the latest firmware.

I've attached the JSON file as well to see if any of the pros out there can tell me what might have happened.

Thank you.
I'm not sure why the files didn't attach to the original post? Attempting again.
 
Hi, wifi disconnects are caused by low signal strength, obstacles, (blocking the signal) and jamming, (other peoples home or business wifi) My experience with Parrot drones is don't try to fly them. I almost exclusively program the flight, (flight plan, pix4d capture,) why do i do that? because the anafi is a compromise drone in that what it does do it does well and the rest it doesn't do at all. if you learn to use flight plan this drone is magic.
Bill
 
All,

I'm hoping someone might be able to explain why this happened as I have since lost all confidence in my Anafi due to it's unpredictable behavior. Yesterday while flying for a real estate photo shoot, I have the Anafi hovering at about 45-50 ft, AGL while I'm setting up for the next shot and when I look down, the screen is nothing but static and I have no control. I had only been in the air about 6-8 minutes or so so I knew I had some time to try and reconnect.
I tried everything I could think of to reconnect. Closed and opened the controller, unplugged and plugged in the USB cable, rebooted the iPad Mini, etc. I tried to connect it to my iPhone also which I have used to fly the Anafi in the past and while the phone indicated it was connected to the Anafi's WiFi, it still showed nothing but static and had no control input whatsoever. I have had this happen once with our Anafi Thermal at work and when I unplugged and plugged the cable from the controller, it would reconnect. No luck on this one.
I was feverishly trying to reconnect while keeping an eye on it as I expected it to fly-away! Since I could not get anything to reconnect, my last hope was that it would RTH when the battery got low. Fortunately, it didn't fly-away but it did end up landing on the roof of a house that it was now hovering over the edge of as you can see by the short video attached here. The only other time I had any sort of an issue with this drone was in this very same neighborhood over a year ago. At that time, upon launching, it was acting weird and somewhat uncontrollable while hovering and as it started to pitch to the right I was able to make it land. Because of this earlier incident, I made sure to shift over to a completely clear 5GHz channel before this flight. I still think it might be something in that neighborhood but I can't see anything that sticks out like it would cause any interference other than the normal WiFi signals.

Prior to the disconnection I did not receive any warnings or errors. This is a refurbished unit that I got off of Amazon but have had no issues other than the two mentioned above. The controller, drone and all batteries are updated to the latest firmware.

I've attached the JSON file as well to see if any of the pros out there can tell me what might have happened.

Thank you.
Can you advice what was your firmware version during this incident .
 
Yes, it is clearly seen, after ~6min the WiFi signal strenght remain constant at the last value. This means connection lost, no change at 'wifi_signal' except two shifts later (maybe this indicates tries to reconnect).
Diagramm für WiFi Signalstärke_01.png

There is indication or hint why this happened. All looks good so far, telemetry still received all the time. I think the RC connection is still established.
Fluglage_1.png


There is a reason why I do not trust the apps. I, personally, prefere a real RC controller.

br HE
 

Attachments

  • 0914_2021-07-20T135529-0700_385584_001B_kml.zip
    94 KB · Views: 7
Yes, it is clearly seen, after ~6min the WiFi signal strenght remain constant at the last value. This means connection lost, no change at 'wifi_signal' except two shifts later (maybe this indicates tries to reconnect).
View attachment 5704

There is indication or hint why this happened. All looks good so far, telemetry still received all the time. I think the RC connection is still established.
View attachment 5705


There is a reason why I do not trust the apps. I, personally, prefere a real RC controller.

br HE
Thank you h-elsner. Once control was lost, the drone was just hovering in place and I tried to reconnect multiple times with the controller and then my phone without the Skycontroller. My phone actually connected to the wifi of the Anafi but there was no video connection nor was I able to make any control inputs. It just hovered until it landed on the roof! At least it wasn't damaged but after this issue, it's hard to trust it won't happen again.
 
Thank you h-elsner. Once control was lost, the drone was just hovering in place and I tried to reconnect multiple times with the controller and then my phone without the Skycontroller. My phone actually connected to the wifi of the Anafi but there was no video connection nor was I able to make any control inputs. It just hovered until it landed on the roof! At least it wasn't damaged but after this issue, it's hard to trust it won't happen again.
What's the wifi band frequency you selected? 2.4G or 5G? If you want to have stable and non-interference strength wifi signal, I suggest you using with 5G (channel 161 or 165) by manual is better!!
 
Can you try to find the blackbox log files? There are more information in, unfortunately only over the last minute. But alarms and some other interesting values are over the whole flight. I think it is worth to look also in those.

I think here are hints where to find:

br HE
 
Can you try to find the blackbox log files? There are more information in, unfortunately only over the last minute. But alarms and some other interesting values are over the whole flight. I think it is worth to look also in those.

I think here are hints where to find:

br HE
h-elsner, I have looked at the SD card and can't find the .log files. Any other ideas where they may be?

Thank you
 
I don't have an Anafi, I cannot clearly say where the data are. The files are somewhere on the filesystem of the device where FF6 is running. I hoped the link above would be helpful. The file name is either *.json or without file extension. I think it depends on used OS (Android or iOS).

br HE
 
I don't have an Anafi, I cannot clearly say where the data are. The files are somewhere on the filesystem of the device where FF6 is running. I hoped the link above would be helpful. The file name is either *.json or without file extension. I think it depends on used OS (Android or iOS).

br HE
h-elsner,
I found the blackbox files on the Ipad 4 mini that I used for the flight. I tried to upload them here but the forum won't allow it as it is not an approved file extension. What program is used to open and view these?

Thank you
 
To upload files zip it. ZIP files are accepted. ZIP archives are also good to upload a couple of files in one step.

To open the files I use:
Windows64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/ShowAnafiLog.zip
LINUX 64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/ShowAnafiLog.tar.gz
User manual: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/pdf/ShowAnafiLog.pdf

The user manual has no description regarding BlackBox files yet. I was lazy. The blackbox files must have file extension .json to let the app find it. Possibly you have to rename the files if they don't have the file extension.

br HE
 
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To upload files zip it. ZIP files are accepted. ZIP archives are also good to upload a couple of files in one step.

To open the files I use:
Windows64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/ShowAnafiLog.zip
LINUX 64bit: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/downloads/ShowAnafiLog.tar.gz
User manual: http://h-elsner.mooo.com/pdf/ShowAnafiLog.pdf

The user manual has no description regarding BlackBox files yet. I was lazy. The blackbox files must have file extension .json to let the app find it. Possibly you have to rename the files if they don't have the file extension.

br HE
h-elsner,

Blackbox log files renamed with ,json as mentioned. I will try and decipher what I can but if you see anything of interest, please let me know. Thank you for your assistance with this!
 

Attachments

  • 7366a0b664ef8fa9346598348569c4ac.json
    2.9 KB · Views: 5
  • e1eebbd190a7e4f10d7f06fee3601c17.json
    17.2 KB · Views: 5
h-elsner,

Blackbox log files renamed with ,json as mentioned. I will try and decipher what I can but if you see anything of interest, please let me know. Thank you for your assistance with this!
I tried opening these with the ShowAnafilogs program and they don't appear to have any info associated that the program can extract. Any ideas?

Thank you
 
Both attachment files are zipped. If I unzip them, I can read it with ShowAnafiLog 2.0.

br HE
 
Both BlackBox files don't match to the JSON file from the flight. Boot-ID and time are different.

br HE
 

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