Crash with brand new Anafi

[Niczko]

Good day all,

I'm new here, this is my first post.

I took the Anafi out today and it crashed on the first flight. Right before the drone took off, the software updated the firmware in the drone.
The drone was about 10 meters high, 50 steps away - in manual mode - and it fell like a stone. I can't see any reason, there was no obstacle and no strong wind.
The software hasn't recorded the data for that flight, which lasted about 30 seconds. The battery was fully charged.

Well now I can't turn it on. There's no visible damage on the body - but when I press the switch, the LEDs are showing that battery is fully charged and that's all. The LEDs go off and the drone shuts down.

Would anyone know here how I could bring the drone back to life?

Cheers,

Nick

 

[TheDroneRanger]

Hi Niczko!
I'm a brand-new Anafi owner myself - which I imagine won't inspire you with a whole heck of a lot of confidence. :/
...but on the bright side, I did a ton of research before buying the thing, and even MORE before my first flight to ensure that I hopefully wouldn't have any mid-air mishaps!
So a few ideas that you could try:
1) Did you make sure your battery didn't just come loose? If not, remove it, make sure it truly is fully charged, and then reinstall it (make sure you hear the secure "click" when you plug it back in.) Try powering up.
2) You say you updated the firmware on the drone, but did you update the firmware on the REMOTE? ...and also, is your app up to date to the latest version? If not, update both of those & try to power up & connect again. If you ARE able to connect, be sure to also calibrate your drone's compass before your next flight, and also make sure you have solid GPS signal before you take off.
3) You could try resetting the Anafi's network. Another pilot posted this on a thread where someone else was looking for help after a crash:

This... I had a dead Anafi after the last firmware update failed to apply, exactly the same symptoms you describe, no wifi no connection.
Folllowed these steps from a video posted somewhere, worked a charm.
Here is the hard reset procedure for ANAFI.
1. Power ANAFI on.
2. Press the power button and keep it pressed: after approximately 8 seconds, the battery's LEDs turn on red, one after the other.
3. When the 4 LEDs are red, release the power button.
4. ANAFI reboots - a TXT file has been generated on ANAFI's microSD card, which contains ANAFI's Wi-Fi network's password; that's how you can check the hard reset has been successful.

4) If none of those steps work, another pilot suggested removing the cover of the drone body and checking to see if any internal damage occurred, like loose/dislodged connectors or cracks to your motherboard – but that may be a drastic step (not sure I'd be brave enough to take the thing apart unless it's as a last-ditch effort.)
I hope one of those suggestions proves helpful. Good luck, man!

 

[Zamzara]

I'd initially return it to the vendor for a failure that early on. Then try Parrot warranty if no luck.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Return it to vender. Once you start opening things up your warranty is void. Sounds like a dead Flight Control Board.

 

[Niczko]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I can't return the drone to the vendor: I bought it in Europe and I'm now on a trip in South America. I wanted to shoot videos of those places I'm visiting.
I've contacted the support at Parrott: we'll see where this leads to.

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Liger 1956]

Did you have successful flights in Europe with the Anafi before you went on holiday?

 

[IM35461]

That reminds me of an issue I had many years ago.
I bought a Olympus OM2N just before a six week trip to the USA and did not test it assuming it would be fine.

On return home, I took all the 35mm films to be processed and they were all very over exposed.

Olympus said it had a metering fault and gave me a new camera.

 

[Heatherlasc]

I've had my Anafi for about 2 weeks, and yesterday it drifted so badly it crashed and ended up in a raging creek. Non-recoverable. I did the firmware update right before I went out and I feel like the firmware update was the culprit. There was no wind, no errant wifi, fully charged batteries, and I was using the controller. And a ton of drift. I was only out about 5 mins before the big crash and flying very conservatively. I am so disappointed.

 

[Niczko]

Good day,

So I contacted the support team. It took a long time: they needed pictures of the drone, copy of the invoice, serial number, explanations etc. It took me various emails to gather all the information and today I got the following reply from the support team:

This is Alex from Parrot support team and I am happy to be helping with your case # 1312438, concerning your Parrot Anafi.

We are sorry to tell you that the warrant has been denied by our Escalation Team as there are no flight data that we can access to complete the investigation.

Please note that if you agree we can send the drone to our repair center, however any repairs that would be done will be chargeable.

It is always our aim at Parrot to provide you, our customer, with top quality service to the best of our ability.

Kind Regards,
Alex S.
Parrot Customer Support
Office Hours: Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
+44(0)2034815677

So I'm being denied support after the crash (failure 1) because the app didn't record flight data (failure 2)!!!

I don't know what I can do, there's no flight data - only an empty mp4 video file (0 bytes) and a tmp file (55 MB).

The crash happened 2 weeks after I bought the drone brand new.

Nick

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

The flight is not listed under My Flights in the app?

 

[Niczko]

No it's not. I have no entry for that date.

 

[SMOk3]

Might be a long-shot, but have you tried FlightData Manager?

 

[dominic]

Good day all,

I'm new here, this is my first post.

I took the Anafi out today and it crashed on the first flight. Right before the drone took off, the software updated the firmware in the drone.
The drone was about 10 meters high, 50 steps away - in manual mode - and it fell like a stone. I can't see any reason, there was no obstacle and no strong wind.
The software hasn't recorded the data for that flight, which lasted about 30 seconds. The battery was fully charged.

Well now I can't turn it on. There's no visible damage on the body - but when I press the switch, the LEDs are showing that battery is fully charged and that's all. The LEDs go off and the drone shuts down.

Would anyone know here how I could bring the drone back to life?

Cheers,

Nick

Never stick to the latest firmware update. It always has bugs. Observe. And Let's other people crash first.

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Never stick to the latest firmware update. It always has bugs. Observe. And Let's other people crash first.

Ok, keep your old firmware with it's possibly heavier bugs and less functions.

 

[pmh1nic]

At this point I would send the drone to Parrot, let them diagnose the problem and fix the drone. In the process the may discover the cause of the crash had something to do with the firmware update. It's probably going to be the least expensive route to getting another drone.

 

[Niczko]

Ok, keep your old firmware with it's possibly heavier bugs and less functions.

Well, what happened is that the app got updated automatically. Then when I took out the drone, the app triggered the firmware update.

 

[Niczko]

At this point I would send the drone to Parrot, let them diagnose the problem and fix the drone. In the process the may discover the cause of the crash had something to do with the firmware update. It's probably going to be the least expensive route to getting another drone.

I'm not going to put another cent on this drone. I got a lemon and the support service is a disaster. They have a bunch of preformatted emails, requesting all sort of details that you spend hours replying to - and at the end of the process they send a laconic email telling you that they're not going to keep to their commitments in terms of warranty. Finally, they want you to fill in a survey that I suppose nobody's going to read.

Here's another excerpt of Parrot's literature after I wrote I couldn't understand why they would be denying warranty on a product dead after only 2 weeks - admire the style!

This is Alex from Parrot support team and I am happy to be helping with your case # 1312438, concerning your Parrot Anafi.

Thanks for your reply.

We are sorry to hear that and please be informed that we were advising you as per our policy.

We hope to better serve you in the future.

It is always our aim at Parrot to provide you, our customer, with top quality service to the best of our ability.

Kind Regards,
Alex S.
Parrot Customer Support
Office Hours: Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
1 (877) 972-7768

To ensure we receive your response, please do not modify any formatting or content of the original message (including any reference codes or footers).

 

[pmh1nic]

Ok, keep your old firmware with it's possibly heavier bugs and less functions.

I'm not sure when you say "with it's possibly heavier bugs and less features" it's accurate under all circumstance. There are occasions where an update fixes one issue but causes another. I've heard one manufacturer tell its customers not to do an update if their drone is performing well. For me unless an update is fixing a problem I'm experiencing I won't install it. I might consider installing an update if it provides a significant enhancement that I know I will use.

 

[pmh1nic]

I'm not going to put another cent on this drone. I got a lemon and the support service is a disaster. They have a bunch of preformatted emails, requesting all sort of details that you spend hours replying to - and at the end of the process they send a laconic email telling you that they're not going to keep to their commitments in terms of warranty. Finally, they want you to fill in a survey that I suppose nobody's going to read.

Here's another excerpt of Parrot's literature after I wrote I couldn't understand why they would be denying warranty on a product dead after only 2 weeks - admire the style!

This is Alex from Parrot support team and I am happy to be helping with your case # 1312438, concerning your Parrot Anafi.

Thanks for your reply.

We are sorry to hear that and please be informed that we were advising you as per our policy.

We hope to better serve you in the future.

It is always our aim at Parrot to provide you, our customer, with top quality service to the best of our ability.

Kind Regards,
Alex S.
Parrot Customer Support
Office Hours: Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
1 (877) 972-7768

To ensure we receive your response, please do not modify any formatting or content of the original message (including any reference codes or footers).

I hear your frustration and I'm not discounting it. I'm just cautioning not to throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet. If you toss the drone you're out all the money you paid for it. If you send it in for repair you'll gain a good drone, you'll get their diagnosis of the problem and how to avoid it and just maybe during the diagnosis process they'll discover it was an issue with the drone that caused the crash. And if in the end you are really done with Parrot you should be able to recover some of your cost by selling an operational drone. Just my suggestion.

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

I'm not sure when you say "with it's possibly heavier bugs and less features" it's accurate under all circumstance. There are occasions where an update fixes one issue but causes another. I've heard one manufacturer tell its customers not to do an update if their drone is performing well. For me unless an update is fixing a problem I'm experiencing I won't install it. I might consider installing an update if it provides a significant enhancement that I know I will use.

Of course this a long discussed theme with different opinions.
My opinion:
A product with the possibility to make updates is actual with the newest update and my guarantee refers exactly to this actually updated product.
If the actual update is faulty and something wrong happens, I would tell the vendor and possibly return the product.
On the other hand as a vendor I would reject a returned product, if a problem occured with using an old FW or software.

But my anger here was caused by 2 reasons:
1. Discussing this theme in a theme about a new crashed drone.
2. domincs post #13 with "let's other people crash first ".