Freeflight 6 mod app

[Jagerbomb52]

in addition when I go to the states I want the drone to switch to FCC. I think we can clearly see that this will NOT be the case as they have locked it in, so from that point of view they have taken away one of my options.

Well I disagree that it will not switch to FCC mode when and if you come to North America. What is happening now is your Anafi's firmware is telling the App "Nope do not switch to FCC because I am still in the UK" as it is using the Anafi's GPS and not your phones GPS to determine its location. When you come and visit us on this side of the ocean with your Anafi and fire it up it will say "Hey cool I am in North America now and I can switch to FCC mode"
Thats my take on what is going to happen.

 

[d95gas]

Nope, believe me the Anafi GPS thinks I am in USA, New York to be precise. This has been confirmed multiple times. Parrot agree that its not right and that they are currently working on release of 1.65 which will hopefully resolve issues.

Fingers crossed

 

[Wollie80]

Maybe it's an option to update with the next firmware. Put aluminum foil over the drone and install the firmware with fake gps. It cannot be that Parrot continues to lock the FCC.

I agree with d95gas that we pay a lot of money and after we have buy a product they will change things. seems Tesla with the Autopilot.

 

[d95gas]

Tried the silver foil trick with and without FakeGPS/Floater and definitely no switching at all. The guy at Parrot I spoke to "implied" he was aware of the situation, and information had been passed back to developers.

For me its the principal of it.

 

[Gipsz Jakab]

Nope, believe me the Anafi GPS thinks I am in USA, New York to be precise. This has been confirmed multiple times. Parrot agree that its not right and that they are currently working on release of 1.65 which will hopefully resolve issues.

Fingers crossed

You can't fool the new firmware with previous methods. But that does not mean that there is no switch in any FCC country.
The 1.6.3 firmware could still be tricked, so anyone who upgraded to FCC considered it as the default, who in CE took it as the default, and then neither Fake GPS nor FF6_FCC beat it.
I don't think they'll change that because it's just legal compliance ...
I think that's what happened.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Nope, believe me the Anafi GPS thinks I am in USA, New York to be precise. This has been confirmed multiple times. Parrot agree that its not right and that they are currently working on release of 1.65 which will hopefully resolve issues.

Fingers crossed

No the Anafi GPS knows you are in the UK, your phone and App thinks you are in the USA. Big difference.

 

[antiquant]

No the Anafi GPS knows you are in the UK, your phone and App thinks you are in the USA. Big difference.

Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to arguing with moderator, but... IMHO, being turned on, ANAFI HAS NO IDEA where it is now until its GPS receiver module get fix on SPS (Standard Positioning Service). Especially, indoors, inside a building with concrete walls and/or metal roof - in such case, being far from windows, it'll probably never find out where it is. Although, it potentially could remember where it was last time when its GPS was fixed on SPS. In my case, I'm piloting it with phone in Flight (sic!) mode (with cell network transceiver and wifi being turned off - though, in some cases you can actually turn on wifi whilst your phone is still in Flight mode and 3G/4G transceiver is off - it helps a lot to save your phone' battery when you're online via wifi) So no SIM cards, no cell network data from transceiver (it is off) even without a SIM, no wifi location data (I pre-download hybrid map of interested area for next flight hours or days before actual flight). If ANAFI' new FW can swap channels (even if they were set manually) and change power limits of its transmitter on the go, being in a field or, even, in the air - then this is not good for flight safety, IMO. I assume that with new firmware ANAFI and/or FF app just doesn't toggle controller's/drone's transmitters between CE and FCC modes (or - only from CE to FCC) if location of one device (phone with app or the ANAFI) is uncertain or their locations differ too much. BUT, when the new FW is downloaded (to ANAFI) first time, FF app is using phone location (getting it either from wifi/internet service provider (less probable: it can locate you miles away from your actual position), cell mobile network or, very likely, phone's GPS/Fake GPS app/phone's Region) for initial setting up RF compliance mode. That is why some people in Europe updated FW of their ANAFIs (even from modded FF app with select-by-reset option) and now their drones stuck to FCC mode (not CE). Anyway, I personally wouldn' t risk now and will stay with modded app and with 6.6.2(203) fw. Thank you, guys and gals, for sharing important information!
(BTW, I think that downgrading of FW is technically possible on any mass-produced device by jtag-ing its uC/SoC or desoldering its FLASH ic and writing a dump from another identical device to it - but then you probably (but not compulsorly) lose some calibration data and unique serial number. Even if you've been eaten you have two options to get out)

 

[Jagerbomb52]

The new Anafi firmware would seem it is taking the physical location of the Anafi. If after bootup it does not get the proper country codes to switch from CE to FCC then it will stay in CE mode. I'm no programmer but think of it as a unlock code that the Anafi sends to the RC and phone\tablet. If the GPS on the Anafi does nothing as you say then why have it?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

If Mr d95gas wants to send his Anafi to me here in Canada and pay postage here and back I would be more then happy to test out this theory

 

[antiquant]

The new Anafi firmware would seem it is taking the physical location of the Anafi. If after bootup it does not get the proper country codes to switch from CE to FCC then it will stay in CE mode. I'm no programmer but think of it as a unlock code that the Anafi sends to the RC and phone\tablet. If the GPS on the Anafi does nothing as you say then why have it?

I didn't say that Anafi GPS does nothing, I said quiet opposite (and I asked not to get me wrong). Actually, you say almost the same thing in other words that I said, look it up. Except that this is Anafi have to get some data from app and increase (or decrease, or do nothing) the power of its own wifi transmitter depending on what data it receives from app and compares with its own data. I suppose that changing (or not) the transmitting power of controller is only the second step (you actually can control Anafi without it). You also could check your theory using GPS spoofer.
About your last question. Here is why have it: to RTH, for geofence, for flight plan mode, to measure altitude and correct data from IMU' barometric sensor (AMSL to AGL conversion, but I doubt ANAFI actually does it), for NFZ and height limitations in surrounding areas (OK, last thing is about DJI - but Parrot could also implement it).

 

[d95gas]

If Mr d95gas wants to send his Anafi to me here in Canada and pay postage here and back I would be more then happy to test out this theory

That may be an option to put this one to bed once and for all.

Parrot did indicate that they were aware that it wasn't working like it should.

I have also used GPS Spoofing, phone set to USA and all mapping is showing me in the spoofed location, including the Anafi maps.

You would think that given it can take some time for the Anafi to get GPS Lock, that when it was determining its location (Country code):

Is GPS Available.... If YES..... All is good and set location. If NO GPS... Get Phone Location. If Phone location is available, then all is good. If No GPS and No Phone Location..... Set to last known location.

thats how everything else I know of works. Anafi were particular in telling me "change your phone's region to US and the app will adapt accordingly." Those were their exact words.

I have tried the old "Tin Foil" trick over the GPS, my next move would be to remove the GPS and see what it has to say about that, or as you suggested, tin foil then top hat back on.

Only thing I have not tried is by using a VPN set to USA, and also use FakeGPS.

Phone I use for testing is an AT&T XT2 - No Sim.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I didn't say that Anafi GPS does nothing, I said quiet opposite (and I asked not to get me wrong). Actually, you say exactly the same thing in other words that I said, look it up.
About last question. Here is why have it: to RTH, for geofence, for flight plan mode, to measure altitude and correct data from IMU' barometric sensor (AMSL to AGL conversion, but I doubt ANAFI actually does it), for NFZ and height limitations in surrounding areas (OK, last thing is about DJI - but Parrot could also implement it).

You might have said the same thing but mine was shorter. My ADHD must have been kicking in reading yours ?

 

[DaveW]

The anafi will know it's last location. So it might be worth taking it indoors to where you can't get a gps fix, then do a hard reset on the anafi, which would hopefully bin the last location, agps data, etc... Then, assuming your phone thinks it's in FCC land see what happens...
Alternatively buy a cheap GPS jammer.....

 

[d95gas]

The anafi will know it's last location. So it might be worth taking it indoors to where you can't get a gps fix, then do a hard reset on the anafi, which would hopefully bin the last location, agps data, etc... Then, assuming your phone thinks it's in FCC land see what happens...
Alternatively buy a cheap GPS jammer.....

All operations have been indoors, and have been very very careful to try and prevent it getting any sort of GPS lock. On the last occasion I used Tin Foil over the GPS location.

My phone and tablet, have always shown my position as New York, which is what I am spoofing. Even the Anafi FF6 application, when I load the maps shows me exactly where I am spoofing.

Phone location is set to USA, and I always factory reset the phone and stop it getting a GPS lock. So for all intents and purposes, everything I am using believes I am stood in New York.

Would love to find a way to sort this as there are many others out there who are having the same issues.

 

[antiquant]

That may be an option to put this one to bed once and for all.

Parrot did indicate that they were aware that it wasn't working like it should.

I have also used GPS Spoofing, phone set to USA and all mapping is showing me in the spoofed location, including the Anafi maps.

You would think that given it can take some time for the Anafi to get GPS Lock, that when it was determining its location (Country code):

Is GPS Available.... If YES..... All is good and set location. If NO GPS... Get Phone Location. If Phone location is available, then all is good. If No GPS and No Phone Location..... Set to last known location.

thats how everything else I know of works. Anafi were particular in telling me "change your phone's region to US and the app will adapt accordingly." Those were their exact words.

I have tried the old "Tin Foil" trick over the GPS, my next move would be to remove the GPS and see what it has to say about that, or as you suggested, tin foil then top hat back on.

Only thing I have not tried is by using a VPN set to USA, and also use FakeGPS.

Phone I use for testing is an AT&T XT2 - No Sim.

I and DaveW are talking about hardware GPS spoofer/jammer, are you? (although you can be prosecuted for using it in some jurisdictions).

 

[d95gas]

Ye

I and DaveW are talking about hardware GPS spoofer/jammer, do you? (although you can be prosecuted for using it in some jurisdictions).

We are all singing from the same song sheet

 

[d95gas]

The other option of course is to find a way to fallback to previous firmware version. I don't believe that Parrot don't have a system for doing that. There is a menu option when you link to the system via wifi and going to its IP address. The threads I have come across, where they have extracted the firmware from the OBB file and then tried to downgrade have failed.


The way I look at it, there must be a way, Parrot R&D are likely using it as part of testing prior to release of firmware. They said it wasn't possible on the Mavic Pro, but that was soon proven wrong.

Unfortunately my skillset is more hardware than reverse engineering.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

The other option of course is to find a way to fallback to previous firmware version. I don't believe that Parrot don't have a system for doing that. There is a menu option when you link to the system via wifi and going to its IP address. The threads I have come across, where they have extracted the firmware from the OBB file and then tried to downgrade have failed.


The way I look at it, there must be a way, Parrot R&D are likely using it as part of testing prior to release of firmware. They said it wasn't possible on the Mavic Pro, but that was soon proven wrong.

Unfortunately my skillset is more hardware than reverse engineering.

I have only seen it done once with firmware. That was the Autel X-Star when they actually admitted to screwing up and had to roll back to the last known good firmware but even that one had advanced the firmware number by one. Same old firmware but the version number had changed. They even admitted to that.

On the Yuneec system we used to roll back the RC and the camera firmware by renaming the file by point one number but the UAV firmware was all bundled up and hard to change anything unless you really knew what you where doing. There has been one fellow who just liked testing his skills and has come up with a process to do it now but the Q500 is so old now no one cares. LOL

 

[d95gas]

I have only seen it done once with firmware. That was the Autel X-Star when they actually admitted to screwing up and had to roll back to the last known good firmware but even that one had advanced the firmware number by one. Same old firmware but the version number had changed. They even admitted to that.

On the Yuneec system we used to roll back the RC and the camera firmware by renaming the file by point one number but the UAV firmware was all bundled up and hard to change anything unless you really knew what you where doing. There has been one fellow who just liked testing his skills and has come up with a process to do it now but the Q500 is so old now no one cares. LOL

With the Mavic Pro, we were fortunate to have a small group who had some very good programming skills.... thats how NLD (NoLimitDronez) was born.

With NLD we are able to go up and down on Firmware's at will, even pulling specific elements from each firmware to cook a bespoke firmware.

The guys over there were also looking at the Anafi, and did indicate that on the next release of NLD there may be something for the Anafi flyers.

Many of the main group have multiple devices, so the aim was to try and use one application to deal with both devices. I keep an eye on the Slack group and on NLD hoping and praying they will pull something off, I know for a fact they definitely have the right skills.

It didn't taken them long to root the Mavic Pro, and open it up totally, including the DJI No Fly Zones (NFZ) which were a joke, their restrictions were so far off reality, which led to a great deal of frustration for flyers. But we will have to wait and see, in the meantime I have not thrown the towel in yet

 

[antiquant]

With the Mavic Pro, we were fortunate to have a small group who had some very good programming skills.... thats how NLD (NoLimitDronez) was born.

With NLD we are able to go up and down on Firmware's at will, even pulling specific elements from each firmware to cook a bespoke firmware.

The guys over there were also looking at the Anafi, and did indicate that on the next release of NLD there may be something for the Anafi flyers.

Many of the main group have multiple devices, so the aim was to try and use one application to deal with both devices. I keep an eye on the Slack group and on NLD hoping and praying they will pull something off, I know for a fact they definitely have the right skills.

It didn't taken them long to root the Mavic Pro, and open it up totally, including the DJI No Fly Zones (NFZ) which were a joke, their restrictions were so far off reality, which led to a great deal of frustration for flyers. But we will have to wait and see, in the meantime I have not thrown the towel in yet

sounds like a rebel. NFZ purpose is to aware and to save average end user from getting into troubles. But if you've got an official permission from local authorities but still cannot fly because of NFZ fw restriction - yes, this is a kind of a problem. I don't doubt skills of any nation, but, AFAIK, DJI developers locate in China (may be they are international crew, I don't know). And Parrot developers settle in France. When I open up, for example, China-made oscilloscope, I see SoC ic with grinded off markings (pretty dumb method of intellectual property protection, IMO, as you can see or trace every contact and its purpose and eventually find out specific component by its datasheet). French developers can actually use decent encryption of fw stored in a FLASH ic (using HW encryption capabilities provided by manufacturer of SoC) - and programme in decrypted form will exist only in RAM whilst being executed. Less probable, just thoughts. But almost nothing is impossible, never say never. What one could build up, other can always disassemble.