My phone re-booted mid-flight

[sthoward]

Hi all, about 2 weeks ago I was flying my Anafi when my phone suddenly re-booted while the drone was in the air. The drone detected the loss of signal and initiated a return to home, so I can't really fault the drone. But I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and maybe has some advice on how to avoid it?

The phone is an iPhone 8 Plus running the latest IOS release 12.

 

[Skydreamer]

Hi all, about 2 weeks ago I was flying my Anafi when my phone suddenly re-booted while the drone was in the air. The drone detected the loss of signal and initiated a return to home, so I can't really fault the drone. But I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and maybe has some advice on how to avoid it?

The phone is an iPhone 8 Plus running the latest IOS release 12.

Thats very interesting...with or without phone your anafi will stay connected to controller as long they are in range and you are still pointing controller towards anafi....what you experienced has nothing to do with anafi but your phone(??)...if anafi initiated RTH because you lost display then i find it preaty cool feature,being blind with drone up in the air sucks

 

[MrGadget]

Only suggestion I’d make, if this does happen to you would be to force a reboot before starting a flight - may prevent it occurring during flight!

 

[AugerIn]

I’ve had my iphone die completely and still used the controller to fly home - were you flying with just the phone and wifi?

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

I’ve had my iphone die completely and still used the controller to fly home - were you flying with just the phone and wifi?

Same on Android:
If my phone hangs, I can still fly my bird home with the controller.
Of course: if flying only with phone (Wifi connected), then if phone hangs, Anafi will stay hoovering, but NOT doing RTH unless out of battery power.

 

[CraigCam]

And this is why I use old phones with no phone line for piloting. The major flaw of phone apps is it’s a phone! Try do not disturb next time if it’s an iPhone and airplane mode if it’s an Android. With a no SIM card phone, this is never a problem and I fiddle less with Wi-Fi.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[sthoward]

Thanks all for the feedback.

I was flying with phone only, no controller.

Good idea about forcing a reboot, I will do that next time before I fly.

I can’t fault the Anafi at all, it did exactly what it was suppose to do. It does have me a little spooked about the phone however. It’s hard to see how the Anafi app could cause a reboot unless it somehow triggered a fault in IOS.

 

[Seitenwerk]

Usually it’s really really unlikely that an app can force a reboot of your iOS device. iOS is pretty strict when it comes to how apps can affect your system. So for example if an app wreaks havoc with your memory by suddenly demanding to much the system will just kill it bevor anything bad can happen. So if a reboot happened, that must mean some rare and special error must have happened, maybe not even related to the currently running app. If you own a Mac you could just read out the log files of you phone and find out what exactly happened.

 

[Simon H]

Just as a precaution I swipe away all open apps and always work with a full phone battery, my iPhone 6S has been known to shut down and reboot with the battery at 20 odd percent so I don't risk if the battery is low.

 

[AugerIn]

Just as a precaution I swipe away all open apps and always work with a full phone battery, my iPhone 6S has been known to shut down and reboot with the battery at 20 odd percent so I don't risk if the battery is low.

Oh man, you just missed the cuttoff for cheaper battery replacement. Up until Dec 30th you could have gotten a new battery for 29$. Now it’s back up to 79.

They were able to do it without shipping it anywhere, just hung around the mall for an hour while they swapped it.

Probably still worth it to have a phone that has most of a charge at the end of the day and doesn’t cut out when you do something processor intensive ( like connect to your drone and ask it to process stream video and process it in real time ).

 

[Efliernz]

I just try to reduce the risk... fully-charged iphone, no apps open.
Phone to Airplane-mode.
I turn the Anafi on so it gets GPS.
I open the controller
I open the FF6 before connecting the USB to the controller.
1 in 10 times the video is black, so I remove the USB and re-plug in.

I have found (purely for me) that the connectivity works better if I open FF6 manually first, rather than plugging in the iphone and getting "do you allow freeflight to open".

I had the video freeze just after take-off on Saturday and I needed to restart the FF6 app but the Anafi just hovered and waited for me. I could still control the Anafi.

I'm still a newbie with this machine but I try to be consistent in my connection routine - just like doing a basic site check around you before take-off (trees, powerlines, people, dogs... Wifi/network ok, battery power check once hovering for 10 seconds - while it sets the takeoff GPS position.)
Check-lists are worth it. You should never be in such a hurry that you haven't done your checks!