DroneDeploy Pre-v4.2 Lag/Freeze/Crash (Latest Interface)

Andrew_Fraser · December 13, 2019, 3:41am

Can you try quitting other apps before flying to see if that helps?

Overall data on app performance and flights looks normal, so this may be a fairly isolated issue but we definitely want to get it resolved for you all!

dhall2276 · December 13, 2019, 4:02am

I closed all apps except DD during the flights and still had the same issues.

LabellaRVA · December 13, 2019, 6:34pm

I’m having a similar issue on iPad mini 4, Phantom 4, Dronedeploy 4.0.0, iOS 13.2.3

Andrew_Fraser · December 13, 2019, 7:34pm

Does anyone have a video of the issue? We want to make sure we know exactly what you’re seeing. Thanks!

eresearch · December 15, 2019, 5:11am

This is happening to me too, second day in a row:
DD Version: 4.0.0
iPad 6th Gen 9.7 w/ iOS 12.3.1
No other apps running

No video but I did take screen shots - the white lines that don’t follow the flight path are where the software tried to catch up. Ignore the background, I’m working remotely and rarely see a basemap. Most important for my work, the FP indicated 154 photos were to be taken, I ended up with only 66. I second @Dave - please, please make a prior version available in the interim!

dhall2276 · December 15, 2019, 2:06pm

This is the best I have for now. Screenshot from a short video where the drone had lost connection as the app crashed. I rebooted.and it actually reconnected with the drone on this example but when I went into the project it only gave me this screen to continue the mission as if the drone was already on the ground and ready to take start up again. You can see the home location and that the drone is actually in flight but the app thinks it has only run the first two lines and needs to pickup where it lost connection. This was a short flight and the drone did complete the flight and attempted to RTH but when it started to land it gave me the message that there was not enough GPS and for the pilot to take over. I was able to upload the data and complete the map but when I go back into flight mode on the project it stilll shows incomplete and won’t sync the flight log. .

GeoTech · December 15, 2019, 3:33pm

This is a constant for me. It happens on every mapping mission when returning home on completion. The drone continues to land normally, so I usually ignore the warning.

P4P, iPad mini 4, latest app and iOS versions.

EricH · December 16, 2019, 1:30am

Same issue happening
3 out of 5 flights on Friday 13 November - warning that GPS signal is lost and needed to manually land drone. I stuck with the DD software and drone landed safely the first time - so ignored warnings for next two times this issue came up.
On second flight the picture lag was slow - all the other fights were small reserves so no further than 400m away from controller.

iPad mini 4 - software 12.4
Phantom 4 Adv
DD version 4.0.0

txdroneco · December 16, 2019, 9:03pm

I’m not able to provide specifics, but I also have these issues recently. In fact, DD did not capture 5 acres of images in a 250 acre map. This has never happened with DD before, even with lost connectivity. I have also had it drop connectivity with drone in flight never to be recovered again.

I’m running P4Pro, iPad Mini 4, and DD 4.0

Bonita_Mahan · December 16, 2019, 11:34pm

I am having the exact same issues. I have all the latest updates on DD and iPad mini 4.

MichaelL · December 17, 2019, 12:04am

I wasn’t able to fly today and winds look like not for a couple of days, but I will try to get some footage as soon as I can. Anyone who can please help. It’s obvious this bug is becoming more prevelant. Just email it to support@dronedeploy.com and mention @Andrew_Fraser. Thanks!

MichaelL · December 17, 2019, 12:29am

For the people that are freezing and particularly crashing, what specific version of iOS are you running. I have stayed one update back and have only experienced lag. No full freezing or crashes.

Let’s try to keep this in this thread.

LabellaRVA · December 17, 2019, 2:47pm

I was actually using an older version of iOS (not sure which one) when I discovered this problem. Updating to 13.2.3 actually helped, a tiny bit. I was freezing about 5 minutes into flight, and on 13.2.3 it’ll go more like 9 minutes. It’s still unusable. All my missions require full multiple batteries.

As I mentioned before, iPad mini 4, Phantom 4, Dronedeploy 4.0.0, iOS 13.2.3

Dave · December 19, 2019, 12:01am

Hi Andrew,

Just following up.

How about providing the previous (pre 4.0.0) version of DD until resolution is nailed down?

robport · December 19, 2019, 6:54pm

I just signed on to report that mine crashed too. It was a two battery mission in controlled airspace. I noticed first that the drone wasn’t following the proper path on the screen. The battery percent dropped in defined increments, rather than linearly and I would get seemingly random updates of the drone’s position on the graphic, but it was always delayed by a long time. About 8 minutes into the flight, all updates stopped. The drone kept following what I thought to be the right path. The pictures, being taken, were shown normally on the bottom left hand of the screen, the whole time, seemingly with no lag.

It was rather disconcerting to suddenly hear the low battery warning and I couldn’t figure out exactly where, in the mission it stopped, so I couldn’t get the rest of the pictures. I could not get the app to restart until over an hour later. At first I blamed the IPAD getting too cold (20’s). After hearing this has happened elsewhere, I thought you guys should know.

Dave · December 20, 2019, 1:05am

Thanks for the report. It would be helpful if you tell us which /ios version/DD version.

robport · December 20, 2019, 2:08am

The IOS system is 13.3.
The Drone Deploy Version is 4.1.0-4.1.0.

Maverick · December 30, 2019, 2:34pm

I second Dave’s request for DD to provide previous working version in the interim; I know for us that mobile version 3.6 was working since we still have a iPad operating this version successfully.

iPad Air (1st gen): iOS 12.4.3
DD error version: 4.0.0 (have not flown DD missions on iPads running 4.0.0 or higher since major issues)
Flying: DJI Inspire 1 v2

Andrew_Fraser · December 30, 2019, 4:42pm

In our testing we’ve found app slowdowns to be associated with older devices. This is especially true while multi-tasking with many apps open. Overall, the number of crashes and memory errors has not changed between versions 3.x and 4.0+.

iPad Mini 4 was released in 2015. We do recommend the iPad Mini 5 released this year. @Maverick the iPad Air (1st Gen) is a 2013 device and not recommended for use with DroneDeploy.

We’re committed to exploring ways to improve speeds for all devices, but do note that older devices are at greater risk of slowdown/crash for all types of software (not just DD). A few notes here:

Running multiple applications on the device will increase risk of slowdown
Live Map is a processing intensive feature so it is possible that disabling will improve performance for older devices

Hope this helps. Happy upcoming New Year’s to all!

Maverick · December 30, 2019, 5:33pm

Thanks for you response Andrew. We are well aware that our iPads are old and not on DD’s supported list and it’s for that reason we ask for access to previous application versions. At mobile version 3.6, everything works(ed) perfectly. And if we have know that newer versions weren’t going to work then we’d have chosen not to update. That said, it is documented that these issues are also NOT just happening on older/non-supported devices. Hoping all gets resolved with the application on your end and we’ll work on upgrading from our older/non-supported devices.

As a standard our flight related iPads have very limited applications loaded, our flight mission standard is to never have anything else running when flying missions with DD, and we never use Live Map.

Thanks for y’alls continued work on our issues. Happy New Year to all!!