I recently bought a new DJI Phantom 4 last week and I have had nothing but trouble with the Drone Deploy Pro Trial. When I map a field where I would like my drone to fly, the app freezes within 5 minutes into the flight. The application says attempting to reconnect but it just ends up freezing. The application is very sluggish. If I swipe on the screen it will take 5 seconds to finally reflect that one swipe, and then fully freeze. I thought maybe it was my LTE signal so then I tried to use the offline feature with little to no luck at all. It will still take the photos, but I have no idea the battery percentage my drone has and I cant use the home feature either because the application is frozen. The transmitter beeps when the battery is low and I push the home button on the transmitter to send the drone back then. After landing I swap the battery and push “continue map”. It will leave off right before it froze, which is about 2 passes on an 80 acre field. When in actuality, the drone had done almost half the field but the Drone Deploy app did not register the drone flying when it was frozen. I was really excited when I heard about this app and it’s disappointing knowing that the software always crashes on me. Luckily the trial is free, if I was paying $100 a month I would be very unhappy! If anyone could offer me a solution to resolve this problem it would be greatly appreciated!
i am using DD also on my 5s iphone and have no issues whatsoever.
maybe support could be of more help if you’d privide more detail on your system.
which FW are you using, which apple device and FW and some screenshots maybe and the map ID.
just going nuts here giving vague detail is unfair in my opinion. i do pay the 100 buck a month and i am more than dösatisfied with the DD team and the app.
try to be more constructive and give more info so one can help in the right direction.
cheers
I’ve recently had the same issue, 2 different Phantom 4 Pro v2 drones different controllers and different iPADs. Both drones are at the latest firmware both iPads are latest iOS, as of today. This just recently started happening, the past 2 days, prior to that the app was pretty solid. I’ve also run into the drone just stopping at the starting point and a couple of time after. I’ve had to pause the mission put the controller into manual mode move the drone around then restart the mission…this also just started happening. I plan on opening a support ticket with them as I’m almost positive it’s something they introduced.
@tyler_s so you are saying that your telemetry and touch control are freezing/hanging?
All,
What version of the DD app are you running? And iOS? I just got an update request this morning on our Mini…
I’m saying the App freezes, shows the drone in 2 places ones stuck the other continues the mission but no telemetry on the screen…speed, battery, altitude, just the drone flying it’s flight path. I let the mission finish, which it did and checked all the photos were there but drone deploy doesn’t know anything about it.
DroneDeploy v 4.38.0 & 4.37.0
iOS v 14.41 on both iPads
Happened on both.
Joe
I remember we lost telemetry around v4.25, but haven’t seen it since. We’ve run 8 missions in the last 2 days with 6 of them having battery swaps and everything was good.
What I have noticed is that there still seem some weird glitches related to connectivity. You have no connectivity, Wi-Fi only, Cellular only or both. Then you have the added condition of the connection quality so no wonder they have so much trouble with it.
While the DroneDeploy app is still easy to use it has allot of features that other apps don’t have to deal with. Almost like we need to start thinking about separating project management and core flight or at least have a pilot profile that is slimmed down.
It seems that this is more than just iPhones so I’ll adjust the title and we’ll see if we get some more hits.
I have a ticket opened for this. In the last 4 days I’ve flown 3 projects consisting of 7 maps and had the App totally freeze issue on 3 of those, that doesn’t include the flights that just stopped at a waypoint. At least with those I can pause the mission, switch to manual mode move the drone around, switch back to GPS and un-pause the mission and it continues…sometimes I have to do that a couple of times but at least I have control over it to continue the flight. It happens with v4.38 and 4.37, I’m gonna guess it’s something with the last couple of versions with iOS.
When I have a resolution from support I’ll be sure to post it.
I forgot to ask… What models of iPads?
iPad mini 4 and iPad 8th gen. Right now our policy is set to automatically update when a new version of iOS comes out…I might change that on the drone iPads once this issue is resolved.
I could see the Mini 4 having issues, but not the 8th 10.2 model. Any differences between the two or pretty much the exact same behaviour? What kind of connectivity do you have?
Sorry we are probably repeating allot of the support questions, but I think it is good for others to see as well. One day they may be on here.
I have only had an issue with iOS v13, but that ended up being DroneDeploy as well so I don’t think updating is bad. I know it is on Android as that has broken many times. Especially with Webview.
The iPad min has been working fine up until I hit this issue. Pretty much same behavior, App just locks up and have to restart it. Min has 64GB of space 8th has 128GB, the App responds better on the 8th gen but not surprising better cpu. We use T-Mobile cell single is usually pretty good, I have run into coverage issues though but usually happens right when I start up the App…have to walk around the site til I get a good enough signal to load the projects.
I can understand consistency of the cell signal having a part of it but if it is happening with different conditions regardless then it may not be as much of a culprit as we think. I think it is definitely mostly the app and if it continues through the next version or two then we definitely have a design flaw or bug that they need to take more seriously. Unfortunately it has to happen on a grander scale in order to rule out individual users and areas of use.
The 8th Gen is a huge jump with internals, most notably with the Quad to Hex CPU upgrade. Confusing things even more.
Mini 4
8th 10.2
Flew another site today, the app locked up/froze twice, once 1/4 of the way through the map and once after I changed the battery. No news from support on this issue yet. And the flight just stopped 3 or 4 times…had to give it a kick to get it going again.
Ran 7 more missions between yesterday and today and everything ran perfectly including battery swap precise point return and linear flight. I experienced one hang in loading when I forgot to turn my hotspot on.
Can you try a different source of internet?
We use T-Mobile for most things now, I could try using my iPad 12 it uses AT&T just a bit awkward using that monster. I can also turn off wifi on the iPads when flying…but I can’t believe this just started happening out of the blue, something had to change and the only things that have changed on my side are iOS version and maybe firmware. The other alternative is try using another flight planning software and see what that does.
Right now my flights are taking twice as long as they should which is very frustrating.
I agree. There are constant updates and unfortunately in the name of progress we will experience things like this from time to time. Pix4D Capture works pretty well for mapping, but it is pretty basic and limited in comparison. Maps Made Easy may also be a good option. Either way you can still manually upload to DroneDeploy but you have to set the processing area manually.
Just to update the status on this. DD resolution to the issues I’ve been hitting is to reboot the iPad prior to flying a mission and turn off obstacle avoidance. I noticed a couple of folks having similar issue in another thread. Telemetry going away app locking up.
Personally I don’t find their solution acceptable but seemed to work on my last flight…no battery change. I have a couple of flights coming up this week that will require battery change so we’ll see how that goes. If the issue continues and they can’t resolve I will switch to another flight planning app and come time for subscription renewal I’ll be looking elsewhere…
Reboot the iPad…that’s a joke
Let me know if you want to meet up somewhere. I’d like to have you run off of my hotspot just to see if there’s any difference. We’re running verizon. I’ve got a mini 5 and an iPad 8th gen and never have these issues. We can even log into my iPad with your credentials.
I actually have a site over there by you guys off Westinghouse Rd just east of 1460 I need to fly next week and it will require a battery change. I’ll let you know when I plan to fly it.