Here’s a two-part guide on how to “root” your DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 and Inspire 2 drone and once done, how to then completely remove the built-in No Fly Zone (NFZ) database.
PART ONE - ROOTING YOUR DRONE
At this point I’ll hand you over to digdagt0 and another of his excellent videos. This explains how to root your drone. My explanation below is in case that video ever gets pulled.
You can ignore references to anti-rollback and firmwares, this is a multipurpose tool, but for this guide you simply need to know that you need root access before going any further
I performed this mod on my DJI Mavic Pro which is running the .700 firmware.
It’s quite straight forward and very low risk. Be sure to have a fully charged battery in your drone before you begin.
First up, before you do anything, you need to gain root access to your drone.
In order to do this you first need to download a tool called DUMLRacer:
DUMLRacer is a tool which exploits a bug in DJI firmware and allows you to gain root access to the underlying Android operating system and enable the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).
It’s a Java tool, so you’ll need Java installed. To find out if you have, open a Command Prompt (this guide assumes you’re running Windows) and type:
java -version
If you get a version number in response, you’re good to go. If Windows has no idea what you’re talking about, go grab Java from here, it’s free: https://java.com/en/download/
With Java confirmed and DUMLRacer downloaded you can now power on your aircraft, connect it to your computer and open DJI Assistant.
Check you can see your drone in Assistant, leave it open, then
bring up a command prompt and CD to the folder you placed the .JAR file in.
Type the following in to the command prompt:
java -jar DUMLRacer.jar AC
You’ll be asked which COM port you want to use and it recommends one for you. You MUST close DJI Assistant before entering the com port number.
At this point DUMLRacer will start talking directly to your drone and it will begin to try the exploits. This can take anything from two minutes to fifteen minutes. Mine took three attempts, the first one hung so I had to bomb out of it, the second one didn’t win, third time lucky for me.
You need to win both races for the exploit to stick.
That’s it, part one all done. You now (and forever more) have root access to your drone.
PART TWO - REMOVING NO FLY ZONES (NFZ) FROM YOUR AIRCRAFT
For this part, you’ll need to download the Android ADB Tools:
To see which version of the DJI Precise Fly Safe Database your aircraft has, go to the ‘About’ section in your GO4 app. You’ll see here mine was on v01.00.01.07:
The version number is irrelevant, I’m just showing you in the above pic how to check
Power on your drone and connect via USB as normal.
Then open a command prompt and CD to your adb tools directory and type:
adb.exe shell
You should get a response along the lines of:
“root@wm220”
Now type the following:
mount -o remount,rw /amt
cd amt
rm -r nfz
That’s it, the entire NFZ database has now been removed from your drone.
Hang on though, DJI aren’t daft (well…), there’s a backup of the NFZ database which must also be removed, otherwise it’ll restore itself right back.
In your adb shell window, type:
cd ..
cd /data/upgrade/backups
ls
You’ll see a big long list of files now.
Look for a filename along the lines of:
wm220_0905_vXX.XX.XX.XX_XXXXXXXX.pro.fw.sig
The 0905 part is the import piece here, this is the module containing the NFZ database.
Once you’ve identified the file in question, type the following, replacing the X’s with your exact filename:
rm -r wm220_0905_vXX.XX.XX.XX_XXXXXXXX.pro.fw.sig
Then reboot the drone and got put the kettle on - you’re done
In order to confirm, simply go back to the About section of the GO4 app where you’ll be pleasantly greeted with a DJI Precise Fly Safe Database version of 00.00.00.00
That’s it, the whole NFZ removal takes just a few minutes.
Be sure to have rooted your drone first.
NOTE 1 - If you install a firmware update after doing this mod you will undo all your hard work (and NFZs will be back on your drone in the blink of an eye)
NOTE 2 - Removing the NFZ database from your drone allows you to fly in certain places that DJI don’t want you flying in. It probably goes without saying, but I’ll give it a mention anyway: Don’t be a dick.