Interesting Flight Logs - Active Track really tracks!

General Drone Discussion
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Had a squeaky-bum moment today and thought I’d share the logs (the most interesting I’ve seen from one of my own flights) and explain what I did wrong so others will hopefully learn from my idiocy…

I was up at the Falkirk Wheel with my Mini 4 Pro doing some filming. Had it in cine mode with a slow (0.1m/s) cruise control towards the wheel when I spotted a boat heading towards the lock up from the canal to the basin. It was a bit of a way off so I knew I’d have time to land, swap the battery and then have enough juice to follow it all the way through the lock and (assuming it was going straight in) up through the wheel as well.

So I cancelled cruise control, flipped to normal mode and turned to home. After a couple of seconds I tried to correct the heading by a few degrees and the drone refused to turn… I tried again and there was an almighty whine, a wobble, and then a full 360º roll (on the spot) after which the camera was stuck pointing straight down.

Luckily, it recovered from the roll because it was over the canal and would’ve been lost… but I still couldn’t turn, I could only move forwards/backwards and left/right, so I brought it back sideways as quickly as I dared, landed and spent the next ten minutes checking it over and doing several short, low, and close test flights before realising what I’d done.

Here are the easy-read logs… motors blocked, possible collision, aircraft rolling, gimbal blocked… :shaking_face: :scream:

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The logs from the Airdata player have the clue as to what I did:

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Yep. I might’ve cancelled cruise control and switched to normal… but I completely forgot to disable the active track (that was locked on the base of the Wheel) before trying to turn nearly 180º away from the subject.

Definitely user error and, after a couple of trial flights I was happy enough with my deduction to get back up for another three batteries worth of (entirely uneventful) flying… but I do find it really weird I was able to do this. I really would’ve assumed that Active Track would disengage automatically if you use the sticks to force the drone to look away too far.

I certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be so adamant it was sticking to the subject that it would overload its own motors and do a 360º roll! Imagine if a low-flying helicopter had suddenly appeared and I was trying to take evasive action!

Anyway, so yeah… don’t do this. :wink:

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Just a thought .. as a quick way to ensure everything is back to normal .. would changing to sport mode have cancelled everything, and then changing to normal mode would be .. normal?

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I’ve never tried both together, but I think you can Active Track in sport mode. Since Cine to Normal didn’t cancel it, I presume switching to sport won’t either, but I’ll definitely give it a test because it would be a quicker way for me and my fat thumbs than trying to hit the little cross on the screen :wink:

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I’ve had similar issues with poi (it’s all new to me since getting mini 4 pro, the mini 2 se was all manual flying), locked onto a subject when had enough footage cancelled poi, went to return home (manually), and wouldn’t budge. Noticed little green box still active so hit the x and everything good. I would have thought if I hit the “red cancel button” it would actually cancel. Anyway know now so no prob.

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Blast! Something else to watch out for whilst I’m filming….
Thanks for working through the problem though and posting the info for the rest of us trying to master the Mini 4 Pro.

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I haven’t got into trying the various auto modes on my Mini 4 yet (apart from pano and hyperlapse) but thanks for the warning.

I would have assumed that cancelling cruise and then taking manual control, or indeed, taking manual control during active track should hand all functions back to the pilot. I wonder if DJI are aware of the “feature”. Maybe it will be remedied in a firmware upgrade, probably with the catchall phrase

" * Fixed certain issues and optimized overall app quality."

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