Help!Out of the box: remote not communicating to the Inspire

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Yesterday I purchased my first. Once the battery was charged I tried to test the drone (it was late at night and I was at home so I just wanted to test if everything was fine and basically load the software on my Android device and update the firmwares). The update of the drone went fine (as confirmed by the .txt. file produced at the end of the procedure), the update of the firmware on remote would not start (I assumed the version of the firmware was already the most recent).

Problem is that, when I finally tried to connect the remote to the drone, nothing happened. I don't see any option to access the camera mode from the Android app, hence cannot even reset the connection between remote and drone (following the procedure on pages 33/34 of the manual). To make the whole experience a bit more annoying, given the missing link to the remote, I have no way to set it back to travel mode (it was left with landing gear down at the end of the firmware update process)...

Anything that I can try to reactivate the communication between remote and drone?

Many thanks in advance for your support with this.

Aviator · Sep 27, 2015

You can try my fix which is a sticky at the top of the "Help" section.
If you decide to try this, make sure you follow the instruction EXACTLY and COMPLETELY..

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Aviator said:
You can try my fix which is a sticky at the top of the "Help" section.
If you decide to try this, make sure you follow the instruction EXACTLY and COMPLETELY..

Thanks for the prompt response Aviator.

I had a look at the procedure you suggests in the Help section (actually, that made me realise that I posted in the wrong place..) but I'm not sure that would be suitable for my scenario as I'm not even given access to the "Camera mode" on the app. DO you not need that in order to carry out your procedure?

Aviator · Sep 27, 2015

I am assuming that you know that you must put the bin file onto a usb stick and plug into into the usb port on the back of the RC.
How have you tried to update the RC so far?

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Aviator said:
I am assuming that you know that you must put the bin file onto a usb stick and plug into into the usb port on the back of the RC.
How have you tried to update the RC so far?

Yes, tried update but the update doesn't seem to start.
Formatted a USB and copied the .bin file then plugged it into the RC and nothing happened (I don't get the blue light to switch on). I assumed that the firmware was already the most up-to-date hence the RC would not update it again.

Tj_ · Sep 27, 2015

ratephi said:
Thanks for the prompt response Aviator.

I had a look at the procedure you suggests in the Help section (actually, that made me realise that I posted in the wrong place..) but I'm not sure that would be suitable for my scenario as I'm not even given access to the "Camera mode" on the app. DO you not need that in order to carry out your procedure?

I had a similar issue. Dji provided me with a unique way of manually binding a controller to an aircraft without a mobile device attached.

Power on Remote Controller and Aircraft.
Press the Linking button in the nose of the aircraft. (more info)
On the Remote Controller, Press “C1” + “C2” + “Video Record”
Then, press in the “Camera Settings Dial”. A green indicator light indicates bind is successful.

Hope that helps!

I have some questions though.

What firmware version did you upload to aircraft and controller?
Does your mobile device get a "authorize this device" type notice when connecting to controller?

Aviator · Sep 27, 2015

In that case try the procedure as laid out in the sticky thread.
Make sure you format your USB stick with FAT32.

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Tj_ said:
I had a similar issue. Dji provided me with a unique way of manually binding a controller to an aircraft without a mobile device attached.

Power on Remote Controller and Aircraft.

Press the Linking button in the nose of the aircraft. (more info)

On the Remote Controller, Press “C1” + “C2” + “Video Record”

Then, press in the “Camera Settings Dial”. A green indicator light indicates bind is successful.

Hope that helps!

I have some questions though.

What firmware version did you upload to aircraft and controller?

Does your mobile device get a "authorize this device" type notice when connecting to controller?

I'll give your procedure a try shortly and let you know.

Firmware on the drone is now 1.4.0.10. The firmware that I tried to use for the update on the RC is 1.3.0.00

No "authorize your device" message at all. I'm on Android in case that matters.

Tj_ · Sep 27, 2015

ratephi said:
I'll give your procedure a try shortly and let you know.

Firmware on the drone is now 1.4.0.10. The firmware that I tried to use for the update on the RC is 1.3.0.00

No "authorize your device" message at all. I'm on Android in case that matters.

On android in settings make sure you have enabled "usb debugging" If you can't find it tell me your device and android software version and I'll walk you through it.

If usb settings is enabled and still no request for permission pops up when connecting, I believe your controller is bad. A working controller communicating with a mobile device will request permission. A screen will pop up on Android and Apple devices. If you have any other mobile devices try them to reassure its a bad controller port.

If you can't get it to manually pair either, your controller is definitely bad.

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Tj_ said:
On android in settings make sure you have enabled "usb debugging" If you can't find it tell me your device and android software version and I'll walk you through it.

If usb settings is enabled and still no request for permission pops up when connecting, I believe your controller is bad. A working controller communicating with a mobile device will request permission. A screen will pop up on Android and Apple devices. If you have any other mobile devices try them to reassure its a bad controller port.

If you can't get it to manually pair either, your controller is definitely bad.

Thank you TJ. USB debugging was not activated. I activated it now and will try the connection again as soon as the battery of my remote finishes charging. Will let you know how it goes.

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Ok tried with the USB debugging on and it worked once but then as soon as unplugged the mobile from the remote and plugged it back 30 min later the connection I would get no popups at the moment I connect the mobile to the remote and I'm not given the option to start the camera mode from the app.

I was able to start the camera mode from the app once the remote connected to the mobile but still no connection to the drone would work....

Anything else that you guys think I can try before throwing this $3000 out of the window?... :-(

Tj_ · Sep 27, 2015

ratephi said:
Ok tried with the USB debugging on and it worked once but then as soon as unplugged the mobile from the remote and plugged it back 30 min later the connection I would get no popups at the moment I connect the mobile to the remote and I'm not given the option to start the camera mode from the app.

I was able to start the camera mode from the app once the remote connected to the mobile but still no connection to the drone would work....

Anything else that you guys think I can try before throwing this $3000 out of the window?... :-(

Once you see the popup asking for permission you have the option of "remembering" it. If you marked this box you won't see the popup anymore for that device but you will see it for other devices.

If you can't get into "camera view" in the Dji app then your device is not linking to controller unfortunately.

Do you have any other devices and cords to try?

When you do get into "camera view" the status will read "disconnected" when no controller is found. Once a controller is found you will read "no signal". Once you see this try repairing controller to aircraft.

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Tj_ said:
Once you see the popup asking for permission you have the option of "remembering" it. If you marked this box you won't see the popup anymore for that device but you will see it for other devices.

If you can't get into "camera view" in the Dji app then your device is not linking to controller unfortunately.

Do you have any other devices and cords to try?

When you do get into "camera view" the status will read "disconnected" when no controller is found. Once a controller is found you will read "no signal". Once you see this try repairing controller to aircraft.

I did not flag the "remembering" option on purpose so should really ask me every time. I tried already changing the cord with no success.

I have an iPad 2 retina and I was going to use that but then found out that the DJI Go app is not compatible with my iPad and won't install.... bummer!!

I was looking for a way to do a proper hard reset of the remote as I think the problem is in the remote. In fact any attempt to update the firmware did not produce any results..

Any other idea that comes to mind?

turbodronepilot · Sep 27, 2015

ratephi said:
I did not flag the "remembering" option on purpose so should really ask me every time. I tried already changing the cord with no success.

I have an iPad 2 retina and I was going to use that but then found out that the DJI Go app is not compatible with my iPad and won't install.... bummer!!

I was looking for a way to do a proper hard reset of the remote as I think the problem is in the remote. In fact any attempt to update the firmware did not produce any results..

Any other idea that comes to mind?

Welcome to inspirepilots.com! !
Did you try the aviators patch? ?
You needed to update your rc before your ac..
Does your rc connect to the ac with the tablet off..
If so you'll see a green light on your ac and rc..
Somehow the rc needs to get the 1.3 firmware on it..
at this point try different thumb drives and sd cards ..
if not I'd suggest trying to revert your ac to 1.3 and then try to update using your usb cord to the back of the camera ...
Also just to eliminate your device try another one..
Turb...

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Thank you turbodronepilot!

I tried the Aviator patch but my remote doesn't seem to read any updates. I tried with a USB dongle, with the miniSD the Inspire was delivered with (in a card reader and in the back of the camera). I reverted the drone's firmware to versione 1.3 as well. Still no results.

Unfortunately I don't have another device to try...

Aviator · Sep 27, 2015

When you have the RC started and the AC started, what color is the light on the RC, Red or Green?

ratephi · Sep 27, 2015

Red...never see the green led on once.

I also tried the following procedure:
Step 1: Power on Master Remote Controller and Aircraft.
Step 2: Press the Linking button in the nose of the aircraft, as show in the file attached.
Step 3: On the Remote Controller, Press “C1” + “C2” + “Video Record”
Step 4: Then, press the “Camera Settings Dial”. A green indicator light indicates bind is successful.

This is my only way to see the led switching to a color different than red. It turns blue and remote starts beeping forever but nothing happens (i.e. no connection working yet).