Bootup issues with brand new Solo - please help

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

Hi.

I bought a 3dr Solo at my local reseller this Friday.
I bought the drone and the gimbal, I already had a GoPro 4 black.

At first when setting up the drone, everything seemed to work.
As this is my first proper drone I followed the instructions precicely.
Before I could do any flying I had to update the firmware on both the controller and drone. I connected to the wifi (on my iPhone it popped up, but I never got a signal strength icon at the top) and was ready to go.
I followed the instructions and everything updated. Sweet! I was just about ready to take it outside when the issues started.

I had a video feed, but it said it lost contact with the gimbal. I restarted the drone, but this time it wouldn't boot up properly. It went through the normal sounds, but this time directly followed by to strong beeps. Like alarms.
It then proceeded to stop with all lights green. And this was how it was for the rest of Friday night. I was googling, restarting trying anything to get it to boot up again. The controller said "looking for solo". Nothing worked. I could not find any posts where the drone booting up stops at steady green lights.
The manual states:
"Solid green without turning off automatically: Startup unsuccessful, please restart Solo"

Oh my god have I restarted this solo!

So, defeated I went to bed. Not too happy.

So next morning, Saturday, I called the reseller and they told me they could replace the drone.
Before I packed everything down I decided to try booting it up one last time.

What the... I did boot up. The green lights turned off one by one and I sat there with a working drone. Red and blue lights. The alarming sounds where gone! I gave my self a quick high five and decided to go for a quick test. I did a few very short flights. Tried RTH and everything seemed to work properly.
Looked at the video from the GoPro and it seemed ok. The video had very fine vibrations on it.
Something I figured calibration would fix.

I charged the battery and took it to a soccer ground. I did the compass and level calibration and everything was ok.
Then I went for my first proper flight. I did a little low hover. Tried out the controls then I took it up higher.
It was at about 40 meters(130 feet) when I noticed the sound changed drastically on the drone. It was almost like it was in strong winds. You could hear it rev up and then calm down about every second or so. I decided to press RTH. This action made the drone climb much further up, probably another 10-15 meters. Not knowing what happened I pressed the pause button, and then I decided to manually take the drone down.

1 meter from the ground I pressed RTH again, and the drone automatically climbed 30-40 meters up.
I pressed the pause button then manually landed it. When I let go of the left stick it started to fly on it's own. I had to hold the left stick down to make sure it stuck to the ground. After a few seconds of holding the left stick down, the propellers spun down. I then noticed the controller saying "calibrating sensors, please wait". No progress bar, no nothing. I waited... about 10 minutes. Nothing happened. Turned both the controller and the solo off.

Now it is back where we were Friday night.
Steady green lights. 2 distinct "alarm" sounds when trying to boot up. controller is "waiting for solo"

I tried calling support Friday afternoon, but the answering machine hung up on me after giving some useful/less info. I sent them an email Friday afternoon (1.30 pm cali time), but I still haven't head back from them.

Tomorrow I'm taking it back to the store, and I'm wondering if I should try to get a new Solo or change to Phantom 4 (They are basically the same price).

If anybody could help me in diagnosing my problem I would really appreciate it. I think I will try to get another solo, but after reading the internet for about 10 hours this weekend I'm not sure.

Would love some help!

Thanks for reading my really long and messy post.

morry sack

pyrate · Aug 28, 2016

the lifting when you hit rth is normal
there is a setting that is established to have solo fly high enough to clear obstacles on its trip home

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

Hi pyrate. Thanks for your reply.

I understand that it climbs when hitting RTH, but 30-40 meters?
On my first test run it probably did a 3-5 meter climb before coming back down.

I'm not sure as this is my first "big" drone.

Do you know about any of my other problems? Steady green lights? The alarm sound when booting up?

I really want to get it to work again so I can do a little flying today.

morry sack

PdxSteve · Aug 28, 2016

Occasionally you need to pull the battery in the controller to get it to reboot completely.

And yes, it's completely normal to climb when a RTH is initiated. As Pyrate mentioned, there is a setting in the app to set the altitude it climbs for RHT. It's important to have this height set ABOVE your tallest obstacle in the area so solo will climb above it and not crash into it when coming home. Check what it's currently set to. It's probably 200 feet/60 meters which I think is the default.

SARDG · Aug 28, 2016

Morry- Just so you know... there is no longer telephone support - only email or chat, and chat is the most expeditious... when they're open.

PdxSteve · Aug 28, 2016

I also find their chat to be better than email (during business hours). Not sure what number you called, but 3dr got rid of phone support quite awhile ago except if you are an Enterprise customer.

SARDG · Aug 28, 2016

RTH will also be initiated when (if) your battery dips to 10%, which is a good reason to have that RTH altitude set as low as possible (but clearing all obstacles in LOS). I was ~2 feet off the ground in an early flight landing when my battery went to 10% and Solo took off to 66' - the RTH default altitude I had set.)

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

Hi PdxSteve and SARDG.

Thanks for helping out.
I did not know their phone support was gone. I found the number on the second page of the pdf manual. Their online chat is only open Monday to Thursday. I've had this drone in my possession since Friday so they've been closed through my ordeal

Right now I can't connect to the Solo with my app so I'm not sure what the settings are. If 60 meters is default that explains a lot. It does not however explain why it only did a 5 meter climb when I tried it earlier.

Well I was going to do a lot of flying this weekend, but I have only done 2 short flights(basically straight up/down and a few meters in any direction). I still haven't half drained the battery from my two short flights.

What do the two strong beeps after the boot up imply? I can't find this info anywhere.

SARDG · Aug 28, 2016

morrysack said:
Hi PdxSteve and SARDG.

Thanks for helping out.
I did not know their phone support was gone...

Right now I can't connect to the Solo with my app so I'm not sure what the settings are. If 60 meters is default that explains a lot. It does not however explain why it only did a 5 meter climb when I tried it earlier.

What do the two strong beeps after the boot up imply? I can't find this info anywhere.

Don't know about your beeps as I have a hearing loss and don't hear most of them.

For connecting... first, restart your tablet/phone, remove and reinstall your controller battery, then...

Follow this sequence and startup procedure...

If the problem is only a startup-sequence issue, I can tell you my procedure and I have never experienced a problem connecting.
1. Open the Solo App on your device
2. Power-on the controller and let it boot up completely until 'waiting for Solo' appears
3. Power-up Solo - by the time Solo completely boots you should be rid of 'waiting for Solo' on the controller
4. Connect to the Solo network with your App
The controller contains the wi/fi router for the system, so once the controller has booted, you should see the Solo network on your device anyway. If you don't, there may be other issues.

I use a separate Wi/Fi Analyzer (Wi/Fi Sniffer) to troubleshoot network problems. You can download one at the Play Store.

SteveReno · Aug 28, 2016

Welcome to 3DRPliots
90% of what your upset about is normal thing's that every Solo does.
All new people are nervous.
Please go here a read:
Solo Help
Solo FAQ
& of course the Solo manual:
https://3dr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/v4_07_07_15.pdf

Building confidence in Solo is quick, cause it's a Smart Drone,

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

Hi SARDG.

I would definitely try your procedure, but I've tried to reset my controller (holding POWER + FLY) and now it wants to download new preflight update.
The thing is I can't connect to the Solo with my phone any more so I'm not sure what to do.
When trying to update via the app I see a screen with the phone and the controller and some orange dots between them and nothing happens.

It seems I'm completely stuck. Then more I try to mend it, the more stuck I get. A bit like quicksand this...

PdxSteve · Aug 28, 2016

You said you couldn't connect with the app, but didn't mention if you are able to connect to the solo wifi.

Try "forgetting" the sololink wifi connection from your phone. It will then find the sololink connection again, and then try to connect with your new password, or the original "sololink" if factory reset. It's probably trying to connect with old saved info which changed during the factory reset.

As far as why it didn't go as high on RTH one time as it did another, it could be solo was pretty close to the home point already. Its not a straight line. Solo uses a cone shape to determine how high to rise if you're within the cone, or outside of it. See here: Return to Home | 3DR - Drone & UAV Technology

pyrate · Aug 28, 2016

if you are stuck and the retailer agreed to exchange, go for that

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

Thanks SteveReno.

I've been trough the manual and the FAQ and Help on 3drs web site.
I'm not sure if this is quite normal though. Other than being nervous when flying of course, the few minutes it has worked.

The drone is not dead, but it seems to be in a kind of zombie state. Living dead

How can I get it to boot up properly?
I've pulled the batteries on both the controller and the solo so many times. Still nothing but green steady lights.

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

PdxSteve said:
You said you couldn't connect with the app, but didn't mention if you are able to connect to the solo wifi.

Try "forgetting" the sololink wifi connection from your phone. It will then find the sololink connection again, and then try to connect with your new password, or the original "sololink" if factory reset. It's probably trying to connect with old saved info which changed during the factory reset.

As far as why it didn't go as high on RTH one time as it did another, it could be solo was pretty close to the home point already. Its not a straight line. Solo uses a cone shape to determine how high to rise if you're within the cone, or outside of it. See here: Return to Home | 3DR - Drone & UAV Technology

I've tried forgetting the network many times to no avail. Pulling batteries. restarting the controller, restarting solo. Killing the app. restarting device. You name it.
I'm a newb when it comes to drones, but not other technology.

Thanks for explainig RTH for me. That helps and explains a lot, but not all.

I will try to exchange it for a new one tomorrow after work, but until then I would really try to resolve the issue and do another flight test

SARDG · Aug 28, 2016

Did you do a complete factory reset including the Solo?
Factory Reset | 3DR - Drone & UAV Technology
Take your time with this procedure as you can allegedly brick your Solo.

IF that goes well, you'll start over with updates, etc. Take your time and don't begin each part of the procedure or startup sequence until the previous part has absolutely completed. It's like turning off the power to your WIndows PC while it's booting, or turning off GoPro during a FW update... ugly!

IF you get a new Solo, slowly follow ALL outlined procedures. Again, do not rush the procedure(s).

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

I did follow every step and took my time while setting it up.
As I wrote in the original post it worked fine for a few minutes after the first update.

I have had to turn it off (from an uncomplete booy up) every time I tried to get it on though

I just tried to connect to the solos wifi from my mac now and I couldn't connect. Should I be able to?

I'm sure the sound signature with the two strong beeps tells the whole story if we could understand them.

SARDG · Aug 28, 2016

morrysack said:
...I just tried to connect to the solos wifi from my mac now and I couldn't connect. Should I be able to?

Yes, through a comms program and an IP address, but I don't remember the procedure. You should at least 'see' the network out there. Try a wi-fi sniffer app to look at available networks in your vicinity.

SteveReno · Aug 28, 2016

morrysack said:
Thanks SteveReno.

I've been trough the manual and the FAQ and Help on 3drs web site.
I'm not sure if this is quite normal though. Other than being nervous when flying of course, the few minutes it has worked.

The drone is not dead, but it seems to be in a kind of zombie state. Living dead

How can I get it to boot up properly?
I've pulled the batteries on both the controller and the solo so many times. Still nothing but green steady lights.

You may have inadvertently rebooted, while Solo or Controller was updating?
only hint to this is what you already found:
"Solid green without turning off automatically: Startup unsuccessful, please restart Solo"
Still checking,
Worst case get another Solo, or you can re-image the boot device.
"only for bricked Solo's" Complicated, will reinitiate Solo to factory state, not for anyone new.

morrysack · Aug 28, 2016

SARDG: see the network, but when I try to connect. I get a message that it couldn't connect. I'm on a mac, but that shouldn't matter.

SteveReno:
Well, it worked for a while after the initial update. I had it on my table, a video feed to my phone. If I had the props on and had I held FLY... I'm sure it would have started up.
Re-image the boot device? Is that when you open up the drone and get to the SD card inside?
I've only read about it online, and would never attempt it unless I couldn't get an exchange.

Thanks to everyone trying to help me. I'm not sure how I could've 'bricked' the solo. Other than restarting it a number of times while troubleshooting the initial error.

Edit: Also, why would it work in the morning after it was 'bricked' on Friday afternoon/night?
It is really strange. It had just been standing in the same place all night. I hadn't touched it. I just tried to turn it on one last time.