Karma drone disappears

[Mjhayes]

hi @photoguy0126 -- Sorry for lagging getting back to you... just been really busy. Im really short on time but will post this quick update. on 6/26, contacted Support and was able to speak to a supervisor. I stressed how I see GoPro's lack of interest in a case where a drone failed to comply with three safeguards in the event of lost of contact with the controller (failed to return to home, failed to land in place, and failed to stay within max speed of 20mph). I also expressed how fortunate I was that my runaway didn't hit / injure anyone. I pointed out the fact that not once has any member of the support staff (8 calls at that point) has expressed any concern if bystanders may have been injured during the runaway event. I said that GoPro really needs to examine this event to find the root cause of the lost control (more specifically, lack of regaining control) /speed breach because if they don't they can be held liable for ignoring an known and now reported flaw. The supervisor said she was going call me back, but never did. On 7/3, she sent me this ...

View attachment 38

Not one word about the malfunction, the cause of the speed breach, or any express of concern what the root cause is. Absolutely insulting!

A reply to the email resulted in a robot response that the case was closed. How much more insulting can GoPro get?

It's taken me most of the week to calm down and repose myself.

Today, I called support and complained how pissed if was that they prematurely closed the ticket. I went off! I told the agent how bullshit it was that supervisor never called me back. I also told him that I'll be filing complaints about GoPro to the FAA, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the BBB, and that I am filing a lawsuit. (I've already talked to LA County Courts and I'm working to get paper work filed) The agent told me that he reopened the ticket and that he'll have the supervisor call me back. I'm not holding my breath.

And, you know what the icing is on this f'ed up cake? Other users that I've seen on YouTube (who clearly crashed due to user error) got replacement units!

(wow, I didn't mean to spend that much time on this post)

Same here with GoPro support. I am getting the run around with their support group daily. I have the Karma care plan for GoPro when purchased the drone. The device is dangerous because it lose GPS communication during flight at a July 4th event when traffic exiting the event. Police wittiness the drone out of control behavior and seen it took off in the evening sky straight to wooded / swampy area of geographic location. If class action law suit being filed, my attorney would be interested in joining in the class action. Good idea to file FAA compliant about the software and hardware problems with GoPro Karma drone.


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[bartz]

Greetings, I'd like to discuss my new Karma drone and the disappearing act it pulled on me yesterday. My third overall flight, flying in a residential setting, I did my first "high" altitude flight, reaching as high as 300.' I came back down to about 200,' lost GPS, then lost connection between the controller and drone, and that's when Karma instantly took off at a very high rate of speed, not responding to any controller input, never to be seen again. I've filed a claim with GoPro, I've uploaded flight logs, and now I'm just waiting for a response from GoPro. A search for the drone has yielded nothing. I've got ads up on Craigslist and other neighborhood forums. And, no, I don't have a GPS device on the drone, nor my name and phone number. Your thoughts? Anyone experienced the same thing? How will GoPro handle this?

Mine did the same thing two months ago. (In may). It took them two months to make a decision on it.
"We had the opportunity to review your flight logs, and it appears that the Karma autolanded on Jabiru Port Douglas. Unfortunately, as this was not the result of a manufacturing defect and the unit is not in hand, this item is not eligible for replacement.

If you'd like, we can attempt to pull more precise GPS coordinates for the last known location, though I understand it's been some time between the loss of the unit and today. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask."
Many Thanks,
Keith
Supervisor, GoPro Supportere
So it seems the auto land made it land 2 kms away in the bush. Auto land (return to takeoff), it supposed to do just that. Land where it took off. Not 2 kms away in the bush!
Next step for me is the customer court. Wish me luck!

 

[bartz]

New
↑
Greetings, I'd like to discuss my new Karma drone and the disappearing act it pulled on me yesterday. My third overall flight, flying in a residential setting, I did my first "high" altitude flight, reaching as high as 300.' I came back down to about 200,' lost GPS, then lost connection between the controller and drone, and that's when Karma instantly took off at a very high rate of speed, not responding to any controller input, never to be seen again. I've filed a claim with GoPro, I've uploaded flight logs, and now I'm just waiting for a response from GoPro. A search for the drone has yielded nothing. I've got ads up on Craigslist and other neighborhood forums. And, no, I don't have a GPS device on the drone, nor my name and phone number. Your thoughts? Anyone experienced the same thing? How will GoPro handle this?
Click to expand...
Mine did the same thing two months ago. (In may). It took them two months to make a decision on it.
"We had the opportunity to review your flight logs, and it appears that the Karma autolanded on Jabiru Port Douglas. Unfortunately, as this was not the result of a manufacturing defect and the unit is not in hand, this item is not eligible for replacement.

If you'd like, we can attempt to pull more precise GPS coordinates for the last known location, though I understand it's been some time between the loss of the unit and today. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask."
Many Thanks,
Keith
Supervisor, GoPro ...
So it seems the auto land made it land 2 kms away in the bush. Auto land (return to takeoff), it supposed to do just that. (Land where it took off.) Not 2 kms away in the bush!
Next step for me is the consumer customer court. Wish me luck!

 

[Burtonkind]

Hey guys and gals,

So I had a similar issue. I had taken The Dark Wing" (lol all you want, I still like it) out on about 15-20 flights in different areas/terrain, etc and she flew great. Last week I took her from a regular spot (residential) and for the first time got the "Karma has lost connection, landing now" with a timer. I tried to get as close to the Karma as possible and while doing so the controller just shut down, on its own. I figured the device just dropped from the sky at that point. I searched far and wide for about 3 hours until it was dark and found nothing. The next day I checked the last known location on the controller (that's to this thread!) and my wife and I tracked that and about a 2 mile radius all around from there and still, nada. So I contacted GoPro. Each time that I call the hold time is about 1 hour. The first guy I spoke to "Marco" said I needed to send the flight logs in with a slew of other information regarding the fly away, which I did. The next day I called to follow up and spoke to "Kyle" who said he was "taking over my case", that he had a few other flight logs to view and would get back to me by yesterday. I was pleased when I got not only a response but that all would be replaced. He explained certain best practices for the Karma and that from what he could see it looks like the controller was the issue. So I am sending that in (the sent me a label with all RMA info). It's been 5 days total since the loss so I am actually pretty pleased with the service thus far. I will report when I receive everything back (listed in email, Karma Drone, battery, props, stabilizer, Hero 5 Black, battery). Good luck to all! I truly agree that this tech is so new to us all that there are bound to be issues (user or device) but again, so far I am pleased with GoPros service.

 

[Mjhayes]

Hey guys and gals,

So I had a similar issue. I had taken The Dark Wing" (lol all you want, I still like it) out on about 15-20 flights in different areas/terrain, etc and she flew great. Last week I took her from a regular spot (residential) and for the first time got the "Karma has lost connection, landing now" with a timer. I tried to get as close to

Same happen to my Karma drone last week on the 4th of July. It lost a connection during flight and took off uncontrollably towards the woods. I have not received unit yet. Went into wools again with brother in law this afternoon, no luck with last know location reported by the Karma. You should log a call to GoPro Karma support about your flight losing GPS connection, reading all the blogs online I ready think GoPro is unaware of this problem or they trying to keep it quit so sales and stock will not take a hit! Let me know what the support tells you. They told me is was an environmental issue on location of flight. "???"


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[Iketh]

Hi everyone, just wanted to chime in after reading through this thread.

The karma attempts to fly at a certain speed (35mph ground speed in sport with full throttle) no matter the conditions. So if you have a 10 mph wind and you fly straight into the wind, the karma will actually fly at 45mph air speed, but still be at 35mph ground speed. This is to make flying predictable and easy to fly no matter the situation. The max wind you're allowed to fly the karma according to the manual is 20-22 mph, thus we can deduce the maximum speed the karma can really fly is 55mph air speed and could achieve 55mph ground speed if the software allowed. Since several have reported ~55mph flight data, this is the smoking gun that this is a software issue and has nothing to do with interference. The Karma's internal software is crashing and the motors are spinning up to maximum RPM and staying that way until the battery dies, presumably locked at whatever flight angle it was at when the crash occurred.

I write software for a living and this was obvious to me after reading through this thread so thought I'd share. I have not had any of these issues reported and I've flown several times a day since I bought it end of June. However, I have my camera GPS turned off. Is this where the telemetry data is coming from, or is it supplied by the drone? I ended up here trying to find how to read these .SES files that appear with the .MP4. Over 100 flights under my belt and it always returns home safely, maybe because the camera GPS is off and not interfering with Karma's? I'd like to make videos using telemetry data, but now I'm afraid to turn on Hero5's gps...

 

[bartz]

UPDATE: Go-Pro said they wouldn't be replacing my drone as per my last post here. 1 week later (after i wrote a letter and threatened to take the local distributor to consumer court here in Australia), and so they now have changed their tune. They are now going to replace it. It was there usual narrative, that they said it was due to environmental factors such as urban area etc as to why the controller lost connection. It doesn't explain why the auto land feature did not work!
They really need to put a GPS tracker chip on the actual unit. As the 'GPS location tracker' in the controller is useless, as it only gives the 'last known' GPS location. And this is only known when you have direct contact between the controller and the drone. So when the drone looses contact with the controller you are screwed! So this feature is as useless as air conditioning on a motorbike!
Here is the email back from Go-Pro with their explanation of the 'fly-off':

"I have received a call earlier today from Joey about your case.
I wasn't entirely familiar with the history of your case when I was talking with him.
Since then I have had a chance to review your case. I have also discussed it at length with my manager.
We can see that the advice we have received from the KARMA review team in America is this:

• That connection was lost between KARMA and the controller
• When the connection was lost KARMA has landed after being unable to reestablish the connection, this is normal behavior.
• What has contributed to the lost connection is where it was being flown, in a highly populated residential area near homes and trees. These types of things can cause interference with the communication between KARMA and the controller.

The loss of connection would not be considered a manufacturing defect as these environmental factors are the main cause of connection loss. You are best to fly in clear areas away from anything that can cause interference such as; structures, metal fences, towers, power lines, WiFi networks etc.

After lengthy discussions with my manager we have been able to reach a decision that we are going to make an exception to our usual policies and have KARMA replaced for you. We will replace the lost KARMA drone and camera. This is a one time only exception and not something we would normally be able to do.........."

So what can be learned from my fly-off case- is to not give up. Even after they say they will not replace it!
Good luck, and anyone wanting to know more info about my case please ask.....

 

[emm]

Gopro sent me a replacement for my Karma Drone (flew away while in line of sight, etc..), which is good but the problem is after few flights the camera won't go on "Drone mode" (tech supports terminology on the issue) so I have to return the defective stabilizer to get another replacement but will take 14 days to receive it. The Karma Drone is good to fly but at this point I do not have the confidence on the product, not even with the brand new stabilizer. I am now on the process of invoking my Consumer Rights for me to get my money back. Spent more time talking to Support than flying the Drone itself.

 

[Burtonkind]

Phase one complete! The Karma, etc shows delivered later that same day (yesterday). So hopefully tomorrow (as there is no tracking for that one, which I am following up on now). GL all and keep flyin!! Thank you all as this thread has really helped me in this process. I'll post again when I have all!

 

[Burtonkind]

Phase one complete! The Karma, etc shows delivered later that same day (yesterday). So hopefully tomorrow (as there is no tracking for that one, which I am following up on now). GL all and keep flyin!! Thank you all as this thread has really helped me in this process. View attachment 50 View attachment 51 I'll post again when I have all!

Sorry, I meant shipped not delivered! Thanks again!

 

[McToddy]

I still poke my dead Karma with a stick, but still.... No beeps or blinking..... *sigh*


Still waiting for GoPro Support to respond to my last email (today)

 

[CRXPanda]

That does it! I'm gonna tether. LoL
DRONE CAMPS RC


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[CRXPanda]

Very good video. Not Karma, but hey...anything can happen, best to be prepared.


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[Iketh]

Found an interesting comment in another Inspire 1 flyaway video that somewhat confirms my suspicion that the GPS in the Hero5 interferes with GPS in the Karma. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but who knows. I'm still flying my Karma as far as possible and it's always returning. My advice is turn the GPS off on the Hero5. It will increase your flight time very slightly also.

 

[Whites1187]

@McToddy have you herd anything else?

I purchased a karma Sunday. 2 hours later on the first flight it ran away. Would not respond to my
Commands and would not return home when lost signal or when battery died. Last thing the controller told me was battery dead karma landing in place. Well it hauled the mail south wide open. They sent me the flight log and have searched high and low with no luck. So been on the phone with GoPro everyday since then. They told me it did not malfunction. BS. Today they told me if I bought the care plan and paid the deductible they would send me a new one. But I found that unacceptable asking me to pay 300 bucks when it wasn't my fault. Any advice from you guys that have been threw this? Also they guy I spoke with is resending a statement back in to the "karma team". Oh and also my screen froze when I could still the drone and this was after is was supposed to be landing in place. I have attached the flight log they sent me. Thanks for advice.

 

[Mischa]

Hello!

I have been reading this forum after I did the 1.51 upgrade on the Drone... and now I'm slightly worried.
I'm going to travel to Italy make some advertisement footage, and afterwards I'm going to use the Karma Grip. I'm just hoping the Drone will not disappear in the first day otherwise my vacation will be ruined (at least one part of it). But at leas the place has no near by signal as it is in high mountains... so maybe everything will be ok.

Otherwise I work with safety features with sensors in different industry where a log is taken to verify later if something went wrong.

I think that GoPro can easily avoid the ran away drones, by including in the software a function how much the drone can move in one direction before a new input is needed (from the controller). This option could be on the controller as ON/OFF and then the distance could be changed how often it needs a new input for example 50ft. This would mean every 50ft the operator needs to put the joystick to middle and then once again moved it forward to get 50ft the drone moving ahead (or what ever distance it is set as max).
If there is a lost of GPS... or what ever problem the Drone would move only 50ft.
And then if there is a ran away with the feature ON, then everybody will be sure the problem was the drone as it should otherwise have stopped after 50ft movement.
And GoPro can see from the log if the feature was ON and it would easy for both side to understand is a replacement warranted.

 

[gm82au]

I think that GoPro can easily avoid the ran away drones, by including in the software a function how much the drone can move in one direction before a new input is needed (from the controller). This option could be on the controller as ON/OFF and then the distance could be changed how often it needs a new input for example 50ft. This would mean every 50ft the operator needs to put the joystick to middle and then once again moved it forward to get 50ft the drone moving ahead (or what ever distance it is set as max).
If there is a lost of GPS... or what ever problem the Drone would move only 50ft.

But how does the drone, or the controller, know that it's moved 50ft without GPS?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding that I see over and over again on both this forum, and GoPro's community hub. People are saying that the drone should "stay in the same spot" or "return to home" or "not move more than a certain distance" when GPS lock is lost, but all of those functions/features rely on GPS being available.

The only thing the drone can do when GPS is lost is to (a) provide torque identically to all props, and at an amount that GoPro predetermines is likely to maintain altitude, and (b) only override those with inputs received from the controller. If there's a strong wind blowing, then the drone is going to fly away with it. If it was moving in a particular direction when GPS was lost, it will continue in that direction at least for a while until it stabilises - you've got to remember that once GPS is lost it has no idea which direction, if any, that it is moving. It's never going to hover, maintain altitude, return home or stay within a certain distance of you, simply because it has no idea where it is any more.

 

[Mischa]

But how does the drone, or the controller, know that it's moved 50ft without GPS?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding that I see over and over again on both this forum, and GoPro's community hub. People are saying that the drone should "stay in the same spot" or "return to home" or "not move more than a certain distance" when GPS lock is lost, but all of those functions/features rely on GPS being available.

The only thing the drone can do when GPS is lost is to (a) provide torque identically to all props, and at an amount that GoPro predetermines is likely to maintain altitude, and (b) only override those with inputs received from the controller. If there's a strong wind blowing, then the drone is going to fly away with it. If it was moving in a particular direction when GPS was lost, it will continue in that direction at least for a while until it stabilises - you've got to remember that once GPS is lost it has no idea which direction, if any, that it is moving. It's never going to hover, maintain altitude, return home or stay within a certain distance of you, simply because it has no idea where it is any more.

I fully understand without GPS the positioning is impossible. But as you said yourself with a torque calculation and the command to give to move the Drone can still be calculated fairly close how much it is moving. Of course 50ft would be much easier than compared to 1mile.
If the program would to try to "calculate" the movement abd when it has reached the max distance it would stop to change the torques on the propellers. Of course it would front in some direction.
But it would be not ran away with full speed.
When

 

[Mischa]

sorry, pressed send too early

...Of course it would drift in some direction. But it would ran away with full speed.
And when keeping one location even when drifting, it would be easier to get back the control of the Drone.
Slightly like diving test you need to dive forward in one direction and make 4 90 deg.turn to right, and in the end you need to be in the same spot you started. Not difficult if the visibility is good, otherwise you need to use your other sensor...

 

[gm82au]

I haven't experienced a GPS loss (yet), so I can't provide educated comments on how the drone behaves when it happens. No doubt it will be trickier to control, and I won't pass judgement on those who have suffered a crash with theirs when GPS has been lost. I do have concerns that people are saying "it flew away at high speed" when GPS is lost. If it was one or two people, I might assume that they just didn't know how to fly it properly under those conditions, but the number of horror stories are too great for it to simply be a lack of skill amongst all of those pilots affected. Right?

The point I was trying to make is that GoPro, or any other drone manufacturer, can't provide much help when GPS is lost. The best we can hope for is that the drone behaves in a neutral manner; that is, it tries to hover as best it can with what little input it receives from its sensors. If that's the case, then I'm happy.

In response to your comments, I don't think consistent power output to the props will be sufficient to keep the drone in place. If there's any wind, it's gonna move. The ambient air pressure is going to affect its altitude. It's probably going to continue moving in the same direction as it was when it lost GPS, at least for a while. There are no features they can include that are going to mitigate those things (even anti-collision sensors don't work beyond a certain range and speed).

What I really want is to be able to flick a switch to disable GPS at a time and place of my choosing so I can practice under those conditions. That'll allow me to prepare for the inevitable.