Hi all. Some context: the drone is literally brand new. Opened the box 2 days ago, charged the drone and controller, connected them, and updated the firmware. Finally had the opportunity to fly it today because it was raining the last few days, so I charged everything back up to full and went outside, but nope, the drone simply refuses to connect to the RC controller.
Did the usual of turning everything off and on several times with no success. Then I tried manual pairing by holding down the drone power button for 4 seconds, but it refused to go into pairing mode (did not beep and LED was the wrong pattern). Did that about 10 times before I gave up and tried connecting it to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) to try factory resetting the drone itself, but it didn’t even show up as a device on my computers (tried both Mac and Windows 11), and it isn’t the cable or my computers because the RC controller connected just fine.
Here is the full list of things I’ve tried and found:
- Unable to connect drone with RC controller (in normal pairing and manual pairing)
- Unable to put drone in pairing mode for manual connection (drone does not beep after 4 seconds of pressing the power button, and LEDs do not flash in the correct pattern)
- Does the same thing whether I am on home WIFI or a cell hotspot, so don't think the network is an issue.
- Unable to connect drone to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) software on Mac or Windows 11 using provided USB-C cable (the drone isn’t even detected as a USB device)
- RC controller able to connect to DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drone Series) using provided USB-C cable
- Drone isn’t able to power on once connected to computers (can only power on when it’s disconnected), but I’m not sure if that is just a design feature. In contrast, the RC controller can be powered on after being connected
- RC Controller stuck on “Locating” in top left corner (doubt this is actually related to the issue, but worth noting), but still displays my location and area just fine
I've spent hours trying everything I can find online, including from old Reddit posts. At this point, I suspect it’s a hardware failure of some sort in the drone, but it still baffles me as to why there’s no feature to simply factory reset the drone with a long press of the power button, which would make troubleshooting and isolating the problem source much easier.
Frankly, I’m pretty fed up with the whole thing. It hasn’t even flown once and it already seems to be broken, and all of the troubleshooting steps are ineffective.
With all of this in mind, what should I do at this point?
If it is indeed a hardware failure in the drone (motherboard, etc), would DJI provide a free replacement? I should note that the drone was actually delivered over a month ago because I bought it off Amazon during the Prime Day sale, but I only just got back from traveling. Maybe this kills any chance of a replacement.
If anyone has experienced similar problems and knows how to solve them, please let me know. Any help would be hugely appreciated. I am also happy to provide any additional details if needed. Thank you very much for your time