Creating storage space for the latest Mavic 3 Pro firmware ?

Mavic 3
1

Pleased to be here as a Mavic 3 Pro newbie. I need to delete and find storage space for the new Mavic 3 Pro Cine firmware… '‘additional 3513 MB required for update’’

It was initially suggested I needed to clear the cache so reluctantly deleted the Aircraft Flight Record Cache and cleared the Local Log, but this only equated to 198MB and 729MB respectively. I gather this is still backed up in my flight logs and checked before deleting. If I go to Storage 90% is used up with 28,67GB out of 32GB. Internal storage indicates 3,42GB free. The main usage here is 15GB for ‘Other Apps’ whatever apps these are, as I was not aware of loading any intentionally and 1,5GB for Files and System 12GB. I have also dowloaded all the video files from the internal 1TB card and have now formatted this.
I would be grateful for a layman’s explanation on what is going on here and how the storage works between the drone itself and the controller and then how best I create or find enough storage space for the latest firmware ? It’s confusing knowing what is using up internal storage on the controller or the drone itself ? I regret having deleted the Aircraft Record Cache and cleared the Local log so would want to avoid doing this every firmware update. I gather one can also us an external mini SD card as part of the storage back for non video files ? Should I permanently keep a mini SD card in the drone for this additional storage ?

As regards my Waypoint History, I was pleased to see this is hopefully still there and the flight details were not deleted when the cache was cleared, however the video cache files or thumbnails are missing so I have no picture reference any more in the first History box. Question - how do I now match or work out which programmed flight or waypoint flight is what if there is no video or map reference in the first box or can i retrieve this from the stored flight log ? I would like to return to the same spot and fly the same shots in the dry season to complete various seasonal lapse time shots still preserved in my waypoint history.

Lastly, when I do the firmware upgrade and presumably then loose all my settings is there a way of storing these first say on the mini SD card to avoid having to manually put them all in again ?
Any assistance here would be most appreciated please …

2

I cannot give you all the answers you need, but in my experience, I checked every app on my phone and those that could be moved to the MicroSD were moved and that cleared up a lot of internal storage. I also got serious and deleted a lot of useless junk apps…

Strangely enough, the DJI Fly App indicated that it can run from the MicroSD Disk, but don’t believe it, it can’t and you will have to delete it and reload it all over again. If I remember right, the Fly App also lets the photos and video be saved to the disc, but that did not work either.

So, clean out all that is not necessary or buy yourself another phone, just for flying…

I use a Galaxy Tab S2, a Galaxy Tab A8, and a Motorola Moto G, as my devices, but I am fly the mini 2 and it’s all different…

Good Luck!

1 Like
3

Thanks for this feedback and advice, I will certainly stick in the micro SD card and see if this helps . I have the RC pro remote controller with the Mav 3 Pro Cine, which has its own 1TB storage, but this is evidently not for the firmware data and the cache etc… so just trying to work out what can be deleted in the current storage of 28Mb if anything without risk loosing my waypoints and so on.

4

I’ve never come across any such documentation, but it likely depends on what you’re storing on your remote controller. You should be able to find what’s consuming the majority of the space by looking through the files in “DJI RC\Android\data\dji.go.v5\files”.

Settings on the aircraft cannot be backed up. Other settings stored on the remote controller would have to be stored in files somewhere on the remote controller. However, DJI offers no documentation on how to back them up or restore them (if even possible).

1 Like
5

This has been such a frustrating process. After manually clearing all program caches and every unnecessary file I could find, I was still 2.5 GB short of free storage space from being able to complete the most recent update. I am using a standard Mavic 3 with the RC Pro Controller.

To help others, this was my process (see bottom for a final solution that should help everyone):

From the MAIN ANDROID SCREEN (Not DJI Fly), go to “Settings”, go to “Storage”, and go to “Internal shared storage”. (You can get to this screen by clicking the back button twice quickly on the top left of the controller)

Obviously, save all of the files you want to keep (pics, vids, and downloads) to a computer or removable drive first. Clear everything possible from Photos & Videos, Music & Audio, Games, Movie & TV apps. You should be able to empty all of these to 0 GB as nothing is needed within them for the operation of the drone.

Go to “Other apps”.
Open each app one at a time, and click “CLEAR CACHE”. When done, click the back button and repeat for each app.

Go to “Files”, then click on “Download”. Delete all downloaded files after saving them to a computer or removable drive.

If you are like me, you will find that all of that work still won’t allow enough room to update the drone/control software/firmware.

I then placed a formatted 128 GB micro SD card into the controller. You can use a smaller card, (32 GB or 64 GB is probably ideal), I just happened to have the 128 GB
Go to “Settings”, go to “PORTABLE STORAGE”, click the 3 dots in the top right corner, select “Storage Settings”
Click “Format” and complete the steps to format the SD card. DO THIS STEP even if you just formatted it on your computer.
When complete click “Done”

Open DJI Fly, and click the “<” (back arrow) in the top left corner to get into the home screen (blue “GO FLY” button at the bottom".
Click “Profile”, click “Settings”, and click “Storage”.
Click “SD Card” in the top right corner.
A menu will come up titled “Switch Storage”. This allows you to migrate data from the control to the memory card.
Click “Switch” - The control will then migrate data from the controller to the memory card.

Once completed, you should now have substantially more internal storage for upgrades. This migrated 11GB of various internal memory files to the SD Card. For me, those files include Alarms, Android, DCIM, Download, Movie, Music, Notifications, Pictures, Podcasts, and Ringtones. Although none of these files should be necessary for the operation of the drone, I suggest leaving the memory card in the controller going forward.

While in the storage settings, you can also click the down arrow for each storage location to see the various cache files. You can delete those if you wish to do so.

I hope this helps everyone else as it has me. PLEASE UPVOTE TO HELP OTHERS FIND THIS SOLUTION!

6

Welcome from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, USA.

I fly the Mini 2 and it has been a few years since I tried this and I am posting this as a warning to others…

I tried loading the Fly App onto my devices’ (I have three: Motorola Moto G Smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy S2 Tablet, and a Samsung Galaxy A8 Tablet) MicroSD Card and the App would not run. I then loaded the Fly App in main memory but tried configuring the Fly App to store its files on the MicroSD Card and that did not work either…

The Fly App is a very selfish App… I understand this as the App is handling a lot of telemetry: Flight Controls, Video, GPS, etc… so the App needs a lot of resources…
Thanks for the information!