GoPro suffers more bad Karma as widespread GPS issue grounds drones
Jan 9, 2020
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Share:
I think GoPro just wants to ever forget they even entered the drone market at this point. Most other people have, but occasionally something pops up that reminds us all how badly they failed at it. Now, more bad news as GPS issues ground the Karma while GoPro investigates.
You might remember the GoPro Karma from such events as “Help, my drone has fallen out of the sky“, “Back? What do you mean you want it back?“, and “So, there’s not going to be a Karma 2?“. Sounds like the latest one is a case of “Wait, where are we?”.
The issue was posted to the GoPro forums, where a number of users also mentioned that they’d experienced the same. Essentially, you turn on the drone, select compass calibration on the controller, which fails and gives an error message about lacking a GPS signal (in an area where there should be no problem picking one up).
I recently got a karma and am having an issue with compass calibration. For some reason this doesn’t work: as soon as I select compass calibration in the controller, within half a second (not enough time to pick up the drone and start calibrating), I get the message ” calibration failed, try again”. It also gives a message about not being able to calibrate the compass without a GPS signal. I am trying this in a field and had the drone there for at least 10 minutes, and the controller has no problem picking up a gps signal: it shows my position on the map exactly. Is there a way to see if the drone has a gps signal? All items have the latest updates installed.
– GoPro forum user “manbehavingbad”
The thread is up to 33 pages as of writing this, with many users complaining about this issue as well as a general lack of support for the Karma drone altogether. GoPro has stated in a blog post that they are aware of the GPS issue, are investigating, and that a firmware update will be coming at some point within the week.
At this point, I think GoPro would be better off just telling people “Look, one-time offer… We’re sorry, we’re buying back your Karma. Accept the deal now or just go away, because we’re done with this thing”.
[via DroneDJ]
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
7 responses to “GoPro suffers more bad Karma as widespread GPS issue grounds drones”
Im still using my P3P which is almost two years older.
Still using my Karma with no issues
Fuck off.. support the product or die
my Karma also has a compass problem so I want to wait this week to see if this cure will come about if not want to send my Karma back with the accessories I have purchased ( 2 new batteries and gopro camera) and get a full refund because I am now sick of this and gopro needs to take this on board you pay alot of money for these not to work correctly had it flying twice only and its not hovering properly but got quite a big drifting problem what do the rest of you say ??
Mine flew fine on the 28th December, went to fly it on 5th January and no go ! Compass issues,, now thanks to our nbn no internet to download anything ?
I purchased mine in 2014. I tend to fly it about every 4 months or so. It’s extremely rare(~25%) that I can pull this thing out, and have it fly as soon as I turn it on. There’s always been software issues.
Thanks for the article on this. I just ran into this problem and googled and immediately this came up. A more professional company would send out an email to their subscribers. This product is why I won’t touch their stock or any more products with a 10ft pole.
edit:
“within the week”
They posted that on the 6th…it’s now the 11th.
I want GoPro to buy back the Karma. I’ll get the new Evo II with that 8k, 48 Mega pixel sensor. It’s like GoPro completely forgot about us. The new GoPro hero 8 isn’t compatible with Karma. This was GoPro saying, they’re completely finished with Karma. We’re screwed. Anyone wanna buy my Karma?