Syma Fly app won't run

[Manfred]

Hi all,

I'm new here. Yesterday I got my first drone, a Syma X25PRO. I'm trying to get everything set up properly before first flight.

I ran into trouble with the SYMA FLY app. It doesn't work on my tablet! When I start it, it displays a white screen with a red rectangle in the middle reading "SYMA", and after about one second it closes and a message pops up saying "Unfortunately, SYMA FLY has stopped."

The tablet is a Lenovo IdeaTab S6000-F, it has Android version 4.2.2 installed, Kernel version 3.4.5. The app was downloaded yesterday from Syma's website, so it's the current version.

Could this be related to the Android version? Or tablet memory capacity, storage capacity, or whatever? What can I do? Is it possible to get any diagnostic information from the Android system?

I don't have any other Android device to try, nor any Apple device.

The tablet is properly seeing the drone camera's WiFi signal. I made it connect to that network, but the Syma app still
doesn't work.

Any help is welcome.

Manfred

 

[RENOV8R]

Try putting your device in airplane mode

 

[Manfred]

Tried it. The behavior remains the same. Which probably means that the app crashes before even getting to the point of checking connectivity.

 

[wafflejock]

Believe you can use logcat if you install the Android sdk or can get it standalone I'm not sure but if you run that and have developer mode unlocked (easy process done on device) and selected USB debugging. Problem is whatever error it spits out will probably only mean something to the developers, perhaps you could send it in but they probably get crash reports too. I would try contacting the developer through the play store to see if they can help you diagnose. Since it sounds like you're pretty tech savvy getting the logs may help diagnose the problem but without filters it's usually a lot of extraneous information... Still interesting for nerds

 

[Manfred]

Unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable with Android nor with Linux in general. I started with Atari and progressed to MS-DOS and Windows, with some excursions into various other systems, just not these ones...

Meanwhile I downloaded several earlier versions of the Syma Fly app, from various websites where I found them, and version 1.0 actually runs on my tablet! I can see the video. But I don't see any flight data, battery level, and so on. I suspect that version 1.0 is not compatible with the X25PRO. Also this version 1.0 that works is in Chinese, which I cannot understand.

Even version 1.0.1 does not work on my tablet.

I will try to get a version from the Google Play store. Until now I have avoided that site, preferring to get my apps from the developers' sites.

 

[Manfred]

Doesn't work. Five attempts, five fails. The best I got from Google Play was starting the download, only to fail 3% into the download. Instead downloading from other sites works - but I only ever get Chinese language versions.

Seems that I will have to fly this drone without the benefit of a "fuel gauge" and other amenities, using version 1 of the app just for video downlink. Not very comfortable, but should be workable.

I wonder if and how other people got it working.

 

[wafflejock]

Yeah my best guess is like you said originally just something with particular android versions and/or the device (not that I have experience with syma products really). No tech 'ecosystem' is perfect but Android definitely suffers from the problem of a thousand manufacturers making a few devices each year using different versions of the OS and updating on random schedules doesn't make the job of real world testing for developers actually practical (there are services that help and google itself does some testing for compatibility and min version is set when building an app, but none of it is ideal). You can actually run logcat and the android sdk on any OS but I think the chance of getting any sort of usable info out of that vs the setup time probably makes it not worthwhile.

You can always get a lipo buzzer so you know when to come down my little kingkong gt90 doesn't have OSD so I'm probably going to grab one for that.

 

[mozquito1]

Did it ever work
If I had a penny.......... Ffs...
Too many symas too many apps
Too little instructions lost in translation.
It's @ this point I'm thinking sod this it's easier to build my own. Nearly 4 years later & 3years on here I laugh @ this question. MY SYMA.
broke props pinions battery mods yeah but When it comes to apps it like a taste test, you need it in front of you. Unless someone has prior knowledge of that specific drone & phone. It's hit & miss.

 

[Manfred]

Well, it seems to be definitely a compatibility problem with older Android versions. I asked a friend who has several smartphones to test this app on each. The result: It runs on every smartphone that has Android 6.0 or higher, and it crashes on every smartphone that has Android 4.4.4 or lower. In between those two are only Android versions 5.0 to 5.1.1, and it's unknown to me right now whether or not the app would run on those versions.

It's a pity that Syma doesn't support slightly older Android devices. A smartphone or tablet less than 4 years old is already too old to be used, by their standards...

Since I don't like the idea of buying a brand new smartphone just to see the OSD, I guess that the warning buzzer will be the way to go - but that's one more thing the drone has to carry, and for a small drone like this every gram counts!

 

[wafflejock]

Thanks for the info on what worked and what failed will try to remember this for other syma users. You might be able to grab cyanogen mod and install an updated version of Android if you root the device but would check to see which versions are available for that device and how well it works for others before considering that. In my experience with my touch 3g is any indication cynagon mod runs better than the default android it came with.

 

[Manfred]

I will look into that. As I wrote before, I know almost nothing about Android, since my only Android device is that tablet, which I use mainly as an ebook reader. Still I guess I have to learn more about that system. I must be about the only one left in the world who doesn't use a smartphone...

Anyway today I found out that my tablet's screen backlight is far too dim to be useful outdoors. Even in the shade it was essentially impossible to see anything. So there isn't much motivation now to try upgrading its OS.

I made the first flight today, and ran into trouble, but since that's a different subject, I will post about it in a new thread.

 

[wafflejock]

Gotcha yah maybe not worth the effort, but can give new life to devices that the manufacturers have decided to stop updating or never updated in the first place (maybe can get your buddy with all the android gear to handle it for ya for a six pack or whatever they prefer). I imagine there is going to be some latency in the video signal if it has to be processed by an android device as well anyhow so probably not super awesome for flying at speed also not sure how far the regular wifi can really get without some sort of directional antenna or other amplification.

Usually the FPV setups just transmit the signal as analog video so there's less time lost in translating to a digital signal and back to something for display but with digital you get a much nicer image (have seen on my runcam split over wifi there's some delay but I get what looks like HD video with no noise). The 'regular' fpv setups also usually have a transmitter that you can adjust the power output/amplification on depending on what's permitted in a given location.

Anyhow hope you can get the issues sorted out, everyone goes through some duds and DOA parts but hope it works out for ya in the end.

 

[mark jackson]

I have both the syma fpv app for the x5 and the syma fly app for the x25 pro both downloaded from the iTunes store on my Samsung galaxy a I have the dji app for the phantom the first version I got from dji was in Chinese useless I ended up getting it from google play for android I have not had a issue with the syma apps its not going well for you Manfred has to get better soon