Guided_nogps missing in Copter 4.0.1

ArduCopter Copter 4.0
1

Hi,

I’m using a companion computer (Raspberry PI) to connect and send commands to PX4 with ArduCopter. I upgraded the PX4 to ArduCopter 4.0.1 and I get a message that Guided_NoGPS mode is not a supported mode. I rolled back to ArduCopter 3.6.9 and everything works OK.

Any idea why Guided_NoGPS is not working with 4.0.1?

Thanks,
Raz

2

@Raz_St,

Did it actually say, “not a supported mode” or “failed to change modes”? The mode certainly existing in Copter-4.0.2-rc3 because I’ve switched my desktop cube to be in this mode.

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I suspect the vehicle was unable to get into this mode for some reason or perhaps the ground station is to blame. Could you provide an onboard log?

By the way, at the risk of being a bit pedantic, the autopilot is probably a “Pixhawk”. So to add some clarity, “Pixhawk” is hardware. “PX4” and “ArduPilot” are software.

3

Thanks for the reply.

The excat error message I got is: “No such mode”. And I got it as a result to a Python call (using DroneKit) to change mode to Guided_NOGPS. Again, without any HW changes, when I rollback to copter-3.6.9 it works well.

As I mentioned, I used copter-4.0.1, you mentioned you used copter-4.0.2-rc3 - maybe it was fixed in that version but I didn’t see any note on this in the release notes.

You are correct, I’m using a Pixhawk HW (not cube).

Raz

4

Hi @Raz_St,

Ah, OK. I know what the problem is. Guided_NoGPS has been removed from the “fmuv2” builds which is what is loaded onto vehicles with the 1MB flash limit.

No cubes suffer from this problem but some (normally) older Pixhawks do. Could you try loading the Pixhawk1 build onto the board? Perhaps the most straight forward way is to download the “arducopter.apj” file from this directory and then use the GCS’s load custom firmware option.

1 Like
5

Many thanks @rmackay9,

You are correct. I loaded the Pixhawk1 build from the link that you provided and now it is working and I can switch into Guided_NoGPS mode successfully.

A few questions:

  1. How did you know that this mode was removed from “fmuv2” builds. Or in other words, how could I know this? I didn’t see this in the release notes.
  2. Do you know why this mode was removed from “fmuv2” builds?
  3. Do you know if there is a plan to bring it back or I will need to do a custom firmware load from now on?

Thanks again,
Raz