Litchi Pilot beta — aircraft clock not synced before waypoint missions: all mission media timestamped with previous session's date (Mini 4 Pro / RC-N2)

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Title: Litchi Pilot beta — aircraft clock not synced before waypoint missions: all mission media timestamped with previous session’s date (Mini 4 Pro / RC-N2)

Environment

  • Litchi Pilot: 1.0.0.BETA-dji Build 620
  • Device: Redmine M210K6G, Android 11
  • Controller: DJI RC-N2, firmware lastest at today
  • Aircraft: DJI Mini 4 Pro, firmware lastest at today
  • Camera firmware string in EXIF: 10.08.08.35
  • Other apps installed: DJI Fly closed during use
  • Phone date, time and time zone: automatic, correct throughout the session (UTC+2)

Summary

On 31 August 2026, every photo captured during a waypoint mission was written with the date of my previous flight session, 25 June 2026, both in the EXIF and in the DJI-generated filename. The moment I switched from waypoint mode to manual flight, timestamps became correct and stayed correct for the rest of the session. Nothing was changed on the phone at any point.

Affected range: DJI_20260625104128_0503_D.JPG through _0981, 479 files. The immediately preceding file, _0502, is a genuine capture from 25 June. The first file recorded after switching to manual flight carries the correct 31 August date.

Steps to reproduce (as observed)

  1. Aircraft powered off and unused since 25 June 2026.
  2. Cold start: RC-N2 plus phone, launch Litchi Pilot, connect to aircraft.
  3. Wait for full GNSS lock, then take off.
  4. Run a waypoint mission with photo capture actions.
  5. All media produced by the mission is stamped 25 June 2026.
  6. Switch to manual flight with no restart or swap the battery
  7. From that point on, all timestamps are correct.

Expected behaviour

The aircraft clock is set from the mobile device time when the app connects, before the mission is uploaded and started.

Actual behaviour

The aircraft keeps the clock value from the previous session for the whole duration of the waypoint mission, and only picks up the correct time once manual flight begins.

Additional observations

  • Within the affected block, the time of day not is correct
  • File system timestamps on the card match the EXIF values and carry the correct +02:00 local offset, so this is not an operating system or card reader artefact. The wrong value was written by the aircraft itself.

Impact

Metadata is unusable for chronological sorting, photogrammetry processing and any documentary or evidential use. Correcting it after the fact means editing the EXIF of the originals, which is not acceptable in some of those contexts.

Happy to run a test build or provide a full directory listing of the card if that helps narrow it down.