Why Betaflight 4.4 GPS Sucks, and How To Fix It 

This doesn't work unless your M10 GPS specifically has flash memory onboard. Bit of an oversight. I've just wasted HOURS on this until I realised.

If you are having an NAK received error message while on MGA Transfer Progress uploading page to the Flash. Just lower the days count or increase day resolution. My TBS m10 GPS didn't have enough memory to store 35days of day at 1 day resolution.

Got my first ever FPV (GEPrc cinelog 35 v2 w/ ELRS & GPS) and seeing all these problems makes me wish I went with DJI avata 2 instead. You'd think after investing almost 2k in a set up that it would work right? So much manual work and technical adjustments to make a product function AS ITS SUPPOSED TO is hilarious. (srry needed to let that out)

Today with the BF 4.5 we still need this? Because my M10 don't take fast the satelites

I got interesting situation with my cinewhoop drone with 4.4 beta and Tbs m8 gps unit. I'm getting sat lock when I powered up the drone with usb cable but if I fire up with lipo, there is no satallites no matter how much time wait. Gps powering up with both cable and lipo btw. If I power up with usb cable then wait the satallites and plug lipo, pull out usb cable, satallites continue to work but I cannot arm cause of msp error. Drone still thinks usb cable plugged in.

Another trick is using the `gpspassthrough` command in the BetaFlight CLI, which uses the configuration from your ports tab to pass the required UART.

I am just going to wait for the 4.4.2 fix. Thanks for the informative video.

Wish he would have reminded to make a gps config backup before messing with it. Foxeer M10 performance tanked after i tried this. But my fault...we learn the hard way.

Thank you for always bringing us such great and useful info. I just bought my first GPS module last week - it is not from this newer generation of M10 but I will keep it and learn from it. Also your videos have an entertainment quality to them, some people simply just have a good presence and ability to speak it is a natural gift although I am sure that if someone works hard enough they can also develop those same abilities. Cheers!

Pls do a follow-up video when you think this has been fixed.

Any time I screw anything up i resort back to your Teachings thank u.

Eye opening… Thanks JB

Can one token be used for multiple GPS devices?

How do I get the AssistNow token?!

Thanks for making this, it’s such a relief having decent installation explanation. 👍

Asked about this the other day on FB. You're a legend, Josh. Thanks 🙏🤙

great work

Thank you Joshua, the Walknail M10 GPS initially only got 4 signal bars, I reprogrammed it according to the tutorial, now it has increased to 20 signal bars. Tested FC mamba F405 mk2.. 😊

Thanks for the walkthrough! I hope the old M8 gps units will still be supported in future bf versions though.

I've been telling folks to try autoconfig in the Betaflight 4.5 zulu build because it speaks m10. A quick gander at that config file makes me realize that it wont help all m10 units out there as the Beitlin BE-220 I have came configured to output NMEA only and needed to enable a few more ublox messages as well. I used the ucenter2 included vehicle preset and then manually enabled a couple more messages, fast baud and saved it to flash. I documented what I needed to do on the Betaflight discord general chat.

Tried the whole process again with another quad... changed the number of days to 30 with the same Token that initially was 'Invalid'... and it worked. Thanks.

After all of the account setup and activation etc it was pretty easy. I tried it on one of my little drones I use for meduim range fun exploring. I have several Flywoo M10 Micro/Nano GPS's. So far it seems like its aquiring GPS better/faster. I guess once everything is setup updating the Almanac wouldnt be the hardest thing... but it would be nice if there was an automatic alternate way. Great walkthrough video though! I was wondering why it was taking my M10's so long to get satellites sitting there baking the DJI VTX... this makes sense now after watching this.

Just tried this process (not the AssistNow part) on my new Flywoo GM10 v3 Pro. It came out of the box with 10Hz measurement frequency (100 ms MEAS period). It also has flash, so I was able to set the speed to 115200 in RAM, BBR, and flash. BetaFllight 4.4.0, however, still exhibits the aggressive pitch wobble on GPS rescue with unit. Otherwise identical configuration had smooth pitch behavior with Matek SAM-M8Q, so I think there might still be something in the autoconfig that the iFlight fix misses.

Thanks!

What a freaking mess. 😬 I'm going to stay away from the M10 chips for now. Thanks, Joshua! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Just went outside with my new 7" build, Beitian 220. Fully shielded GPS wiring with copper tape. On a 'cold start' (quads not even finished yet) I had 14 satellites within 45 seconds and lock in 30. I'm just north of Toronto (sadly, but better than IN Toronto). It went up to 17 before I went inside.

error:Invalid Token These steps doesn't work for me :(

Invalid offline token, all the time... this solution is still working?

Is this video unlisted? I've been checking your channel for this since you mentioned it on the livestream a couple of days ago! I clicked through from your M10 video and notice this was posted a week ago and only has 9 views?! Anyway, thanks for putting this out! I've seen the iFlight instructions and had a quick look but thought I'd wait for your more detailed guide to make sure I don't mess it up!

Where on earth do you find the assistnow token request?? Not in your description..

Digging the botgrinder tee JB!

Great walkthrough, hope a new Betaflight version isn't too far off, because these gps are 🔥. I dunno why iFlight says to jump through all the hoops of getting assistnow when that only helps for a short time. Maybe BF Configurator can integrate that if you enter your key!

On a side note, just searched sounds on my Zorro to get rid of "sensor lost" BS, and found your sound pack. Funny as, relabelled as EN file and all sounds auto swapped. Now you are speaking to me every time I get remote out and power on, bit creepy, but funny AF!

My foxeer was preset to 115200 baud with 10 hz from the get go. Only issue i had was i had to manually set the baud rate in Ports.

For serial pass-through, what OSI layer is that done at? I don't know much about the hardware, but I think it would be odd for the software to turn off the layer 2 hardware acceleration. IE layer 1 would be a loop reading and writing GPIO low and high signals, where layer 2 would be reading and writing bytes from a shift register or the soft serial API functions. Assuming layer 2 means that unless the rate of both serial connections match, you could get weird results!!! Especially during large data xfers.

Hi Joshua, is it possible to have a map as osd and see where your quad is on the map while flying?

Sir will this M10 gps work with ardupilot or we have to do this process you showed?

Thx for all the work you put into this. I have several M10 GPS units. I followed your instructions to the "T"... but I kept getting an error message about an "Invalid Token" for the last step. Nothing i did worked. All the same... a valiant effort. Using Betaflight 4.3 with a JHEMCU F722-AIO FC/ESC. GPS works with it (HGLRC' M100) but magnetometer is askew. Doesn't work properly no matter which direction I angle it ( I tried them all). Keep up the awesome work Mr. Bardwell.

Thanks Joshua...what frame is that?

Can't get past the login screen of ucenter 2 does not open browser :(

I only d/l the primary sat systems and save 5 weeks worth of almanac data. A long startup is a few seconds. I rarely get less than 20 sats locked.

This tutorial worked perfect for both my nazgul F5 V2 and my geprc cinelog35 V2! I was wandering if it can be achieved by using INAV in combination with u center 2 for other fpv project!!!

I have the new flite test module with an m10 and they have it running via msp with only one wire soldered to the RX pad. Do you know how to do this update for the flite test m10 version? I got all the way to ucenter but it kept losing the signal and it never fully updated with the file from iflight. It kept failing and would not stay connected. I tried a bunch of times but it never worked. Is there an issue with doing with the msp with 1 wire?

It would be very helpful if you actually posted the link to the token like you said you would but didn’t

So what's the point? Is it to just avoid the cold start? It seems that it would take more time than to just wait for the cold start. And if it's only good for 7 days then you have to do it again?

worked perfectly on my newbeedrone m10 35 days 655 blocks

Is this fixed in 4.4.3 ? it still performs poorly for me

Hi Ive followed the process and everything goes to plan, until i get to Autobauding. It then says it is not possible...

Been waiting for this. Bought 2 by Mateksys. Thanks dude.

Hello. I've installed new beitian M10 (be-252 I in my case) and it can fix position almost immediately but don't lock satellites. Firmware drone is bf 4.2.1. I made, anyway, the procedure from your video to change bourdrate but satellites remain to 0! Any suggestions? Than you

Can I use my Token for several times (for my quads 2/3/4/5) or I should get the new one?

i already done this to my M8 gps U-blox and need special USB and when you done from uploading assistNow Offline you will have 30 days of memory of sats so you need to flay within 30 days to work fast starting. AS you know while you flying it keeps gathering data of SATS without needing of uploading any data again.

Hola Pero si no configuro manualmente el gps no funcionará o no le sacaré el máximo rendimiento?

With this doing to our GPS, do we need to repeat it every 7 days or it does automatically?

Hey JB, my unmodified Goku M10 Mini v3 (which came with my Flywoo Explorer LR4) got 10 sats right away after a coldstart after 2 minutes or so (BF 4.4.1). Would you still recommend doing the procedure as described? I haven't tested GPS rescue with stock settings though... Thx!

Quick Question, so if I have done these steps , after 1 week when the downloaded files expire, is it mandatory to do these steps again or is it okay if i let it sit for a normal cold start and after that it will work as it is supposed to ? basically my concern is DO I NEED TO REPEAT THESE STEPS AFTER THE EXPIRATION OF THE DOWNLOADED SATELLITE FILES ???

after that warm up boot, locking 12-16 sats withing 1:30

i tried to update my rekon5 and coudn't get it to work for some reason, i got a speedybee f7mini FC. When i did the serial passthru i see data but i don't get a lit gps icon in betaflight. when i try to turn gps on in the config it doesn't stick. it's an old hglrc m80 gps from a few years ago. im on ublox, 115200 correct uart, tx / rx all correct.

nothing about M10 in 4.4.2 release notes ? - does it mean that they still did not fix the autoconf?

What GPS would I need to be able to use position hold?

This does not work with the Flywoo M10 Mini, does it?

I don’t need any magic from M10 chips - I’ve installed an old and trusty m8 Beitian BN-220 on my new Mark5 o3 6S PNP and put it where the gopro should go and i have 27sats in no time. It takes 1 - 2 mins and I’m ready from cold start. Each next fix is instantaneous. The problem with EVERY gps regardless of a chip is its placement on a quad and interferences. Sometimes on small builds there is no good spot… Lead your gps cables so they don’t go across the fc sandwich, make sure gps cable is shielded and that shielded is connected to GND, make it on a longer cable or extension first to find the best spot. When nothing works put it at the top of battery in some 3d printed small case… Newer m10 chip won’t help much if you won’t eliminate the core issue. On Joshua’s m10 video you can see it doesn’t perform well at all - it took ages to find 5-6sats… Also sat count doesn’t mean much - HDOP parameter is the one you should take care of, you can enable it via CLI and it’s going to be displayed on OSD next to sat count. My HDOP is 0.8 - 0.9 - which is perfect. And uploading new gps data every 7 days is not a solution for me - waaay too much hassle. With my cold start I plug my battery in then by the time my goggles and tx will boot and i’ll sit comfortably on a chair my gps is almost ready to take off.

Hello Joshua Bardwell do you know if this problem is fix with the 4.4.2 ? just to know before to do this...

Fun fact is that i did not know this, but with inav 6.0.0 it is already working as a charm: i got as much as 30 satellite and very low hdop

If I have GPS installed on Softserial1, what command should I enter in the CLI? BetaFPV has UART6 on sofiserial1. The command with 5 does not work.

I love you Bardwell!

Do I still need to do this for Betaflight 4.4.3?

Is this also required for INAV? I'm putting one on a wing.

Hey JB -- where can we download u-center 2 23.03.54868? The U-center site only lets you download 22.07 which looks completely different in your step-by-step process.

@Joshua Bardwell do I wait for the jibberish to stop before I exit betaflight? Because I'm doing this right now and it's still going and it's been 5 mins or more. Thanks

Why is nobody talking about this CLI command : (set osd_gps_sats_show_hdop = on) which give you gps precision on a scale of a 100, ive been running a BN-880 on my 5inch and on my last run i did get up to 28 gps with a precision of 0.5/100

So, will this work with my old BN-880 / BN-220 GPS modules, or am I living in a stone age and need to upgrade to the newest m10 chips too?

is still necessary for 4.4.3 version of BF ?

i registered on that website but i didn't received that token code!

I shouldn't have to register anything to flash my GPS. Looking for other options....

I have connected a Ublox Neo 6M GPS module to my quadcopter, which is based on the Speedybee F405 v3 and running Betaflight 4.4.3. In the Betaflight configurator, I can see that I have a 3D GPS fix, and when I issue the "gpspassthrough" command, I can see data being written to the CLI. However, I've noticed that the GPS icon in Betaflight does not turn yellow. I have connected the GPS module to UART6, disabled auto baud (although I have also tried enabling it), enabled auto configuration, and set the baud rate to 115200. I'm wondering why the GPS icon is not turning yellow. Should I be concerned about this issue, or can I just ignore it? It's worth noting that even with this issue, the quadcopter arms with Return to Home (RTH) configured, which is set to disable arming without a 3D fix.

I cant find that confguration file that you say is in the iflight Google drive. I typed out the url from the video but no joy. How do you download it?

would this help M8's too?

HOTA!!! Nice :)

I did some experiment with this. M10 GPS will work with current Betaflight 4.4.2 as long as the baud rate is set to 115200. Gets "cold lock" within 20 seconds and "warm lock" within 5 seconds. Return home and lands perfectly everytime. Auto Baud needs to disabled as it reverts mine back to 9600 for unknown reason, causing RTH to go out of whack. 10Hz refresh is icing on the cake but not required for RTH. And I get 24 satellites on average. Tested on Bzcnss BZ-181, Beitian BE-182, and Matek m10-5883.

Has anyone else noticed their m10 gps disappears from betaflight after about ten mins or so if set to 115200 baud, even after performing these steps. Happens on both my hglrc m100 and flywoo mini m10 v3. Doesn't happen with the next slowest baud. Worried it might happen in flight

Is this fix still needed for bf 4.4.2?

Hello "Joshua Bardwell"! Thank you for showing us such a wonderful video! I feel so happy! I'm looking forward to your next work! Have a nice day!

BF 4.4 has all sorts of problem, how do we upgrade to 4.5?

It wasn't too clear to me. So... the BE-220 module is compatible to put the almanac...? Or do you have no memory for that? that model, be-220 is from 10th generation, the bn-220 is from 8th.. Can someone tell me if this be is compatible or not? thanks and sorry for my horrible english so i have to use the translator...

Anyone else have a problem with the connection showing up briefly when the device is added but then indicate "Not Receiving Data" and then a pup up saying "Autobauding Not Possible"? My GPS is powered through the USB but I tried with and without a battery just incase the power wasn't enough just on USB and I have tried on 2 separate computers with the same results.

Ok i tried this on a foxeer m10q and i am now getting 0 sats. I was only getting like 3 or 4 before that though so maybe its a bad gps? The quad has walksnail installed but the gps powers up via usb so i can confirm its not just the interference from the WS. Anyone successfully done this to a foxeer gps unit?

Hmm. After I updated to betaflight 4.4 I have the feeling it found less gps and searched longer. Maybe my feeling is wrong. I guess a betaflight update might be easier

I recently got a Mateksys M10Q-5883, but it doesnt work for me. I tried both betaflight 4.4.3 and new released 4.5 first, i followed all the step by step instructions in this video, it does not work, im sure all wires are well connected, TX to RX, RX to TX. I also pluged in my 6s battery with USB to my computer wont work,. then, i tried different baud rate (including auto) in the ports tab, but no matter how i set, i dont get a yellow GPS incon on top of betaflight. it always red..... I tried to move on to the U center 2, add device and found com port, but it said not receiving data..... what can i do ?

So... there's no software for Mac users..

So is it fixed yet or is this still an issue 6 months later?

I'm looking to buy a drone I already have the Jumper T-Lite controller. I have $500 to spend on a drone, goggles, battery and charger. Is it possible to find all this for this price? What do you recommend?

Is this issue fixed in 4.4.2?

had mine plugged in for an hour . than broke it with a hammer . hillary style . thank you BF 4.4 .

gpspassthrough is the fastest way to pass through the GPS to the USB port. Don't know, why it's not advertised and always described to use serialpassthrough with parameters.

When I import the config file and hit send, I didn't get any check marks and it stopped on the first one with a red triangle. Anyone know how to fix this?

Sadly there doesn't seem to be a Mac version of u-blox...

Has it been fixed yet?

Do you think you might need to do something similar to this for inav or as of now or is it already Good2Go

It's good, but it stopped working after the config file. 😐