DJI Mavic Air Battery Not Charging [SOLVED]

If your Mavic air battery is not charging after a long time in storage, you are not alone.

When I first got my Mavic Air Fly More Combo with 2 extra batteries, I didn’t do long flying sessions, so two of my batteries were not used for a few weeks.

When I took them out one day and put them into the battery hub, they did not charge. The light on the battery hub was solid red.

So I did some research and discovered that it was a common problem among Mavic Air owners. Here is the reason for your DJI Mavic Air battery not charging:

DJI ships batteries in a special sleep mode called hibernation to avoid damage during long shipping times.

When you try to charge the newly received batteries with the charging hub, they won’t charge, and your Mavic Air won’t even turn ON.

To charge them for the first time, use the DJI Charger instead of the hub charger. This will bring the batteries out of hibernation mode.

This seems like a strange problem for a product you paid so much for, but the charging hub can simply not “wake up” the batteries for the first time, and you will have to use the DJI charger directly.

Let’s discuss the problem in more detail since people are facing a few other problems after solving the Mavic air battery not charging problem.

These solutions also apply to the more recent Mavic Air 2 and Air 2S batteries as well as the older models like DJI Mavic Pro battery not charging.

Mavic Air battery not charging – Reasons

As we discussed above, the batteries go into hibernation mode during the long shipping time and won’t wake up when connected to the drone or to the charging hub.

What is DJI battery hibernation mode?

All DJI Intelligent Flight batteries have a safety feature called “hibernation” mode.

As the name suggests, it puts the batteries in long sleep when they are not used for a long period (for more than 10 days).

This hibernation mode reduces the risk of over-depletion of the cells.

Over depletion can otherwise be detrimental to lithium-ion cells and can permanently reduce the battery life.

Your battery will not turn on or charge normally when in hibernation mode. When you press the power button, the LED will turn solid red for a while and turn off.

Someone unaware of hibernation mode will think their battery is bricked, but that’s not the case (hopefully!).

In a few cases, I have seen people reporting that the battery LED won’t even turn red. That’s because their battery has been in storage for so long that it has literally no charge left to even power up for a second.

Hibernation mode is not only for new batteries.

If you store your batteries for a long period without charging, they will enter hibernation mode, and you will have to wake them up by following the method below.

This is true for other DJI batteries as well. I recently researched why DJI Spark batteries were not charging, and one of the reasons was hibernation.

How do I get my Mavic battery out of hibernation?

Now that you know your battery is not dead and is simply “sleeping”, you can wake it up.

To get your battery out of hibernation mode, follow these instructions:

1. Switch on the battery by pressing the power button. The power LED will be red, and charge level LEDs will be off.
2. Leave the battery in this state for up to 5 minutes, and the power LED will turn off.
3. Plug the battery into the original DJI charger (IMPORTANT: Do not use hub charger)
4. Leave the battery for a few hours even if you don’t see any LED activity. Do not disconnect or try to power on during this stage.
5. After a few hours, the battery will come out of hibernation and will start charging normally. Charge it fully.
6. Repeat this for other batteries if they are in hibernation mode as well.

Once your battery is out of hibernation mode, you can charge it with the hub charger without any problem.

Make sure you update your battery firmware the first time you put them into your drone. Here is a video overview of the same process.

You can use a similar method for getting other DJI batteries out of hibernation. I recently applied this to DJI Mini 2 batteries as well that were not charging out of the box.

Battery installation error 30068

This is another problem droners have experienced with the new batteries that they just got out of the box and out of hibernation mode.

After you install the battery on your drone, you might get a 30068 error saying that your battery is not correctly installed and you need to detach and install it again.

This error is due to a poor connection between the battery and compartment terminals. The solution is quite simple.

Take a clean towel or piece of cotton cloth and dip it into rubbing alcohol. Now clean both the battery and the drone compartment terminals with a damp cloth.

Do this carefully not to misalign the terminals. Once the terminals are clean, put your battery in and check if the installation is successful this time.

If you are still getting an error, that means the terminals are still not making adequate contact.

This might be misalignment during shipping or due to mishandling at a manufacturing assembly line.

If you are a DIY person, you can align the terminals correctly using a flat surface screwdriver.

If you don’t want to risk voiding your warranty, you can simply ship them back under warranty and get replacement batteries.

Conclusion

If your Mavic Air or any DJI battery is not charging fresh out of the box, it is probably in hibernation mode and needs to be awakened before you can charge and use it normally.

You can do that by charging it directly from the DJI Charger instead of the hub charger or from any third-party charger.

But if the battery is not charging due to hibernation mode, is swollen, or has any other visible damage, it’s time to get new batteries.

You should safely dispose of the batteries since they are a fire risk if not handled properly.