Troubleshooting

Documentation · common problems and what to do.

Accounts

"Only emails ending with .ac.uk"	Registration is for UK academics. Farmers: apply for a farmer account. Others: contact us.
No registration or reset email	Check your spam folder. Links expire: registration after 24 hours, password reset and account removal after 1 hour; request a new one.
Forgot your username	Reset your password: the email includes your username.
Farmer account	After approval you receive your login details by email. An approval link that says the application was already approved shows the account's username.

Processing

The task waits in the queue	The processing cluster is busy: tasks run in order. Large flights take hours.
"Not enough images" or a broken reconstruction	Check overlap (65 % or more), that the images have GPS, and that they are of one area. Remove images taken during take-off and landing.
The task failed	Open Task Output on the task: the last lines give the reason. Restart reruns it; for help, send us the task name.
Too many images	Up to 2,500 per task: split a large survey into tasks.

Calibration (DJI Mavic 3M)

No calibration box on the new task	The box appears only for Mavic 3M multispectral images with their original names (`DJI_…_MS_G.TIF` etc.). Do not rename the files.
"Resize images must be Yes, 100000 px"	Click Set it in the box. Multispectral images must keep their full size; calibration runs at the resize step.
"No panel shot among the images"	Add the images of the reflectance panel (a short sequence before or after the flight). Without them the flight is not calibrated, unless you allow the camera's typical factors (less accurate, flagged).
Not calibrated: "no usable panel"	The panel was not found or was saturated in every image: often a dim day (maximum exposure) or the panel in shadow. Photograph it in full sun, flat, filling a good part of the image, without your shadow.
Flagged: low sun	Flights with the sun below about 25° (early morning, late afternoon, winter) are less accurate. Fly closer to midday when you can; flagged results can be used, but say why in your methods.
Flagged: panel shot far from the flight	Photograph the panel just before or after the flight (within 15 minutes gives the best accuracy).
Flagged: factory or typical-factor check	The panel reading disagrees with the camera's known behaviour: often a wrong panel selected, a wrong reflectance typed for your own panel, shadow or a dirty panel. Check the panel and the panel images.
The orthophoto looks dark or blue	Normal for calibrated reflectance: use the Plant Health view.

Plot extraction and DEDAL-Lab

QGIS: the NDVI layer is unavailable	It needs QGIS 3.34 or later (GDAL 3.8). With an older QGIS, use Raster → Raster Calculator: `("orthophoto@3" - "orthophoto@1") / ("orthophoto@3" + "orthophoto@1")`.
QGIS asks where the layers are	The files were moved apart, or opened from inside the zip: unzip first and keep the folder's files together.
The QGIS project has no plots	Plots come from the last extraction: extract them in the Plots panel, then download the project again.
No Plots button	It appears on the map of a finished task with an orthophoto (View Map on the task).
Clicking the map opens a popup instead of adding corners	Click Draw trial area first; while drawing, clicks add corners.
Auto-fit says poor, or finds 1 row or column	The plots are not visible enough in this flight. Type the numbers of rows and columns (or of plots), or draw plot 1, and try again. Before the crop shows, or when the alleys are green too, use Fixed plot size with the sizes from the trial plan. A field without plots is expected to give poor.
Rows and columns are the wrong way round	The second corner you click sets the direction of the columns. Tick Swap rows and columns, or draw the area again.
The plots are slightly off	Select them (or none, for all) and move or resize them with the arrows; Snap plots onto the crop lets auto-fit move each plot onto its own crop.
A layout file is refused	It must have polygons: GeoJSON, a .zip with the shapefile's .shp, .shx, .dbf and .prj, or KML/KMZ. Point layouts are not supported yet.
Imported plots are about 3 m off (British National Grid)	The accurate conversion needs the OSTN15 grid, which DEDAL downloads on first use; if the import says the grid is missing, contact us.
The plot sheet matches fewer plots than expected	With Row and Col columns, each plot is matched by its row and column from plot 1: check where plot 1 is and the direction of the columns. Without them, records are taken in plot order.
"This link is invalid or has expired" (DEDAL-Lab)	Launch links last one hour: reload the DEDAL-Lab page and click again.
The flight's folder has no orthophoto yet	It is still being copied (`COPYING.txt` is there until it is done): a few minutes for a large flight. Refresh the Files pane.
No plots in the flight's folder	Plots are copied once you have extracted them in DEDAL (Plots panel, Extract plots). Extract, then open the flight in DEDAL-Lab again: `analysis.R` is kept if you edited it.
"cannot open file" when running the script	Run it from the top: its first line sets the working folder (`setwd`) to the flight's folder.
My DEDAL-Lab files are gone	Sessions are deleted after 10 hours. Download results before.

Still stuck? dedal@jic.ac.uk, with the project and task names.