Update – 10/25/17 – This morning ForeFlight released version 9.4.3 which appears to have fixed the disconnect issue. Many thanks to the users who helped out by submitting data to the ForeFlight support team, and to ForeFlight for getting this resolved quickly in a point release. -S
We have recently received a number of trouble tickets regarding an issue with the most recent updates to ForeFlight. ForeFlight will connect to FlightBox, but after a number of minutes will display a message indicating that ADS-B has disconnected. Thereafter ForeFlight will usually (though not always) reconnect. This pattern repeats on a frequent basis.
This is a ForeFlight issue, not a FlightBox issue. We have been in communication with the support group at ForeFlight and they have acknowledge that changes to their application, coupled with a number of additional factors (see below) appear to be causing this behavior. This issue also impacts users of the Scout ADS-B receiver and possibly other ADS-B receivers officially supported by ForeFlight, including the Stratus and FreeFlight receivers.
ForeFlight has informed us that they have a tentative solution to this problem will be releasing an update at some point in the near future. They did not provide a timeline for the update. If a release date is announced we will update this post.
We recommend that if you are experiencing this issue you do the following:
Enable ADS-B logging in ForeFlight. Start by connecting your tablet to your FlightBox. In ForeFlight go to “More”, then “Devices”. Select the “ADS-B” device, then scroll down to the “Settings” section and turn on the “Logging” switch. This will cause ForeFlight to upload the ADS-B log when your device is connected to the Internet.
The next time the issue occurs, take a screenshot showing the disconnect message. You can do this by pressing the Power and Home buttons at the same time. The screenshot image can be found in the Photos app.
Email the screen-shot to the ForeFlight support group (team@foreflight.com), along with a brief note explaining that you are experiencing the ADS-B disconnect issue. Let them know that you have logging enabled.
Follow up with any responses from the support team. They may need some additional information regarding your configuration.
The issue seems to be most prevalent on older iOS devices running iOS 11.x and a 9.x release of ForeFlight Mobile. It appears to happen on both the iPad and iPhone versions of ForeFlight. In some cases rebooting the iOS device has helped restore operation. This is more often the case with newer devices than with older devices.
Here is a screen shot of the issue as it appears on an iPhone:
