Harmony behaviour - normal?

Mixie

Hi guys,

I've got a Harmony 555 Universal Remote and while it works as expected for TV/DVD/etc it exhibits strange behaviour when used in conjunction with Mac/PC media centre software.

The two main issues are that it can be unresponsive (i.e. you must press a button several times for a single press to register) and sometimes it can be too responsive (i.e. press a button and it gets sent a lot of times / registers as a button hold).

The funny thing is that both can happen with the same system & remote configuration, minutes apart.

I've configured the repeat number, repeat delay, responsetimes, etc where possible for both the various media centres, and the Harmony remote itself. I've also tried a few different IR recievers - the Mac Mini's inbuilt reciever, the Windows MCE USB reciever, and 2 other third party ones.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it so I was curious ... is this how it's supposed to behave? Am I expecting miracles for it to behave like a normal remote? Thanks for any and all info - it's driving me crazy

eddiem74

I've an 895 and have no issues controlling windows media center.

Can you post up what device you have set-up to control PC software, and how your activities are set-up.

Also, has anything changed recently in your set-up? I know for me the only issue I ever had was when I changed my AV receiver, and then made changes to the existing activities, some things did not work as expected.

In the end I had to remove everything, update remote, re-setup everything, and update remote again, no issues since !

Mixie

Hi Eddie,

I've wiped the remote several times now, at a minimum each time I switched Media Centre software (xbmc/plex/MCE/etc). As for the device profiles - I again tried each available to me. I mean, some are obvious (I've a 2nd gen MCE remote & reciever), but I still tried all MCE related options hoping one would behave correctly. Similarly for the XBOX+XBMC I tried the make/model of the old remote I used, MCE, etc, etc. For Plex it's Plex Player (but again, tried MCE & XBOX options).

It's quite obvious when you hit the right profile, all the buttons functions make sense. If you get the wrong profile the menu button fast forwards or is equally 'wrong'.

The problem isn't really the button doing wrong things, it's that even with the correct profile the remote 'feels' wrong with the lag/repeat issue.

I was originally using activities - turn on TV, switch input, audio on & up, MCE startup, etc but I removed these some time ago and just started using 'Devices'. That should mean button = button (there's no scripting going on).

Out of curiosity, are you using the wireless reciever for the 895, or an IR receiver?

Thanks for the help

eddiem74

Well you seem to have a good handle on things, not sure I will be much help.

I am using IR for media center not via RF.

Good Luck !

Mixie

One last question Eddie - what IR receiver are you using? If you were using RF I'd nearly have took the plunge and upgraded (this is really driving me crazy!)

Thanks again for your help

eddiem74

MCE IR receiver that came with my MCE Remote.

Mixie

Yep, that's the same one I have. Thanks Eddie