Strange remote problem

[AeonFlux]

Box runs good but the remote is a little flaky. Sometimes it jumps fast in whatever direction I last hit the button. After it runs a few hours it looses contact and refuses to see the remote. Fix is easy. Hit front panel power button. It goes to standby. It still does not see the remote. I press the red power button again and now it reboots. After that all is good. When it looses remote, picture and sound are still working just fine. There is no other sign that it lost contact with the remote.

I am wondering. When I bought this box it already had the latest factory file on it. I was told to just load the 1028p bin and I would be good to go. I did that.

Should I reload the factory? then reload the 1028P bin?

Seems that the remote issue is software related or rebooting would have no effect on it whatsoever. Right now not a big issue. More a pain the the @$$. I was hoping they would release a new bin along the way and then I would just do all this at that time but not seeing any new bins for some time now. Not that I am complaining, just saying I was kind of waiting for that. Anyone else having similar issue with jittery jumpy remote? Did you load the new factory? Did that help the issue?

[KIDWCKED]

Box runs good but the remote is a little flaky. Sometimes it jumps fast in whatever direction I last hit the button. After it runs a few hours it looses contact and refuses to see the remote. Fix is easy. Hit front panel power button. It goes to standby. It still does not see the remote. I press the red power button again and now it reboots. After that all is good. When it looses remote, picture and sound are still working just fine. There is no other sign that it lost contact with the remote.

I am wondering. When I bought this box it already had the latest factory file on it. I was told to just load the 1028p bin and I would be good to go. I did that.

Should I reload the factory? then reload the 1028P bin?

Seems that the remote issue is software related or rebooting would have no effect on it whatsoever. Right now not a big issue. More a pain the the @$$. I was hoping they would release a new bin along the way and then I would just do all this at that time but not seeing any new bins for some time now. Not that I am complaining, just saying I was kind of waiting for that. Anyone else having similar issue with jittery jumpy remote? Did you load the new factory? Did that help the issue?

maybe try sys restore and load latest fac..posted here...sys restore load latest file..sys restore again..never heard of this issue..i know u think software..but imho i dont think so.

[AeonFlux]

Not hardware. Looked at the signals on the chip with a scope. Same signals when working or not. So hardware hasn't failed.

Anyone else notice the jittery remote operation?

[tvc15]

Yes I have , sometimes when I am doing a particular function it will repeat the same function when I hit a different button.

[tito2020]

Yeah I ended up buying a Logitech harmony remote .

[AeonFlux]

tito2020,

So the problem was the remote itself? Hadn't thought of that.

[AeonFlux]

The Dreamlink T5 itself was not the problem... well maybe just a little. It certainly is the most sensitive IR remote on any unit other than the original v1-v4 HD. They are both extremely sensitive. Generally, that is a good thing in a large room. The box responds very well to a mis-aimed remote across my 20ft living room.

Now for the bad...
People using a lot of other IR remotes will definitely make this wonky. So ok don't use other remotes while this one is being operated is pretty easy. But now the mystery continues. Sometimes I find that power on indicator leds for other devices actually trigger the box's IR. My wireless phone's led power indicator will drive the IR wonky and make it jitter all over while I am trying to operate the up/down arrows or left/right arrows. When I moved that phone, the problem went away. Another big offender is an IR extender such as sold by RatShack. They are nice and you can use them around the whole house but I guarantee they will also pick up a lot of noise and cause the box to operate a bit crazy. If you drive that IR input crazy while you are not actually using the remote, it still makes the CPU service all that junk until it gives up servicing the remote. It will look like the remote locked up. It did but its not the box's fault. The erratic unintentional input actually caused it. So I solved all my problems by moving the wireless phone out of view of the remote sensor on the T5.

Now finding this all out was a challenge. I actually put a scope on the IR sensor inside the T5 to watch what was going on. I could see when I moved the phone, it stopped the problem. So I tried a bunch of things like the RatShack IR extender and a number of other visible LED indicators. I could see them actually affecting the sensor. When I got rid of all this IR clutter, my problems all disappeared. Now my T5 acts real nice and no longer locks up the remote on me. Problem solved.

I report this back so others can benefit from all this investigation.

[Terryl]

Great info AeonFlux,

One other thing that can affect the remote.

A friend had a reciver that would not work at all with the orignial and two replacement remotes, he looked at everything, so I took the reciver back to my lab to look at it, funny thing was when I got it all hooked up it worked fine.

So I looked through the remote receiver circuitry on the box and found nothing wrong, took it back to his house and hooked it up and it didn't work.

Come to find out (after trying all sorts of things) that the HDTV set's CFL back lighting was affecting the remote's IR signal, he has a light colored wall right behind where he sits, this was reflecting the light from the CFL back lighting and swamping the IR receiver input detector.

I fixed it with a CFL filter from a camera shop, cut a little piece out (it was a 4"x5" plastic film, only thing I could get) an stuck it in front of the IR detector.

So if your remote is acting up try facing the reciver at a 90 degree angle from the HDTV and see what happens, also tuning down the set brightness could help.

[AeonFlux]

Camera shop CFL Filter? Good idea if it was cheap enough. Camera shops are usually expensive.
I wonder where to get inexpensive plastic film visible light filter on the internet? Maybe someone knows where?

Damn! You are right! This IR sensor picks up everything. I got blue LED and it even picks that up. So much for IR sensor.
Problem is, it feeds an input to the CPU so no signal preconditioning as far as I can tell without schematics. No wonder the damned thing can be so jittery at times.