USB-UIRT and remote control stop working

[aclarke]

Hi. I have SageTV 5 and am running it on a computer with Windows 2003. I have an Hauppauge PVR-250 and am using the 45 button remote with Hauppauge's IR blaster. Everything was good.

Then I moved and got Star Choice satellite, so I picked up a USB-UIRT from sage.com. I plugged it in, and eventually got everything working. Except, every few minutes/hours, it stops transmitting codes. Here are some points I've discovered:

1. Sometimes I get a "Power surge on hub port" error on my USB hub. Resetting that SEEMS to get the USB-UIRT working again, at least sometimes. Last night I disabled that warning message in the system hardware properties area, but I don't know if that will mask the symptom or solve the problem.

2. Once I plugged in the USB-UIRT, my remote stopped working properly. I downloaded the irremote.txt or whatever file again from this site, reinstalled it, and the remote works fine again overall, except I'm missing functionality on buttons like the home button in the upper left, and the previous channel button. They don't do anything.

3. Occasionally, apparently when my USB-UIRT stops working, my remote control also stops working. I haven't been able to figure out if these always happen at the same time or not.

4. Usually, when resetting the USB hub doesn't work I have to restart the SageTV service. I have it running as my personal user due to drive mapping needs to other servers on the network.

5. Yesterday one time restarting the SageTV service didn't solve the USB-UIRT issue and it still wouldn't change channels. I had to unplug the USB-UIRT from one port and plug it into another. I plugged it into my USB 1.1 ports on the front of my computer instead this time so I'll see if maybe that solves the power surge problem (it's on a different hub now).

6. My USB ports are off my motherboard which is an MSI KT3 Ultra or something like that. AMD Thunderbird 1400 CPU.

7. I have my Hauppauge IR blaster AND the USB-UIRT plugged in simultaneously. I just read on the forums here that the USB-UIRT will handle picking up the IR signal as well as sending it, so I presume that the use of the Hauppauge IR blaster is redundant. Could this perhaps be causing the problems? I'll try removing it from the setup some time today when I get a chance, but I thought I'd ask for feedback here as well.

Also some time this weekend I'll be going to Windows XP as my Win2k3 trial is running out. That will give me an opportunity to do a clean installation of all this, so I really hope I get get it working smoothly for that.

Thank you very much for any ideas,
- Andrew.

[gplasky]

I would think you need to choose one or the other to use. In Sage you either want to tell it to use the USB-UIRT OR the Hauppauge remote. You don't want to use both at the same time. No wonder you're having issues. As another note some USB hubs aren't powered or powered enough. I always plug into the USB ports on the computer.

Gerry

[aclarke]

Hi. Thanks for your response. I'll post back if I have success with the Hauppauge IR blaster disconnected.

As a point of clarification, I am using the USB ports provided with my motherboard. The "USB hub" is on the motherboard and the ports come off connectors on the motherboard.

- Andrew.

[gplasky]

Ok-that should be fine. The fact that both receivers were active then is your biggest issue.

Gerry

[aclarke]

Hi again. I installed Windows XP Pro on my system instead of the Win2k3 trial I was using before. I didn't install the Hauppauge IR blaster drivers this time around and just decided to use the USB-UIRT to control receiving IR codes from my Hauppauge remote.

I went into the Sage software and tried to link commands to keypresses. However, the problem I ran into is that each button on my remote seems to give off several codes. For instance, the "channel up" button seems to alternate between two codes. Therefore if I want to switch channels, I have to hit the button twice to go up one channel. What am I doing wrong?

On another note, my installation procedure for SageTV was to first copy c:\Program Files\SageTV from my old installation and then to install SageTV over top of that. Most things seem OK except that when I run SageTV from my "TV" user, SageTV pegs my CPU at 100%. I'm not in front of the computer now, but I think it's SageTV, not the service, that's doing this. If I load SageTV via Remote Desktop from another user, it doesn't affect my CPU like this. SageTV works fine from my Media Extender. I haven't exhausted my own research on this problem, but I thought I'd bring it up here anyway in case anyone knows right off what the problem is.

Thanks again,
- Andrew.

[blade]

Originally Posted by aclarke

I went into the Sage software and tried to link commands to keypresses. However, the problem I ran into is that each button on my remote seems to give off several codes. For instance, the "channel up" button seems to alternate between two codes. Therefore if I want to switch channels, I have to hit the button twice to go up one channel. What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong, some remotes send more than one code. You just need to link both codes for each key press to the command.

[aclarke]

Originally Posted by blade

You're not doing anything wrong, some remotes send more than one code. You just need to link both codes for each key press to the command.

Thank you very much. I couldn't figure out how to do that, but I take it there's a way so I'll look in more detail when I get home.

- Andrew.

[blade]

Originally Posted by aclarke

Thank you very much. I couldn't figure out how to do that, but I take it there's a way so I'll look in more detail when I get home.

- Andrew.

You just go to the screen to link the commands and press the button again. You may need to use a mouse to navigate because pressing another button on the remote will likely cause the it to send the first code again instead of the second code.

[aclarke]

Thanks a lot. That was the problem. I even ended up programming my other remote while I was at it.

The interface for doing this is rather poor though as, for instance, when I try to program the "power" button it shuts SageTV off and I have then to go back in and do it all over again ... for all 25 codes my remote puts out. I'll make a suggestion to SageTV about that.

Thanks again,
- Andrew.