Problems with MCE remote

[Witzman]

Hi,

i cant get my new MCE remote working correctly.

LinuxMCE is 7.10

Problem description:
Only a few buttons work.
Up, Down, Left & Right are working.
These are the only recognized Buttons.
For example, the OK, Back & Home Button do not work.
This makes navigation impossible.

Can anyone please help me, how i have to configure the device?
Found some hints about updating lirc or configuring device templates in the forum & wiki, but idont know, where i should start for best results.
I am not completely new to LinuxMCE or ubuntu, but i am no guru - so please make your explainations a bit more detailed

This is the device:


http://www.speed-link.com/?p=2&cat=144&pid=15937&paus=1

Receiver:


I know, its not an original MCE remote, but in the included instruction WinMCE is refered and no driver is required there.

This are my settings in the admin section:


Big thanks & best regards,
Witzman

[rwilson131]

The first thing that I noticed, is you do not have a receiver set up from the admin shot.  If you are using the MCE receiver then select mce_usb2.

Rob

[Witzman]

Hi,

even after selecting mce_usb2 (or even mce_usb) there is no diffrence.

Arrow keys are working the other ones doesn't do anything.

When I stop linuxmce via the laaunch manager and restart the services and the orbiter i receive following message:
"Waiting for other devices starting up / mce_usb2" (or mce_usb, depending on, what I selected in admin section)
and then:
"There are some devices on this MD that did not correctly start....."

Any more ideas?

[skeptic]

My guess is it's not a "remote control" exactly, but a HID device.  In other words, it's a very limited keyboard.  Get to a place outside of LMCE, ctrl-alt-F2 for example, and hit a couple number keys.  If numbers show up, you have a HID type remote and you're probably best off just giving up on it and getting an actual MS MCE remote and a USBUIRT receiver/transmitter. 

Another tell tale sign, if you can hit a button and use it as a mouse it's a HID device.  I have one of those HID remotes (a bit different looking than yours), and it has a key labeled "toggle" or something similar to that.  I fought with it a while then gave up, just not worth the trouble.

If it really is a MS MCE remote, sending the same IR codes as an actual MS MCE remote, you're best bet is to buy a USBUIRT.  It's plug and play and by default adds an MS MCE remote, so just plug it in and any real MS MCE remote just works, no config necessary.

[Witzman]

Yeah man...

Seems, you are right. Thanks a lot...

Tried in a shell and the numbers (and cursor actions) showed up.

As my fatter owns a windowsmce, i will try on his device, and if its working there more or less without any  problems, i try to grab his mce remote and leave my sucking-hid-remote there.

If i cant manage this... there is no kind of dirty workaround to get my hid-remote working?

ciao,
Witzman

[totallymaxed]

Yeah man...

Seems, you are right. Thanks a lot...

Tried in a shell and the numbers (and cursor actions) showed up.

As my fatter owns a windowsmce, i will try on his device, and if its working there more or less without any  problems, i try to grab his mce remote and leave my sucking-hid-remote there.

If i cant manage this... there is no kind of dirty workaround to get my hid-remote working?

ciao,
Witzman

Hi Witzman,

This is a common problem with some 'mce compatible' remotes... it seems that at least partly the use of a HID device is to avoid Phillips licenses etc.

The remotes below are all compatible RC6 units;

http://www.remotecontrol.philips.com/index.cfm?id=1336

The tranceivers are compatible too but will not work 'out of the box' with LinuxMCE-0710 as the mce_usb2 driver does not recognise the ID of these newer style transceivers. We have a fix for this which we will make available in the next few days via the svn and also I will hopefully have a pre-built package you can install that i will post here.

All the best

Andrew

[Witzman]

Hi,

Thanks for all these informations.
It would be very nice, if you cound post the file here. Then i dont have to watch the whole forum.

Maybe another short question....
What about general updates? I installed my system nearly one year ago, but i was never asked to install any updates. Didnt i activate the update function, isnt there an update function or is all automatically (but i dont think so).

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

Thanks for all these informations.
It would be very nice, if you cound post the file here. Then i dont have to watch the whole forum.

Maybe another short question....
What about general updates? I installed my system nearly one year ago, but i was never asked to install any updates. Didnt i activate the update function, isnt there an update function or is all automatically (but i dont think so).

Hi Witzman,

As i said i will post a url to an installable package here as soon as we have one ready in addition to putting the new code in the svn.

The LinuxMCE-0710 release has never had any updates pushed out to users installations unfortunately - so there is nothing wrong with your installation in that respect at all. I expect you will see updates pushed out to the forthcoming 0810 release after it is released (and before you ask I dont know when that will be ;-) )

All the best

Andrew