I'm also having this issue. The new firmware seems to have triggered it. Now I get key repeats constantly and it makes the remote unusable.
flirc_util can no longer connect to the flirc either, reporting this error on the issue of any command:
Warning: cannot open USB devicedevice disconnected, can't run command
Strange because the OS seems to pick it up fine. From dmesg:
usb 1-1.3: new low-speed USB device number 7 using dwc_otg
usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=20a0, idProduct=0001
usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 1-1.3: Product: flirc
usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer: flirc.tv
input: flirc.tv flirc as /devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.3/1-1.3:1.0/input/input4hid-generic 0003:20A0:0001.0005: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.01 Keyboard [flirc.tv flirc] on usb-bcm2708_usb-1.3/input0
This is on the raspberry pi also