theboomr

I'm only just now seeing your latest reply in here, @jason. Sorry to hear that Nate's no longer here, that's rough :( My remote has been sitting unused since my issues started happening and I haven't tried troubleshooting since my earlier post in this thread, just been using the native remotes for my devices in the meantime. Hopefully sometime this week I can take a look again in the evening after work; I'm still confused about my issues though since they suddenly started happening literally when nothing had changed except replacing the batteries.

I have a maybe-bricked remote as well, but strangely I'm not sure it's actually anything in the newer updates that caused it. I hadn't touched the app on my PC or updated the remote's firmware in like, maybe a year almost? And then suddenly a couple weeks ago, the remote just stopped working normally after a battery change. The behavior I'm seeing isn't quite "nothing", but it seems totally messed up and can't send commands to my Chromecast with Google TV anymore, it keeps switching itself back to the other activity that controls my LG TV. So I tried updating my Skip app to the latest release candidate, plugged in the remote, updated to newest available firmware, still was acting the same way...so then I tried "factory resetting" it in the app, then reloading my saved configuration, still no dice...last thing I tried was re-building my config from scratch in case somehow the old configuration file was corrupted or something? But STILL, doing the exact same behavior. I am also looking at Sofabaton now...which is honestly a huge bummer as I was really enthusiastic about this remote back when it launched, and for quite a while afterward. While I still have a lot of sympathy for Jason and the tiny FLIRC team working on this remote and probably feeling constantly overwhelmed for the last several years (and I had significantly fewer issues in most daily usage compared to others here), now my product seems to have spontaneously broken itself in some way, and it seems like forum responses from the team have dried up almost entirely lately, with just a few replies in the thread for the latest version of the app. So I'm probably gonna be forced to try something else.

Aaaaand as soon as I assigned a device to a new activity starting from scratch, and synced that to my remote (just 1 device on activity A), it is exhibiting the same thing again where it sends a volume command when I press activity A...

Ok well after typing all that up, I tried resetting the remote to factory settings and NOT loading an old profile onto it, and that did the trick, now the activity buttons light up normally, not overlapping. So I guess I'll try rebuilding my profile from scratch. Hopefully my previously attached profile file has something useful in it that helps you figure out where it went wrong/corrupted though.

I'm not sure if I'm having the same issue as others, especially because my remote seemed to start doing this on its own without me having plugged it into my PC in...many months. But I tried downloading this latest version of the app and plugging into my PC to reset the remote and then re-import my old profile, and it still exhibits the same behavior. I'll briefly describe my remote's setup and then describe the odd/broken new behavior. My setup is basically something like this: activity A is for controlling my chromecast device, which has a Flirc IR receiver plugged into it. Activity B is for controlling my TV (an LG). Activity C is for controlling my Xbox, but I don't ever use it because the Xbox is tucked away too much for the IR signal to reach it reliably. I have a Denon receiver, which all audio goes through, so in each activity on the remote I have set the volume and mute buttons to directly send commands to the receiver. There are some other random mixings and matchings on the number buttons for special personal edge cases, but not really relevant I don't think (any/all commands in any of the activities are only commanding these 3 devices). The said new broken behavior is this: A few days ago, the remote died (not abnormally, just about the regular length of time batteries tend to last), so I went to replace the batteries. After putting in the new batteries it started behaving very strangely. When I would press the activity A button, it would stay lit up for several seconds, not just the 1 second timeout it should be, and it would send several volume down signals to my receiver. I've never had anything assigned to the activity buttons other than just switching between activities (I'm not even sure if this feature has been implemented yet still? I know it's been talked about), so this is very baffling to me that the remote would be sending out any IR signals when pressing an activity button, and especially that it could suddenly start doing this on its own. Other than this though, it does seem to still command everything on the Chromecast normally. Now the other extremely weird thing is, if I try to press the power button while in activity A, it does turn on the chromecast, but then the remote switches itself to activity B. No idea how this is happening. For the record, when I press activity B, it seems to behave totally as normal, the button light times out after just 1 second, it doesn't send any extraneous commands (that I'm aware of), and regular button commands seem to function normally with my TV. Also, activity C seems to be having a similar issue as activity A, mainly that if I press the power button while in C, it switches itself to B again, but I haven't tried to confirm if it's also sending extra IR commands when pressing the C button or not. Finally (I think), after installing the latest PC app, plugging in the remote, resetting it to factory settings, updating its firmware, then re-loading my profile, it still is doing basically the same thing functionally speaking, but with even a bit more weirdness visually...Let's say I have it in activity B. Now, if I hit the A button, first the B button lights up, then the A button also lights up, briefly overlapping. Then the A button light times out slightly before the B button light times out. I attached my profile that I have been using, though I'm not sure if it'll be much help since it's been the same since quite a long time ago at this point. I don't recall how to grab any logs that might be useful, so if you need those, please remind me how to get them. Also I am happy to put this in its own post if preferred...it got kinda long, sorry! Nook Remote.skip

Completely off-topic, but nice username, @ytsejam1138 :)

Considering that this is kinda more of an issue with smart TV OSes being set up to only support separate play/pause buttons, I think a future Skip remote should just include separate buttons. If you're using a device that does properly support a toggle/combined button then you can just use one of them, but otherwise it's better to just have both in case you need them, the way Harmony remotes did. I can't see a particularly good solution existing for the current Skip remote...if it simply toggles between play and pause codes with each press, that leaves way too much room for sometimes getting out of sync with whatever media is playing...how does the remote know I've started watching something, so the next press should be pause? Etc. Maybe best option is just the idea of assigning a different code to long press. That would be a bit annoying, but would at least work consistently. (For the record this doesn't necessarily apply to me since I'm using a flirc plugged into a Chromecast with Google TV, and that does support a single code for proper play/pause toggling, but it would be good for this to be worked out on future Skip remote hardware because I'm sure I won't necessarily be sticking with Google TV forever...)

I am also experiencing this issue unfortunately, after starting to attempt to update the firmware to a much newer version, my remote got stuck where all it does is flash red 3 times, whether with batteries in or no batteries and plugged into computer. When plugged into computer (Windows), it is not detected in Device Manager at all, and the usual USB chimes do not happen when plugging/unplugging. It was working fine before this point, albeit having to replace the batteries at least once a week (I was using rechargeables to mitigate this, although I know Jason has mentioned not to use rechargeables). @jason and/or @Nathan, any chance I can get a replacement unit? I already PM'ed Jason about this but wanted to tag both of you here just for visibility in case Jason is too bogged down dealing with other stuff currently. Honestly I'd be okay with paying for a new Skip remote myself if I have to, since I really like almost everything about it aside from the battery drain, and now it being bricked.

I'm not sure if there's some other fix coming, but I use rechargeable batteries and I've found that when this is occurring, swapping out for freshly charged batteries mitigates the issue.

I think what @LouP is saying is that if you have an activity already setup on the remote with, let's say, a TV, and an A/V receiver, for example, but then later you realize you want to add another device to that same activity, like an Xbox or streaming stick or something, the only way to add another device is to go back into the wizard, but then once you've selected the new device and continued through the steps of the wizard, any custom button mappings you had set up (like assigning rare misc functions to number keys or something like that) get reset to their default mappings. I have experienced this several times as well while fiddling and tweaking my setup.

Personally I would love to see a second-gen Skip remote (Skip 2S?) have separate play/pause buttons the same way Logitech's Harmony remotes did. There certainly seems to be room on the current button layout to just tack on another button right beneath the current play/pause one, at least externally. Not sure what it looks like internally. Probably would be nice to have as an elongated "rocker" style of button shape so you can easily feel each part of it without looking. But I know that's getting far ahead of where development is currently at :)

I think this is mostly the right solution (I have an LG C1 but I use a Chromecast with Google TV instead of the LG apps). The only issue I expect would be that in some apps, if you've moved to highlight some UI button other than the play/pause button while something is playing, then let the UI fade out, then click the Skip's Play/Pause button, it might click whatever button you had highlighted instead of just doing a play or a pause. Depends if the app keeps other buttons selected after the UI fades out.

Yeah, I am aware of the voltage difference so definitely considered that that could be causing the issue, I just haven't had issues with them in other devices (including lots of other remotes) thus far, so was hoping the Skip remote wouldn't be the first device to give me trouble with them. But if I find some disposable AAA batteries somewhere I'll make sure to try testing them in the Skip.

So status update for me, in regular usage of the remote the last few days since upgrading the firmware to 4.12.10, I've noticed that after the remote is idle for a while, it takes 2 button presses initially to "wake" it up. Doesn't make it unusable, but definitely a little annoying. Not sure if this is actually a bug in the firmware/settings, or if it's related to me now using rechargeable AAAs (high quality Eneloop ones, though) in the remote vs the disposable ones that shipped with it. I do not have any non-rechargeable batteries to test this theory unfortunately.

Ah, yep that was my issue, I was only messing with the slider on the LEDs tab not the Preferences tab