Remote goes dead for a few seconds intermittently

[Pete Zaparti]

I have this issue with my remote where every so often it just stops responding, for about 3-5 seconds. Every button I hit does nothing. Then suddenly it comes back and works again. It tends to happen a couple times over the course of a movie.

I attached my config. My firmware is version 4.12.10-0-ga6a774d. I'll check if there's a newer version available.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Family Room.skip

[Mainwaring]

I experience the same thing. I think I've seen others mention this behavior before, so I'm sure they're working on a solution

[splice]

I've seen something similar and it looks like it may be tied to how powerful the IR transmitter is (or rather its lack of power). If I go sit in front of my flirc USB receiver the remote seems to respond normally and quickly. A few feet back and it's once again sporadic. Harmony has, of course, absolutely no problem with being 6 feet from the IR receiver. I even bought a 90 degree USB adapter to raise the IR receiver above my Nvidia shield for better reception but no joy, remote still has those weird skips as if it sometimes can't reach the IR receiver.

So far it seems this remote is struggling with the basics.

Edited March 21 by splice

[Pete Zaparti]

Has this been addressed? Or is there a ticket I can watch to know when it is? It’s getting frustrating to have the remote just go dead for 10s randomly.

[theboomr]

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.

[Nathan]

On 4/13/2023 at 8:03 PM, Pete Zaparti said:

Has this been addressed? Or is there a ticket I can watch to know when it is? It’s getting frustrating to have the remote just go dead for 10s randomly.

This is currently being worked on. I'm not the engineer, so apologies if I get this mangled, but it appears to be an issue with the LEDs occasionally drawing more current than expected, or something like that. For some reason, it causes the remote to do a hard reset and momentarily lose settings. Effort now is to eliminate or reduce the reset and preserve the settings. I think by the end of all this, Jason could probably get a PHD in optimizing energy flow on devices with low battery. 

[Pete Zaparti]

Thanks Nathan. Appreciate the update and the hard work. Looking forward to Jason’s PHD thesis.

[jason]

No it's not being ignored. It's generally very hard to stay on top of everything, since this was a duplicate issue in the beta firmware forum. I thought I was communicating with everyone in the topic, and did not see this. Should be fixed, you should have received an update notification in the app along with a firmware update once downloaded. New firmware resolves quite a few issues. 

[Pete Zaparti]

For the record ^ that person is complaining about the lack of communication on not receiving their product, weirdly choosing this thread as the place to do it. Apologies for missing the existing thread on the remote going dead, but glad it's fixed.

Edited June 4 by Pete Zaparti

[jason]

3 minutes ago, Pete Zaparti said:

For the record ^ that person is complaining about the lack of communication on not receiving their product, weirdly choosing this thread as the place to do it. Apologies for missing the existing thread, but glad it's fixed.

Ooof, you are right. Kickstarter backer that apparently doesn't read half a dozen updates posted. I even include a two liner TLDR before my long winded post. Maybe two is two too many.

[Pete Zaparti]

Jason could you actually point me towards where in the forums I can stay up to date on the latest on firmware/software? If there's somewhere I can follow that, I'd love to stay informed.

EDIT: Oh nice, I updated the app and I see the it now alerts you when there are available firmware updates. That's great.

Edited June 4 by Pete Zaparti

[jason]

16 minutes ago, Pete Zaparti said:

Jason could you actually point me towards where in the forums I can stay up to date on the latest on firmware/software? If there's somewhere I can follow that, I'd love to stay informed.

EDIT: Oh nice, I updated the app and I see the it now alerts you when there are available firmware updates. That's great.

I'll usually have a beta firmware image to test pinned at the top in here: https://forum.flirc.tv/index.php?/forum/99-skip-1s/

I think I've worked out everything, and will get back to device learning. Unless something comes up. Remember to lower your LED brightness, 30% is plenty and that will greatly increase the battery life. 100% is completely unnecessary.

[zeldar]

Not sure if this is the same issue as described above, but what I'm experiencing is the remote will have a pause when trying to press buttons quickly back to back.  For instance when I want to exit fubo and go back to the Shield home screen I push the back button and then the home button quickly.  The back button works then the led color wheel will come on and spin for a couple seconds but the second command does not register.  I have to wait 2 seconds for the led's to go away and then press the home button again.  Is it normal to wait 3 seconds in between commands?

[jason]

The LEDs have to turn off completely. The LEDs are on to note that it is still turning on/off devices in your macro. The minimum time between each button in the macro is 1 second. so four buttons will take up to four seconds. 

In the next update I’ll significantly decrease the minimum time. 

[lm4233]

same here and eventually it stopped working all together. 

 

[jason]

16 minutes ago, lm4233 said:

same here and eventually it stopped working all together. 

 

I edited your post. Be nice or go somewhere else. I can't help you if you are just going to insult me. Your only warning. 

Help me understand what is going on so I can help. Post your config, and an explanation of what you are seeing. Also make sure you are using the latest firmware. 

[nomotion]

I also experience this issue. The device i am trying to control is an Nvidia Shield with a Flirc on a dongle so its in line of sight of the remote. I have configured the Skip to work with the shield and also the flirc using its software and the buttons function correctly but intermittently decide to not work. It does feel like the interval is a pattern it works for about 2 seconds of button presses then freezes for 2. I am using the left and right navigation buttons quickly to diagnose this but no matter how quickly or slowly i spam it, it still works for the same interval.

I tried the latest beta firmware suggested in this post and the problem persists. 

My LED brightness is 25%

Let me know any other configuration you need to diagnose or reproduce this

EDIT: Just had a crazy idea to try it without the extender dongle. The problem is still there but much better. It's interval has changed to working for about 5-6 seconds of presses and then stops for 2

EDIT2: I tried a different universal remote and the problem is even worse. I think this rules out the skip being the issue and its the Flirc usb instead. The usb is brand new tho, maybe its a dud

Edited June 26 by nomotion

[zeldar]

On 6/26/2023 at 10:56 AM, nomotion said:

I also experience this issue. The device i am trying to control is an Nvidia Shield with a Flirc on a dongle so its in line of sight of the remote. I have configured the Skip to work with the shield and also the flirc using its software and the buttons function correctly but intermittently decide to not work. It does feel like the interval is a pattern it works for about 2 seconds of button presses then freezes for 2. I am using the left and right navigation buttons quickly to diagnose this but no matter how quickly or slowly i spam it, it still works for the same interval.

I tried the latest beta firmware suggested in this post and the problem persists. 

My LED brightness is 25%

Let me know any other configuration you need to diagnose or reproduce this

EDIT: Just had a crazy idea to try it without the extender dongle. The problem is still there but much better. It's interval has changed to working for about 5-6 seconds of presses and then stops for 2

EDIT2: I tried a different universal remote and the problem is even worse. I think this rules out the skip being the issue and its the Flirc usb instead. The usb is brand new tho, maybe its a dud

So I figured out what was causing the pauses after pressing buttons quickly.  You can't have a button mapped to 2 different commands or it will cause the 1 second pause.  For instance, if you map the info button to display the info on your AVR and the info on your TV.  The button press will first display the info on the AVR, then pause for a couple seconds (color wheel will be on) then the info on the TV will display.  Then 2 more seconds of color wheel before you are able to press another button.  I solved this by keeping each button mapped to only one action.  Now I can click buttons and they respond immediately.  Hope this helps.

Edited July 11 by zeldar

[jason]

I’m going to speed it up. The minimum delay is large but it would be beneficial to leave the default high, like it is now and offer a lower to the end user. 

[jason]

Thanks for letting me know you figured it out.