Does Flirc USB work at all with latest (v4.10.5) firmware?

[stauf]

I have 3 different kodi boxes that I have Flirc USBs on and I programmed each to use an old Netgear remote I used to have.  I wanted to modernize my setup and maybe use a simpler remote so I wanted to use an XBox remote instead.  I also wanted to setup a 4th Kodi box so I bought a new Flirc USB device.  I am going crazy trying to set this up using GUI version 3.27.16 and Firmware v4.10.5.  It is just making no sense.  I bring up the Kodi controller and start programming.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason why one key will be programmed sometimes and not others.  I can sit there hitting the same button over and over and over and the Flirc GUI just seems to ignore it.  I'll get a key programmed but then pressing the button, the GUI never interprets it right again.  It just seem random when it works and when it does not.  I thought the Flirc USB was going bad so I purchased another brand new one and it is acting exactly the same way.  I plug in my original Flirc USB (programmed for my old Netgear remote still) and it seems to be 100% accurate and consistent.

I have not touched my original here but as I have 3 of them that seem to consistently work, I plugged one into my PC.  Flric GUI says there is a firmware update.  My old (working) one is running v4.9.3 but all my new ones are running firmware v4.10.5.  Is there a way to downgrade Flirc USB firmware?  Are others having troubles programming their Flirc USB devices?
I am scared to upgrade the firmware in the old (working) Flirc USB devices and I can't get the new ones to work at all.  I have tried installing the Flirc application on a brand new Windows install, I have tried on windows 10, windows 11 and even Linux, it is just not working for me.  I have even tried putting the Flirc USB device in a box such that no other light could be getting to the receiver (thinking maybe there was some random IR being received).  Nothing seems to help yet the older Flirc are all working consistently.

Please help!  I used to like this product very much but it seems to be completely broken with latest sw and fw.  

[jason]

35 minutes ago, stauf said:

I have 3 different kodi boxes that I have Flirc USBs on and I programmed each to use an old Netgear remote I used to have.  I wanted to modernize my setup and maybe use a simpler remote so I wanted to use an XBox remote instead.  I also wanted to setup a 4th Kodi box so I bought a new Flirc USB device.  I am going crazy trying to set this up using GUI version 3.27.16 and Firmware v4.10.5.  It is just making no sense.  I bring up the Kodi controller and start programming.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason why one key will be programmed sometimes and not others.  I can sit there hitting the same button over and over and over and the Flirc GUI just seems to ignore it.  I'll get a key programmed but then pressing the button, the GUI never interprets it right again.  It just seem random when it works and when it does not.  I thought the Flirc USB was going bad so I purchased another brand new one and it is acting exactly the same way.  I plug in my original Flirc USB (programmed for my old Netgear remote still) and it seems to be 100% accurate and consistent.

I have not touched my original here but as I have 3 of them that seem to consistently work, I plugged one into my PC.  Flric GUI says there is a firmware update.  My old (working) one is running v4.9.3 but all my new ones are running firmware v4.10.5.  Is there a way to downgrade Flirc USB firmware?  Are others having troubles programming their Flirc USB devices?
I am scared to upgrade the firmware in the old (working) Flirc USB devices and I can't get the new ones to work at all.  I have tried installing the Flirc application on a brand new Windows install, I have tried on windows 10, windows 11 and even Linux, it is just not working for me.  I have even tried putting the Flirc USB device in a box such that no other light could be getting to the receiver (thinking maybe there was some random IR being received).  Nothing seems to help yet the older Flirc are all working consistently.

Please help!  I used to like this product very much but it seems to be completely broken with latest sw and fw.  

I'll help, don't worry, you can freely upgrade/download without any issue. Can you go to file->advanced. Enable device logging. Hit and hold a key on your remote, and let send the output over here. I'll dig up these old versions and post them, but really want to understand the issue. Don't worry, I'll get it up and running. Sorry you are having trouble.

[stauf]

Ok, I started up the PC and GUI fresh and tried to program Up, down, left and right.  Each one seemed to think it got programmed, but after it claimed to successfully get the code, hitting it again, the corresponding icons did not light up.

These are the same up, down, left and right codes that are programmed into my existing Flirc (running older firmware).  So, if I use this remote on the older flirc, it receives the codes just fine.  If I try to use the new Flirc, it does not appear to do anything.  Well, it does appear when in learning mode in the Flirc GUI, it claims to receive a code, but it appears that code is not programmed into the Flirc USB device.

Hope that makes sense.

20241020_16-39_flirc_log.txt

[jason]

4 minutes ago, stauf said:

Ok, I started up the PC and GUI fresh and tried to program Up, down, left and right.  Each one seemed to think it got programmed, but after it claimed to successfully get the code, hitting it again, the corresponding icons did not light up.

These are the same up, down, left and right codes that are programmed into my existing Flirc (running older firmware).  So, if I use this remote on the older flirc, it receives the codes just fine.  If I try to use the new Flirc, it does not appear to do anything.  Well, it does appear when in learning mode in the Flirc GUI, it claims to receive a code, but it appears that code is not programmed into the Flirc USB device.

Hope that makes sense.

20241020_16-39_flirc_log.txt 6.34 kB · 0 downloads

Capture doesn't make sense. Are you sure your batteries are okay?

Also, make sure you are not pointing the remote into flirc, it's very sensitive, aim at the ceiling if you are next to it. Then try again and shoot the logs over here.

[stauf]

I have two different Flirc USB devices running the latest firmware and both seem to behave "the same".  The behavior does not appear to be consistent, sometimes it is like I described above, it thinks codes are programmed but all indication is, they are not.  Other times I try the same steps and it seems they are getting programmed.  However, before I can get all the codes programmed, things start to go haywire and code previously learned/tested stop working.

It was quite some time (years) ago when I programmed my original Flircs (the ones on firmware 4.9.3) but I don't recall seeing any oddities like this.  I just programmed each button and went on my way.

[stauf]

The same remote works perfectly fine with the older Flirc.  Seems to be 100% reliable until I try it on a newer Flirc USB device.  I will try again...

[jason]

are you around a window, or a plasma tv, those are very noisy with Infrared and it could be capturing a lot of this noise

 

[stauf]

Maybe this makes sense to you but this seems strange to me.  All I changed was pointing the remote at the ceiling when programming and now it all seems to work fine.  Even seems to work fine pointed directly at it once it is programmed).

I find it a little odd that there is no "program" button in the GUI.  I.e. I would expect (as a user) to program all my codes in the GUI and then, once I get everything the way I want it, "program" the Flirc USB device.  I'm assuming the programming is quite fast, so you just do it on each and every learned operation?

What if I want to program multiple Flirc USB devices to work the same way?  When I plug one in, does it automatically get programmed with the current state of the Flirc UI?  I.e. can I just cycle through each USB device one by one and have them all programmed the same way?  Or do I need to initiate something after plugging each different Flirc USB device in?

[stauf]

BTW, thank you very much for your help.

[jason]

4 minutes ago, stauf said:

BTW, thank you very much for your help.

no problem, sorry you are having so much trouble.

[jason]

6 minutes ago, stauf said:

Maybe this makes sense to you but this seems strange to me.  All I changed was pointing the remote at the ceiling when programming and now it all seems to work fine.  Even seems to work fine pointed directly at it once it is programmed).

Not odd to me at all, I have a very sensitive receiver and algorithm, in combination, you can't have them too close. Causes too much noise.

6 minutes ago, stauf said:

I find it a little odd that there is no "program" button in the GUI.  I.e. I would expect (as a user) to program all my codes in the GUI and then, once I get everything the way I want it, "program" the Flirc USB device.  I'm assuming the programming is quite fast, so you just do it on each and every learned operation?

Each time you record a key, it's stored on the device. All the GUI is doing is putting it into record mode.

6 minutes ago, stauf said:

What if I want to program multiple Flirc USB devices to work the same way?  When I plug one in, does it automatically get programmed with the current state of the Flirc UI?  I.e. can I just cycle through each USB device one by one and have them all programmed the same way?  Or do I need to initiate something after plugging each different Flirc USB device in?

File->Save Configuration 

Pop the other device into the machine 

File->Load Configuration. Done

[stauf]

Ok, so plugging the Flirc USB device in does not program it, but loading the saved config does?  That is good to know.  Thank you.

[jason]

1 hour ago, stauf said:

Ok, so plugging the Flirc USB device in does not program it, but loading the saved config does?  That is good to know.  Thank you.

That's correct, the config is stored on the device and because the application doesn't track devices, the configuration isn't stored on the computer at all, unlike our remote. We'll eventually update this and bring Flirc into the skipapp, just have limited resources at the moment.

[stauf]

Ok, not sure if I am the only one confused by this.  Maybe there is a way to indicate in the UI?  I.e. my expectation was that the config was saved in the UI and then "programmed" to the Flirc USB at some point in time.  This made me nervous to even plug the older (working) device in again (as I was worried it's programming would be over-ridden).  Maybe this is a case of rtfm, but being intimately aware of the development, it is easy to lose sight of UX issues like this.  I'm trying to think of a way to make this clearer so my mis-conception wouldn't hit others.  In hindsight, I guess I should have understood better as you need the Flirc USB device plugged in in order to learn any remote codes.  Might there be a way to show, upon plugging in a Flirc USB, what functions have an existing program on them?  Maybe some sort of visual indicator on each function to show if it has an existing programmed IR code or not.  Does that make sense?  I think that would be helpful, that way you can easily know which functions you have programmed and which you have not yet (useful on something like kodi where there are so many possible codes to learn, its easy to lose track of which you have not done yet).