Unable to get Skip 1s connected with Skip App

[Deepcage]

Hi there, i have been searching the forums for about 8 hours since i've received my Skip 1s via mail-order today.

At first i could not even connect the remote. Something to do with STEAM??? I worked around this by installing the app on my work laptop. However... it still doesn't do diddly squat.

As soon as i unplug the cable, the remote goes offline and/or loses connection. No matter in which USB port i plug the USB Receiver, nothing seems to work.

I read some stuff about a SkipDeviceHIDBroker.exe somethingsomething, but this does not appear on my system. Its installed, but it wont run or do anything as far as i can tell. 

I did manage to push a firmware update to the remote, but that also doesnt seem to help. As soon as i take out the cable. Zip, zilch, nada, nope, nothing!

I am on Win11 x64 build 22631
13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K
Didnt think anything else was relevant and didnt want to show-off. so i omitted the rest.

Would really appreciate some assistance with this expensive paper weight i bought from your company or information about returns/refunds will also do the trick for me. I rather buy something that actually works when you plug it in. Ya know... Plug and Play instead of Plug and PRAY.

[jason]

43 minutes ago, Deepcage said:

Hi there, i have been searching the forums for about 8 hours since i've received my Skip 1s via mail-order today.

At first i could not even connect the remote. Something to do with STEAM??? I worked around this by installing the app on my work laptop. However... it still doesn't do diddly squat.

As soon as i unplug the cable, the remote goes offline and/or loses connection. No matter in which USB port i plug the USB Receiver, nothing seems to work.

I read some stuff about a SkipDeviceHIDBroker.exe somethingsomething, but this does not appear on my system. Its installed, but it wont run or do anything as far as i can tell. 

I did manage to push a firmware update to the remote, but that also doesnt seem to help. As soon as i take out the cable. Zip, zilch, nada, nope, nothing!

I am on Win11 x64 build 22631
13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K
Didnt think anything else was relevant and didnt want to show-off. so i omitted the rest.

Would really appreciate some assistance with this expensive paper weight i bought from your company or information about returns/refunds will also do the trick for me. I rather buy something that actually works when you plug it in. Ya know... Plug and Play instead of Plug and PRAY.

I'm so very sorry for all your frustrations. I hope we can connect if you are still seeing these issues.

Are the batteries plugged in and the right way? Both positives should be pointing up. They should have been wrapped in plastic, can you confirm they are new?

Regarding the driver issue, you can install the driver manually here
The app should have discovered the issue by itself and downloaded, and prompted you to install the driver. You can try doing it manually on the system in question. Please let me know if that doesn't work. Bottom line, it's all windows fault. We are binded to an application within 'UWP (universal windows app)'. They encforce security policies and sometimes outside apps effect our devices. It's a horrible mess and I regret using the technology we've used because of the issues windows randomly creates for us.

Please let me know how these things go, I'll go at any length to solve these issues.

[Deepcage]

I found that Skip Driver thingy on the forums before you mentioned it. I also already installed it, but it didn't make a difference. As for the batteries being in the right way, i triple checked that already. Yes they were new and wrapped in plastic. I even tried with a pair of rechargeable duracell AAA's but there was no difference. 

Besides, the remote does light up when the cable is in and the skip app is running. so the remote works, just not any more when i unplug the cable.

With the cable connected:


With the cable unplugged:

We can safely exclude a battery/power issue ;)

I am an IT-technician, so im comfortable with registry edits and command-line stuff, so feel free to get a little technical if required.

[Deepcage]

Also for testing purposes, i have started my windows in diagnostic mode. so only microsoft services are running, nothing else. Even in that scenario it refuses to connect without the cable.

With some tweaking i managed to get access to the windows apps file folders, the one where your Skip App is installed. I set the executable of the Skip App to run as administrator, even that doesn't help.



Did the same for the SkipDeviceRestrictionBroker.exe (no help)

Edited November 5, 2024 by Deepcage

[Deepcage]

on a sidenote. you mentioned you are forced to use UWP, something you are bound to. I find this an odd statement. Look at it like this. There are thousands, probably milions of applications on the internet, of which mostly executables or msi installers. Most of them work on the most recent operating systems, seperately from that stupid windows store. A feature i would not even use if i had a choice. 

Why dont you write a seperate software package like that? outside of that UWP bullshit? Just thinking out loud ;)

[jason]

17 minutes ago, Deepcage said:

on a sidenote. you mentioned you are forced to use UWP, something you are bound to. I find this an odd statement. Look at it like this. There are thousands, probably milions of applications on the internet, of which mostly executables or msi installers. Most of them work on the most recent operating systems, seperately from that stupid windows store. A feature i would not even use if i had a choice. 

Why dont you write a seperate software package like that? outside of that UWP bullshit? Just thinking out loud ;)

The future for the remote is bluetooth/wifi. Once we have those, we need a mobile app. I have a small team, I don’t have the resources to do a different app for every platform. So we are using react native desktop, which microsoft is behind. Once we make the switch, it should be easy to get apps out. However, in order to have a react native desktop app, microsoft’s compiler only creates a UWP app, which is limited in permissions.

Can you attach your log file in the app directory? Maybe there will be a clue in there.

Regarding using the remote disconnected, if you press the 4 dot color button, does anything happen?

[Deepcage]

49 minutes ago, jason said:

Can you attach your log file in the app directory? Maybe there will be a clue in there.

It would help if you told me the name of the file and its alledged location. I dont see any files in there that could indicate its a log.
This is all files i know/see:

[Deepcage]

51 minutes ago, jason said:

Regarding using the remote disconnected, if you press the 4 dot color button, does anything happen?

Yes. The Red/Green/Blue/Yellow ring lights up and the A button in the top left. But nothing happens on the PC. Not even with the app running.

[Deepcage]

1 hour ago, jason said:

Regarding using the remote disconnected, if you press the 4 dot color button, does anything happen?

I think you might be on to something. The Skip App still says the remote is disconnected/offline, however... I just now pressed the Play/Pause button on the remote and it did work. Not what i was hoping for, because it caused the print page popup to appear, but it did seem to work in a sense. The center of the colored sphere acts like the pause-play button and the right and left of the sphere let me scroll forwards or backwards in media. Up and down on the ring are volume controls apparently. So it works, but it would be nice if the actual buttons with the actual correct icons on them also performed the corresponding function. Hope you got any ideas on this. 

I just tried saving/syncing the preferred setting of the buttons on the remote via the cable. unfortunately that does absolutely nothing.

Edited November 5, 2024 by Deepcage

[Deepcage]

So... any news @jason?

From the moment i mentioned the remote does seem to work, but not as intended, its been radio silence. Is this your way of saying; "ok the customer confirmed the product is working, no further customer service is needed"?

Yes it works, but the buttons are not doing what they are supposed to do and i cannot seem to change them with the skip app. syncing doesnt seem to do anything and im still seriously disappointed with this remote thing you sold me. I expected more.

[jason]

57 minutes ago, Deepcage said:

So... any news @jason?

From the moment i mentioned the remote does seem to work, but not as intended, its been radio silence. Is this your way of saying; "ok the customer confirmed the product is working, no further customer service is needed"?

Yes it works, but the buttons are not doing what they are supposed to do and i cannot seem to change them with the skip app. syncing doesnt seem to do anything and im still seriously disappointed with this remote thing you sold me. I expected more.

No, it's just me, and I have to manage everything. Sorry, didn't mean to leave you hanging, just trying my best.

Sounds like a configuration problem. Any button can do anything, sounds like you just need to make sure they are mapped to you're liking. I suppose what we automapped isn't correct. So please save your current file. Configure it, and then save the new file, so I can see how you changed it.
   Maybe I misunderstood the problem.

[Deepcage]

The initial problem was getting the remote to communicate with the PC. That seems to be working now. The only thing not working is saving a keymapping in the app and then syncing it to the remote with the cable. Ive done this 3 times now and the buttons remain unchanged. But maybe its because im choosing the wrong options from the drop down menu's. 

I am using a regular gaming desktop with W11. No special hardware except your Flirc USB and remote. So i have no idea if i configured the app properly because its not very clear which options i should pick for a windows computer.

This is step 1 of the process where i have no clue what to select. Because depending on what i choose here, my choices in the next screen are severely limited and wont allow me to just set it to use a specific app on my pc (like VLC player) or anything. Or i just dont know where you hid it.



Then in step 2, i select PC, because that seems obvious, but then i get this nonsense. i get 4 choices... there are more than 4 types of PC's in the world ya know...


I just selected Flirc because that seemed the only logical choice, but then in the 2nd drop down menu... it just gets worse. I tried Nvidia shield gen 1 and 2, Plex, Kodi and WMC and none of them work as i had hoped. 


QUESTION: Does it matter what i do here? if so, can you please tell me how to setup the remote for a standard W11 desktop to just stream content via the browser or via VLC Player?

Edited November 7, 2024 by Deepcage

[Deepcage]

51 minutes ago, jason said:

No, it's just me, and I have to manage everything. Sorry, didn't mean to leave you hanging, just trying my best.

Sounds like a configuration problem. Any button can do anything, sounds like you just need to make sure they are mapped to you're liking. I suppose what we automapped isn't correct. So please save your current file. Configure it, and then save the new file, so I can see how you changed it.

 Maybe I misunderstood the problem.

You said "So please save your current file. Configure it, and then save the new file, so I can see how you changed it."

I assume you meant Export my current profile? 
Then make a blank profile by deleting my current profile?
then saving a new configuration and upload you the before and after files after exporting the 2nd set as well?

Please confirm or correct me if i am wrong.

While i appreciate that you are trying to help and are apparently all by yourself, it has to be said that your instructions are severely lacking in detail. you might want to leave less things out, it helps with solving problems if both sides know what is being said.

[jason]

I have no idea what you are trying to achieve. Sounds like you are trying to use the Skip remote with Flirc USB? But not sure how and what you are expecting. Let me try and explain this a bit.

Flirc USB emulates a HID device and or a USB keyboard.

If you want to use flirc - usb on a FireTV, I have all the HID codes on the USB device. I also have custom IR codes that will not interfere with any device in your living room specifically for Flirc. Loading this profile onto skip will allow you to use your skip remote with Flirc USB.  Skip sends out custom IR codes, and in turn, the FLIRC USB receives these codes and sends out the necessary HID codes to the FIRE TV for you. Automatically, nothing else should be required for flirc.

If you are trying to use the remote and flirc usb on your computer, you can do this as well. Say, you are using XBMC/Kodi, no problem. Just select the SKIP / Kodi profile in the skipapp, and launch KODI on your computer. The correct Keyboard keys will be sent wihen you press the correct buttons on the remote, assuming flirc usb is plugged in.

If you want to control VLC, that's no problem as well. Just load an arbitrary IR device into skip that is not in the same room. Launch the flirc usb app, and then pair the keyboard keys yourself. The flirc usb app will allow you to dynamically pair remote control keys with any arbitrary keyboard or HID key.

Here is where you can get the flirc usb software: https://flirc.tv/products/flirc-usb-receiver?variant=43513067569384#spec2

I hope that helps clarify how these can be used together. Any information an what these are plugged into and how you intend to use them would be great, if I didn't help with the above.

[Deepcage]

ok let me try to be as clear as possible because i only mentioned this like 3 times before already. But you seem to read only parts of what i am typing, which is not helpful.

Regular Desktop (gaming) Computer with a regular computer monitor (so no tv's)
No additional hardware. No IR devices. No special apps except maybe VLC or my browser is being used for streaming or watching videos. 

As a matter of fact i do not even own an actual/regular TV. There are no other IR devices in my entire house. Just this singular computer with Flirc USB and Skip Remote.

I am trying to remote control the streams or movies i watch via this computer. I do not own anything you mentioned like KODI or Fire TV or whatever. 
Stuff like this:

If its not meant to be used with just windows, then this remote is in essence worthless for what i needed it and thus a waste of money. If so, i would like to start a refund action and would like information on how to return it.

 

Edited November 8, 2024 by Deepcage

[jason]

Yes, you can do what you need, but please read my explanation above of how flirc usb works.

I'm really sorry, I've re-read everything, I still do not see where you were explaining that you wanted to use the skip and flirc together to control media on the computer in a browser. Only that it wasn't working with the computer. But without context, I only understood that to be you could not set it up. 

The remote is a universal remote, it's meant to control anything IR.

Flirc USB emulates keyboards and HID (human interface devices). You HAVE to pair it for it to work. By itself, without any setup, it's not going to do anything. It's going to receive an IR code from the remote, and do nothing.  You need to use my pairing software to configure it to your liking. You are not using the correct app.

SkipApp loads profiles on the remote control. When random things were happening like 'print screen', it's because these are pre-loaded on Flirc USB so you don't have to pair them. However, as you mentioned, they are not going to function correctly. For example, a key that might do something within PLEX, does print screen in windows.

Download the flirc usb software.  You can record remote control keys as keyboard keys. If you know what pauses the movie, like spacebar, pair the button on the remote with spacebar.

Check out controllers->media keys. Here are global hid keys which should work for various apps on windows. The specific keyboard keys are dependent on what you are using on your computer. No keyboard or hid device will be able to control the browser window while not in focus that I know about. VLC would/should work. 

If you want to have more control, you can use eventghost. But that's out of my knowledge. I see a lot of users and blog posting about it and flirc.

[Deepcage]

im not entirely satisfied with this purchase, but ill give it some more time. maybe it will grow on me. Thank you for taking the time trying to solve my grumpy problems.

[jason]

On 11/9/2024 at 9:30 PM, Deepcage said:

im not entirely satisfied with this purchase, but ill give it some more time. maybe it will grow on me. Thank you for taking the time trying to solve my grumpy problems.

No worries, I know it can be frustrating and my documentation is not great. I am almost done revamping this so it's released with new versions. Please do keep me posted and let me know if you have any feedback or questions. I'm happy to hop on a call if it makes things easier.

[Ace0]

Regarding app platform, I'm not sure if dependencies you're using are ready yet but if so you should probably move from UWP, which has restricted access to 
APIs (and no available APIs for some areas) to WinAppSDK, which allows calls to both WinRT APIs and the full win32 API surface (in other words it's not sandboxed, and you can declare the integrity level it runs at in your manifest).

For react native support for WinAppSDK, see here for their latest status: New vs. Old Architecture · React Native for Windows + macOS. I haven't tried this, no experience with react, but just putting a link out in case it's useful.

In the meantime, for access to HID APIs from UWP, see c# - Can I Use Windows Hid API Calls in UWP (HidD_GetPreparsedData)? - Stack Overflow, which uses a workaround of calling into a native component in the msix bundle from the UWP app. Don't have experience with the library recommend though (it's OSS MIT). Not sure if the Logitech/Steam issues are a solved problem at this point, but if not, might be worth considering.

Note, for another data point, I'm not able to get the remote to connect on Win11 (no steam, but Logitech keyboard), though in my case I believe it may be a USB power related issue. Computer has USB3 and using an adapter for USB-C. Remote prior to plugging in can light up, but once plugged in, no device manager changes, but then the remote lights do not work, even after unplugging - need to pull the batteries to get back to a working state.

Not blocked on that though, I'm using MacOS instead. Feedback for the MacOS app though is that not having scroll bars in the Button Panel is an accessibility issue. 2 finger trackbar scroll on MacBooks is fairly fragile (there's long threads about it, and none of the workarounds worked), so this required plugging in a mouse with a scroll wheel to be able to program the remote. Scroll bars may look worse, but you can likely auto-hide them for a clean UI, with improved accessibility.