Yes, I have no idea how many of these we have missed. I guess we have to add remote malfunction as a cause of AVR and AVP gremlins, even lock ups. This has been nowhere near my radar previously, I regard this as a significant learning experience.
So before trashing one of these units order a remote from Remotes.com! Most people are not going to have two identical units in use at the same time. But for that lucky circumstance, I would never have connected remote failure to these malfunctions. Until proved otherwise we have to suspect this is more common than realized. I suppose faulty data from the remote must really confuse the central logic.
This is a good reason for bringing B&M stores back- those of us who work with these regularly have seen more problems than a consumer-based forum would ever encounter.
Last week, I went to check a new customer's system because he cold-called to tell me that his subwoofer wasn't working (he clearly didn't RTFM and doesn't know how to set up an AVR). He had called the week before after finding my number online and after describing the issue, I asked him to do a few things as an initial troubleshooting measure- the sub worked, but he couldn't hear it. I looked and its level control was at about 10:00, so I turned it up and when I went into the AVR's menu, I saw that the sub level was -4dB, so I raised it. That cured his problem but then, he mentioned that his original TV remote didn't always work and the remote for another Samsung TV DID, I opened the battery cover on the faulty one and showed him the corrosion on one of the battery contacts. Once I scraped a bit of it off, it worked as new.
People need to read the troubleshooting section of their manuals when problems arise but even more important- read the manual before doing ANYTHING with the new equipment.
IR commands are in, or can be changed to hexadecimal word strings- you're probably familiar with some command logic, so you would know that it has a way to identify the manufacturer at the front and back of the command and the rest is devoted to the command itself and the length is due to the large number of codes needed for all of the commands used by the various manufacturers. Another thing to consider is the fact that the number of IR control processor manufacturers is small and they make these to be used by any manufacturer who wants their devices, which can result in the remote from one brand operating equipment with another brand name.
Here's an edited reply to a question about IR codes on an installer's forum-
"Here's a sample Pronto code:
0000 0048 0000 0018 00c0 00c2 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0031 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0092 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0031 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0092 0030 0879
This was not converted by anything other than the Pronto that I used to learn it. Any other learning device I know also outputs codes like this (if the software has provisions for editing the IR code itself; some do not)."
Some universal remote companies prefer(ed) to use binary, some use hex and some make it easy to learn commands from an OEM remote, some don't. Harmony is the only company I have seen who would/could read a new command as it was being learned, compare it to existing codes and make repairs if it was faulty. They're also the ones who explained that the reason the Pioneer commerical plasma TV was responding to the commands for a Digital Watchdog surveillance camera DVR- they both use a Toshiba IR control processor. The commands are set, the names aren't- this is the reason the Pioneer menu locked when I pressed a button on the DVR remote that would have nothing to do with that command for a TV.
Bottom line, these codes have some redundancy, but if some words are corrupt or missing, it won't do what is needed.
