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Hi,
I experience a strange and for me crucial issue with the Apple Remote (Built-in IR Receiver) connected to a Mac mini (2011) currently running Mountain Lion.
I need to control a mechanical device with a start and a stop signal: starting to press the corresponding button of the Apple Remote should send a start signal to the device, releasing the button should send a stop signal, so that the mechanical device is active as long as I press the button of the Apple Remote.
This sounds like the easiest and most natural thing in the world, but unfortunately, I just cannot get it to work.
The mechanical device is connected via Ethernet, i.e. it is controlled by network commands. There is an OS X command line utility (let’s call it mycmd) which allows to send start and stop commands to the device.
So I constructed a fitting behavior with 1 action. The action uses 2 AppleScript steps:
Execute on button press: do shell script "/usr/local/bin/mycmd start"
Execute on button release: do shell script "/usr/local/bin/mycmd stop"
As I said, the simplest thing in the world.
And indeed, everything works as expected if I test this with the Script Remote Virtual Remote, with a script like this:
tell application "Remote Buddy" to scriptremote button "plus" event "press"
delay 3
tell application "Remote Buddy" to scriptremote button "plus" event "release"
When I run this script, "/usr/local/bin/mycmd start" is immediately invoked; 3s later, "/usr/local/bin/mycmd stop" is invoked. Just as it should be.
HOWEVER, as soon as I use the Apple Remote instead and press the Plus button for 3s, "/usr/local/bin/mycmd start" is immediately invoked (as it should be), and then, only 100ms-200ms later, "/usr/local/bin/mycmd stop" is invoked – no matter how long I actually press the button.
I tried everything I could think of to debug this, and, among many other things, replaced "/usr/local/bin/mycmd start" and "/usr/local/bin/mycmd stop" with "logger start" and "logger stop". Looking at the syslog, I found to my big surprise that in this case, the Apple Remote DOES work as expected, i.e. the "stop" appears in the syslog exactly when I release the button of the Apple Remote. (Of course, the Script Remote Virtual Remote works as well.)
So, to sum up:
Script Remote & logger WORKS (stop is sent when the button is released)
Script Remote & mycmd WORKS (stop is sent when the button is released)
Apple Remote & logger WORKS (stop is sent when the button is released)
Apple Remote & mycmd DOES NOT WORK (stop is sent 100ms-200ms after start)
I.e. every combination works except the one combination I actually need. :-(
I have no idea what happens here. mycmd is a very simple command line utility that basically just sends a few bits over a network interface. Controlling something via the local network should not be anything special nowadays.
The action is assigned to the Global mapping, and Remote Buddy Preferences > General > Advanced > "Manually activated Behaviors stay active until they are explicitely deactivated" is checked, so it’s not an issue of another behavior taking over.
But what is it? From my debugging, I can only assume that it’s a deep rooted bug somewhere within the Apple Remote specific code (in contrast to the Script Remote code).
But how can I work around this? Using an IR remote to start/stop a device over the network really isn’t an exotic task, is it?
Last edited: 20.06.2016 03:44:03
Last edited: 20.06.2016 03:46:28
Last edited: 20.06.2016 03:49:44
Last edited: 20.06.2016 03:55:15
