User

02.02.2007 21:55:40

and it's not a battery problem. the remote works with my roommates macbook pro. 
I went to my cousins house a few days ago and paired their Wii remote to my macbook using Remote Buddy and it worked just fine. but now that I am back home, it seems that my Apple Remote no longer works... at all. even when Remote Buddy isn't on. 
I've restarted several times, checked the hardware search, quit the app.... restarted again but no luck 
anybody know what's wrong here?

Last edited: 02.02.2007 21:57:14 

User

02.02.2007 22:25:02

Hello Ahmad,

thanks for asking.

First of all, Remote Buddy can't cause this - it contains zero code 
that could affect the operation of the Apple Remote beyond it running 
(and even while it's doing that, it's completly passive - only 
listening for events).

Having said that, here's my best guess at what may be causing you 
problems:

From what you say, this sounds a lot like either your Mac is paired 
with a different(*) Apple Remote or your Apple Remote is deactivated 
in the System Preferences.

You can find options for both unpairing and re-activating your remote 
control at the foot of in the "Security" pane of the OS X System 
Preferences. Both options affect Apple's driver directly - and thus, 
in consequence - Remote Buddy as well.

Hope that helps and best luck, 
Felix

(*) It could, in fact, even be yours. You can increment the ID of 
your remote by keeping Play + Menu pressed for a couple of seconds. 
Which, in turn, makes it look like a different remote to your Mac. 

User

02.02.2007 22:43:13

hmm.... I see. 
but I'm still having some trouble. 
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b336/zikman/help1.png

As you see in that picture, it says that I should go into the Security section of the System Preferences like you said, but....

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b336/zikman/help2.png

that's what I get when I click the security options. It doesn't show anything about the remote receiver or pairing the remote. 

User

04.02.2007 16:55:01

Hello Ahmad,

now that doesn't look too good. The System Preferences Pane goes 
through a private Apple Framework to check for the Apple Remote's 
availability and adjusts its UI accordingly. The Framework itself 
checks for Apple's "AppleIRController" kernel extension (you can 
easily check whether it was loaded by your install on startup - and 
it should - by entering

kextstat | grep AppleIRController

in Terminal. You should get something like this in return:

75 0 0x761000 0x4000 0x3000 
com.apple.driver.AppleIRController (55) <74 37 19 11>

If not, Apple's IR driver was not loaded automagically by OS X on 
startup.

Then, to exclude the possibility of a hardware failure, please check 
your System Profiler's USB information for an "IR receiver" device 
with this info (sorry, the words of mine is all in German, but the 
technical data should be the same):

Version: 1.07 
Bus-Strom (mA): 500 
Geschwindigkeit: Bis zu 12 MBit/s 
Hersteller: Apple Computer, Inc. 
Produkt-ID: 0x8240 
Hersteller-ID: 0x05ac (Apple Computer, Inc.)

If you don't get any info there either, this is most certainly a 
hardware problem. Even with totally defunct IR drivers, the IR 
receiver would still have to enumerate on the USB bus and turn up in 
System Profiler.

You can, btw, also reset pairing and any "IR receiver disabled" 
setting by deleting

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.driver.AppleIRController.plist

and rebooting.

Please also check you have the AppleIRController driver in place at

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleIRController.kext

Please also check you did neither move, corrupt or delete this file 
(which, btw, would require root priviledges and thus can't usually 
happen without your explicit permission and decision).

If you want absolute certainty whether this is a problem with your OS 
X install or your hardware, make a fresh OS X install on a spare 
external harddrive (or boot off of your mate's MacOS X install using 
the Firewire target mode and a Firewire cable - search for it on 
Apple's support pages for explainations and how-tos) and check 
whether the problem persists (=> likely a hardware defect then) or 
this solves it (=> likely a software problem then).

However - and I can't stress this enough - Remote Buddy carries 
neither any code nor does it ever run with the necessary rights to 
make any changes to your system install or change, terminate or 
affect the default behaviour of your Apple Remote in any way. It's a 
completely passive solution and you can grab the driver sourcecode in 
use from www.martinkahr.com.

The information I've supplied you with in this thread is all I can 
offer to you. I hope it is of help to you. Beyond that point, only 
Apple can help you further as they've both designed the hard- and 
software that is giving you problems here.

Best luck and best regards, 
Felix 

User

10.02.2007 16:20:46

hello, sorry... I was away from my computer for about a week and didn't have a chance to fix this. 
I went through the steps that you have listed and ran into some difficulty. I entered the command into Terminal and got nothing in return. It did not display what you showed. 
I also went into the System Profiler and checked USB under the Hardware tab, but it does not show anything about the IR Receiver. 
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b336/zikman/sysprofusb.png)

I found the AppleIRController.plist file, but I did not delete it. I searched for AppleIRController.kext driver and did not find it.

I don't know if there is much more that you can do, but you did help enough. I might take my computer in to the Apple store to get it checked. I don't want to go as far as making a fresh install just yet.

Thanks again. 

User

10.02.2007 16:37:02

Hello Ahmed,

thanks for following up.

If you don't have a AppleIRController.kext on your hard drive, you're 
lacking the driver for the Apple Remote.

Quick try to fix the problem could then probably be to just copy the 
driver bundle over from another OS X install, or use Pacifist and 
search through the Mac OS X Installation CD / DVDs to extract the 
required files.

That still wouldn't explain why your IR receiver does not show up in 
System Profiler, though. Driver installed or not - the hardware 
should always show up there. So, yes, having your Mac checked at an 
Apple Store is probably a good idea.

Good luck!

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

10.02.2007 16:41:30

Yeah, it's weird because my Apple remote used to work just fine before... but after I used that Wii controller with Remote Buddy, it no longer works. It might just be a weird coincedence... but who knows. 
I'll get it looked at as soon as possible. 

User

10.02.2007 17:04:02

Ahmed,

it *can* only be a coincidence. There's no code in RB that could do 
anything of that sorts - or any logical relation between the two 
things. It's not even possible without root rights. And then, for 
which purpose should Remote Buddy do that?

Just because two things coincide doesn't mean one causes the other or 
there is any relation between the two.

Nice example in that context:

I've had a lot of mail regarding the tool LSRefresh from my blog. 
Because most people don't understand what it is doing and there is no 
documentation other than the blog entry available for it, they 
attribute all kinds of weird abilities to it. Among it were

a) an inbult online updater (which isn't there) 
b) it starting Safari, downloading, unpacking and starting itself on 
every startup (which it can't do) 
c) taking it as a replacement for OnyX and complaining that it isn't.

Sourcecode for LSRefresh is available. And it's easy to see it just 
opens a file requester and sends the path to LSRegisterURL to update 
the entry in the Launch Services database.

Best regards, 
Felix