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User

03.11.2007 21:58:02

Speaker control lost after installing Remote Buddy

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

I recently purchased Remote Buddy so this may be a "newbie" question,
but a search
in the Forum didn't seem to turn up anything.

After installing Remote Buddy and the kernel extension on my laptop
(which runs
Leopard), I pressed the Menu key on my Apple Remote. The Remote Buddy
default
menu popped up. It indicated that I could use the "Play/Pause" key to
mute (and I'm
assuming also unmute) the speakers on my Mac.

So I exited the Remote Buddy default menu (by pressing the Menu key
again) and pressed
"Play/Pause". I got a very long oval window, but nothing else.

However when I attempt to use the keyboard keys to unmute my speaker
it indicates that I
cannot (there's a circle with a '/' in it). I also cannot seem to
change the volume.

Shutting down and restarting the machine doesn't fix that. This
doesn't seem like the kind
of problem a novice should be able to get into with a new application
on a Mac.

Is there a solution or do I have to remove Remote Buddy and find
something else?

Michael Durket

These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic:

Driver

What is the task of the driver and what do I need it for? (FAQ015E0177)
The Setup Wizard already contains a summary on how the driver does help Remote Buddy to provide additional features and hardware support. If that summary was too short, here's some more info on each of the points:
- fix for Apple® Remote driver problems in OS X
  Since OS X 10.4.9 (that includes 10.4.10/10.4.11/10.5.x/..) many users have been experiencing that one button press on their remote does now trigger two reactions - once from any currently running application that supports the Apple® Remote, once the default system action. So, this problem is not specific to Remote Buddy. The driver provides a clean, system conform fix to this problem using only documented APIs.
- enabling of all features of built-in IR receivers
  Only with the Remote Buddy driver do you gain support for arbitrary length button presses for the Play and Menu buttons as well as minimized reaction times for all buttons. While this may sound like unimportant technical details, they actually do have a strong practical impact. If, for example, you want to map a function to the Play or Menu button, that you want to see executed for as long as you press that button, this was previously simply impossible to achieve. This limitation still applies to all other applications. It does not for Remote Buddy with the driver loaded.
- the emulation of a virtual Apple® Remote
  Control applications that have support for and listen to an Apple® Remote - with any remote control of your choice supported by Remote Buddy. And on any Mac®. This allows you to f.ex. use iAlertU side by side with Remote Buddy or accessing special functions and modes inside applications that would otherwise require these apps to have full control over the built-in IR receiver of your Mac® - and that your Mac® actually came with one.
- support for Bluetooth® remotes and external receivers
  It's not possible to reliably operate many Bluetooth® based remotes, like for example the Wii® Remote with a Mac® purely from userspace due to limitations in the operating system. The situation for many external receivers is similiar: some of their features - or the entire device - can only be supported with the help of a driver.

Hardware - Apple® Remote

After uninstalling/quitting Remote Buddy, my Mac® no longer reacts to the Apple® Remote. (FAQ015E0241)
To enable you to use all capabilities of the IR Receiver of your Mac®, Remote Buddy is using its own driver. In contrast, all other applications with integrated Apple® Remote support usually use the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.

As long as you're running Remote Buddy, Remote Buddy and its driver are responsible for turning the received button presses into actions. As soon as you quit Remote Buddy, this task is again handled by the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.

If other applications don't use the interface to the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem correctly, this can lead to the effect that nothing happens when you press a button on your Apple® Remote. For as long as you're running Remote Buddy, issues like this are covered by Remote Buddy and it's driver and are therefore not visible to you. However, as soon as you quit Remote Buddy, the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem is back in control and any issues caused in it by other applications become visible.

Therefore Remote Buddy is neither the cause of the issue nor is it responsible for it. Instead, the cause of the issue exists independently of Remote Buddy. It's located elsewhere and can also only be solved there.

Although our products can't cause any such issues, we're regularly contacted about such issues and asked for help. In order to make locating and fixing the cause of such issues as easy and efficient as possible, we've developed a free diagnostics tool: Remote Control Diagnostics. It can locate issues with a single click and will provide you with information about the issue as well as with instructions on how you can fix it.
After updating to OS X 10.6.2, my Apple® Remote is no longer available for selection in Remote Buddy. (FAQ015E0236)
Please update your copy of Remote Buddy to version 1.15 or later.

User

04.11.2007 11:41:01

Re: Speaker control lost after installing Remote Buddy

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

If you use the mute/unmute action, Remote Buddy does the following:

1) On "Mute", it saves your current system volume and then uses
Apple's AppleScript API to set it to zero.

2) On "Unmute", it sets your current system volume to the value it
previously saves and uses Apple's AppleScript API to set it.

If you quit Remote Buddy after you used the Mute action, the level is
already at zero, so when you start Remote Buddy and then use the Mute
action again, it won't be able to guess what volume you previously had.

The same applies when you use the mute and unmute key. If the level is
already at zero when you press it, it will stay at zero no matter how
often you press it.

To change system volume, press the volume plus and minus buttons on
your keyboard or use the actions supplied in Remote Buddy for that
purpose. And unless you quit Remote Buddy since you used the mute
action, it will also unmute again if you simply execute the unmute
action again.

Apple does not provide a system-wide Mute/Unmute API, so you'll always
have to mute and unmute volume using the same method.

Best regards,
Felix

User

04.11.2007 16:51:01

Re: Re: Speaker control lost after installing Remote Buddy

View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

Felix,

Thanks for your quick reply. It actually turned out to be my fault
as I found out.
I am using the headphone jack on my laptop to send the audio signal to
my stereo
system (I'm testing Remote Buddy in a home theatre system). Apparently,
when you send audio out via the output jack, you lose all speaker
control via the
keyboard keys.

It wasn't Remote Buddy at all (although it took a while to find
this out). I like Remote
Buddy a lot, but am still getting used to it and have yet to
experiment with things like
writing my own behaviors....

Regards,

Michael Durket

On Nov 4, 2007, at 2:41 AM, Felix wrote:

If you use the mute/unmute action, Remote Buddy does the following:

1) On "Mute", it saves your current system volume and then uses
Apple's AppleScript API to set it to zero.

2) On "Unmute", it sets your current system volume to the value it
previously saves and uses Apple's AppleScript API to set it.

The same applies when you use the mute and unmute key. If the level is
already at zero when you press it, it will stay at zero no matter how
often you press it.

Apple does not provide a system-wide Mute/Unmute API, so you'll always
have to mute and unmute volume using the same method.

Best regards,
Felix

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