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User

21.06.2010 23:03:00

Hulu Desktop Doesn't work with 1.8.0 driver under Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and 10.6.4

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

Hello,

I have problems with my remote buddy since Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and 10.6.4.
Before those revisions, remote buddy worked great with my Hulu Desktop App. Under the newest Snow Leopard updates I experience issues. My guess is that Apple changed something in the IR driver that has an issue with Remote buddy (or canderair legacy mode for 1.8.0).
When remote buddy or candelair aren't installed, I can control Hulu just fine. With your software, Hulu doesn't respond to Apple Remote.

Can You help?

Best Regards,

~Adam

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

Remote Buddy does no longer react to button presses on the remote. (FAQ015E0222)
- Please make sure you have the latest version of Remote Buddy installed. If in doubt, download the latest version, quit Remote Buddy, delete it, empty your trash, then copy the downloaded version of Remote Buddy to your harddrive and start it from there.
- Please make sure, that you have installed the latest version of the Remote Buddy drivers. You can install the drivers using the Setup Wizard (=> access it via the Remote Buddy pulldown menu).
- Check your Remote Buddy settings in the Hardware category. Your remote control should be listed there and the lamp next to it should be green. If you don't find your remote control there, either the Remote Buddy drivers were not installed or installed in an outdated version - or - there is a general problem with the device. For USB devices, plugging the device to another port or resetting the PMU and/or SMC-unit of your Mac® (=> find guides on how to do this for your Mac® in the support area of apple.com) may help. If you can't find it under "USB" in the System Profiler (=> /Applications/Utilities) either, a hardware defect is as well possible.
- Check the batteries of your remote control.
- If your remote control has an on/off switch: make sure that your remote control is switched on.
- If your remote control requires additional receiver hardware: make sure that it is correctly attached to your computer and that it turns up in System Profiler.
- If you use an Apple® Remote, you should also check your system settings. Quit Remote Buddy, then open System Preferences.app > Security. Please make sure that the option to disable the infrared receiver is NOT active and click on "Unpair" should you have paired your Apple® Remote with your Mac®. After that, start Remote Buddy. If your Apple® Remote still doesn't work with Remote Buddy, please also check its preferences for the Apple® Remote. They can be found at Preferences > Hardware > Built-in IR receiver. If support for multiple remote controls is enabled there, ensure that your remote control is checked in the right table (=> you can find the correct entry for your remote control by pressing a button on it).
- If you are using a Keyspan™ RF Remote for Front Row, re-pair its remote control and receiver by simultaneously pressing the small knob on the back of the remote control and the knob on the receiver stick (the knob looks like the blinking LED, except it does not blink).

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

22.06.2010 10:25:46

Re: Hulu Desktop Doesn't work with 1.8.0 driver under Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and 10.6.4

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

Thanks for asking.

Nothing changed in 10.6.3, 10.6.4, Remote Buddy or Candelair, nor are these the causes of your problem.

Chances are that Hulu Desktop simply uses Apple Remote support code that's broken by design by - without necessity - depending on driver internals (!) of specific OS X versions.

Software using such code check the OS version you have installed and then makes assumptions about the internals of the Apple Remote driver. These internals differ in 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6.2+. Each time Apple updates the driver, the Apple Remote support of such software stops working and needs to be updated manually by their developers. This is bad for developers, who need to spend time putting together an avoidable update. And it's bad for users who may waste their time trying to find out what's the cause, who can't use the Apple Remote until an update is released (if any!) and then have to spend more time to find out about and install the update.

If you enable the Legacy Compatibility Mode (LCM) in Candelair, it mimics the 10.5 driver. This allows you to use old software that depends on driver internals and hasn't been updated for OS X 10.6.2+. I also released the HIDRemote class alongside Candelair that doesn't depend on any driver internals, specific driver or OS versions. It just works, even when the driver gets updated next time by Apple, whether you use one or more Apple Remote emulators or alternative Apple Remote drivers. The HIDRemote class is available, free of charge, to all developers and is already used by major quality titles such as EyeTV, Plex, XBMC, ..

Now, what's the problem in your case? If you enable LCM and use a software whose developers didn't use this opportunity to make their application futureproof, but instead just updated their old code with the driver internals of the Apple OS X 10.6.2+ Apple Remote driver, that application is incapable of understanding what it receives.

Basically, that application detects OS X 10.6.2+ and then bases its interpretation of HID events on the driver internals of Apple's OS X 10.6.2+ Apple Remote driver, while, by enabling the LCM, the driver internals are those of the driver Apple shipped with 10.5-10.6.1. In a nutshell: in LCM mode, the Candelair driver speaks 10.5, but the application is only willing to understand 10.6.2+.

Workaround:
1) Disable the LCM in Candelair preferences.
2) Restart the application and/or your Mac (needed because applications with dependencies on specific driver versions usually also lack support for the reinstantiation of the Apple Remote HID device, as f.ex. also happens naturally during a Mac's deep sleep. Such apps' Apple Remote support just stop working then.)

Actual solution:
Write an email to Hulu and ask them to use clean, non-driver-dependant, futureproof and user-friendly Apple Remote code such as is available for free with the HIDRemote class (http://www.iospirit.com/developers/hidremote/).

Please note that you're seeing only one possible problem that's created by software that depends on Apple Remote driver internals. At worst, software accessing the Apple Remote driver this way can render the Apple Remote unusable for the whole system when using background helpers.

AFAIK, the current version of Boxee still depends on OS X 10.5 driver internals and hasn't yet been updated for OS X 10.6.2+. If you install Boxee on a fresh, pristine install of OS X 10.6.2+ and enable Apple Remote support in it, you can no longer use your Apple Remote with any software until you either remove Boxee or turn off its Apple Remote support again.

So the issue here really isn't with any of Candelair, Remote Buddy or Apple updating their driver with OS X 10.6.2 or any past or future OS X release.

The real issue is that some developers - much to the disadvantage of their own and their users, without any necessity or benefit - still access the Apple Remote based on driver internals that are bound to change sooner or later, causing complex and unnecessary compatibility issues for their users. The code of these apps is the only place where this issue can (and needs to) be fixed.

Best regards,
Felix Schwarz

P.S.: In the future, please stick to one support channel and don't post the same question as support inquiry and forum post. Thanks.

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