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User

03.08.2011 19:33:07

Lion: after uninstalling, apple remote does not work for video player

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

I downloaded the trial version because I wanted to use apple remote for one of my music player app, well the interface seems a bit too complex for me, so I did not really use it and uninstalled it. However, afterwards I realized that my video player app, such as splayerx and mplayerx, wouldn't respond to apple remote anymore (they used to work fine, with play/pause/next/forward/menu etc). Right now, if I use the above video app to play a video and use apple remote, it would only control iTunes (which is really annoying, I do not need to listen to other music when watching a video), even if I close iTunes, apple remote still note work with the video app, it will only re-opens iTunes, which is really frustrating.

How can I restore the connection between apple remote and my video app after uninstalling remote buddy?

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

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 If you don't find your remote control there, either the Remote Buddy drivers were not installed or installed in an outdated version - or - there is a general problem with the device.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

03.08.2011 22:07:01

Re: Lion: after uninstalling, apple remote does not work for video player

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

Thanks for asking.

When uninstalling Remote Buddy, did you also uninstall its Candelair driver (via its Setup Wizard)?

It usually doesn't matter, but some apps use outdated (and conceptually broken) code for their Apple Remote support, which is - unlike OS X itself and modern applications like EyeTV, Plex, XBMC, Boxee, iAlertU, iTunes, Keynote, iPhoto, PowerPoint and Remote Buddy - still depending on OS X driver internals. These applications' Apple Remote support is very fragile and easily breaks in consequence. These apps previously already broke under OS X 10.4.9, 10.5 and 10.6.2 when Apple updated the OS X Apple Remote driver. Now these apps break again under OS X 10.7 (Lion) when you use an alternate driver like Candelair in Lion's 64 Bit environment, where a compatibility layer for outdated code as used by these apps is no longer available (more info on this subject with more technical information can be found in our blog).

There's a better, future proof and user-friendly alternative available to these developers free of charge in the form of our HIDRemote class for a couple years now. And I can only recommend everyone to ask their favorite app's developers to adopt it, so that the app they rely on doesn't break the next time either Apple updates the OS X driver (which can happen at any time) or you're using alternative drivers like Candelair.

Regarding the apps you mention I know of at least MPlayerX that the author is already preparing an update using our HIDRemote class. I don't know about splayerx, though. If you rely on it, please consider sending its developer(s) an email.

Since you still seem to have Candelair installed and you depend on applications with outdated Apple Remote support code - which break under Lion due to the non-availability of a compatibility layer - the quick solution for you is to uninstall the Candelair driver.

For this, you can either use Remote Buddy's Setup Wizard and choose the Uninstall option - or - download a copy of Candelair (completely free) from our website and use the uninstall button in its System Preferences preference pane to remove the Candelair driver component. Once you used the uninstall option and rebooted, your apps will find the driver internals they depend on in the only place they look for, again, and should function again. The real solution, however, would be for these apps to adopt the HIDRemote class to implement modern, user-friendly Apple Remote support that just works.

Best regards,
Felix Schwarz

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