User

16.11.2011 20:40:58

Hi Felix!

I hope we can get this resolved- I've been Plex-less for a while. It may have started with 10.7.2, but none of the solutions posted for that problem have fixed this.

I have MBP 2011 i7 2.0 with 10.7.2, Remote Buddy and CandleAir up to date (1.19.2).

I'm running Plex Laika (9.5.0), but I've had this problem with 9.4+

Running the Remote control diagnostics with no programs open or behaviors activated, I get all green- no warnings/issues whatsoever.

Remote Buddy activates properly when "Menu" is pressed, I can navigate the menu, and it launches Plex as expected, however, once in Plex I have NO control.

Plex is set to standard input device mode, with "always running" disabled.

I have also tried reinstalling Remote Buddy, and tried it in a fresh user account, with no success either.

Can you please help me troubleshoot this?

Thanks! 

User

18.11.2011 10:30:01

Hi Dan,

thanks for asking.

Remote Buddy sends actions as UDP packets to Plex. If UDP traffic is blocked, or port 9777 of your Mac is already in use by another application (so Plex can't use it), Plex won't be able to receive the actions.

Here are a few questions that may help in narrowing down the problem:

1) Can you control Plex with your Apple Remote when Remote Buddy is not running?

2) Are you using Little Snitch or any other firewall software?

3) When Plex is running, please enter this line in Terminal.app and hit return:

sudo lsof | grep Plex | grep UDP

Does the command produce any output? If yes, please copy and paste it in the reply.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

18.11.2011 11:37:54

1) Can you control Plex with your Apple Remote when Remote Buddy is not running?

No- Input mode "Standard", always running is checked. I have tried unchecked and checked, neither seems to work w/ remote buddy on or off.

2) Are you using Little Snitch or any other firewall software?

No Little Snitch, no firewall software, no Mac OS X firewall

3) When Plex is running, please enter this line in Terminal.app and hit return:

sudo lsof | grep Plex | grep UDP

Output:

PlexHelpe 230 dmulroy 1u IPv4 0xffffff8014659f00 0t0 UDP *:* 
PlexHelpe 230 dmulroy 2u IPv4 0xffffff80175ebc10 0t0 UDP *:* 
PlexHelpe 230 dmulroy 3u IPv4 0xffffff801b88a758 0t0 UDP *:* 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 33u IPv4 0xffffff80175ca490 0t0 UDP *:32413 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 38u IPv4 0xffffff801b88a8d0 0t0 UDP activate.adobe.com:52651 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 42u IPv4 0xffffff801465a1f0 0t0 UDP *:32414 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 43u IPv4 0xffffff80175c9a48 0t0 UDP activate.adobe.com:60469 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 44u IPv4 0xffffff801b88cc10 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.241:50372 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 45u IPv4 0xffffff80175eb4b8 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.241:55614 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 46u IPv4 0xffffff8014658d60 0t0 UDP *:32410 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 62u IPv4 0xffffff801daf35e0 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.240:61140 
Plex\x20M 249 dmulroy 63u IPv4 0xffffff80175eb1c8 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.240:52358 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 3u IPv4 0xffffff80175ea780 0t0 UDP *:* 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 13u IPv4 0xffffff801b88bed8 0t0 UDP *:32415 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 14u IPv4 0xffffff80175ea8f8 0t0 UDP activate.adobe.com:54957 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 15u IPv4 0xffffff80175ea028 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.241:55148 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 16u IPv4 0xffffff80175cabe8 0t0 UDP 192.168.10.240:61667 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 17u IPv4 0xffffff80151c6078 0t0 UDP *:32412 
Plex 2154 dmulroy 28u IPv4 0xffffff80175cddd8 0t0 UDP *:9777

User

18.11.2011 14:06:01

 
 
Plex is listening to commands via UDP - and no software should block UDP packets on their way to it, then.

 
Since you experience this issue with and without Remote Buddy, this looks like an issue with Plex itself then, for which I'm afraid I can't offer you support without studying Plex' source code - which is beyond what I can offer here. Sorry.

I recommend contacting the Plex team directly. They already know their own code and therefore should be better qualified to help you isolate the cause of your Plex issue. Chances are they even know about the issue already - and can offer you a solution right away.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

18.11.2011 22:48:15

Hi Felix!

Thanks for the response. I can get the Apple Remote to work with Plex when Remote Buddy is quit by putting the "input mode" in plea to "Universal Remote". Unfortunately, if I launch remote buddy, it stops working.

Remote Control Diagnostics has the following errors while Plex is running:

PlexHelper (PID 1873) is using the Apple® Remote in exclusive mode 
While PlexHelper accesses your Apple® IR Receiver exclusively, no other application or OS X will receive Apple® Remote button press events. This can give you the impression that your Apple® Remote doesn't work. In that case, quit PlexHelper (located at /Applications/Plex.app/Contents/Resources/Plex/tools/osx/PlexHelper). 
Testing exclusive access 
Can't get exclusive access 
RCD's attempt to get temporary, exclusive access failed (error: The operation couldn’t be completed. (Mach error -536870203 - (iokit/common) exclusive access and device already open) (3)). This usually means that another application is already having exclusive access to the Apple® Remote. Neither OS X nor other applications will be able to respond to your Apple® Remote at the same time. This can give you the impression that your Apple® Remote doesn't work. Quit the application that exclusively accesses the Apple® Remote to make it available to OS X and other applications again.

What's the next step?

Thank you! 

User

20.11.2011 10:28:01

Thanks for the additional info.

You should be able to control Plex with your Apple Remote when not in Universal Mode (which is a special mode for a special Harmony profile that emulates several different Apple Remotes). That this doesn't work is a strong indicator that something in Plex itself is not working correctly on your system.

PlexHelper does the same thing as Remote Buddy does for Plex: it converts button input to UDP packets it then sends to Plex. The contents of these UDP packets differs depending on whether you're using Plex' Universal Mode or the Normal mode. If Plex doesn't react to the Normal-mode UDP packets sent by its own PlexHelper (which is used when you don't run Remote Buddy), then Plex will also not react to the same UDP packets coming from Remote Buddy. This, however, is not an issue of Remote Buddy - and can also not be addressed by Remote Buddy.

However, once you solve the Plex issue and Plex does react to the UDP packets coming from its own PlexHelper again, it should also react to the same UDP packets coming from Remote Buddy again.

So step 1 to the solution (and probably the only step) is to solve the issue your Plex installation is having with Normal-mode Apple Remote support. For this, as I said previously, please contact the Plex team for support with identifying and resolving this issue of Plex itself. I really can't help with that.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

20.11.2011 12:23:43

Trashed all files related to Plex client from Application Support and in Preferences folder, deleted Plex, reinstalled. It now works with Standard remote mode, but not via remote buddy. Have tried restart and Remote Buddy is fully updated as of this writing.

What's the next step? can I run a tcp dump | grep localhost or something to track the UDP packets being sent?

Thanks! 

User

02.06.2012 06:41:46

Hi, 
I have the same issue describe in this thread? How can I solve it ? I just bought RB 

User

02.06.2012 06:42:36

Dan2, 
How did you finally fix this problem?