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User

26.02.2014 07:50:24

Missing/Incomplete Actions for Plex Home Theater

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

I am a long time Plex user and have always used my Harmony 880 remote to control Plex with great success. However, I wanted to be able to use the same remote to control iTunes and other applications. Of course, this is where I hoped that Remote Buddy would be helpful. I understand that the Plex configuration on the Harmony remote uses Apple Remote codes with IDs 150-160 and I have been working on mapping these in Remote Buddy so that Remote Buddy is essentially transparent to the Harmony's commands when controlling Plex. However, I have discovered that the actions provided to map to PHT are either incomplete or sometimes even missing. For example, PwrToggle is a very useful command that runs PHT if it isn't running and quits PHT if it is running. I have found a way around this though it would still be nice to have the normal functionality. I have also found that Exit, Guide, Menu, and even the direction up and direction down actions are missing or behave differently than if I were using the remote without Remote Buddy. There is no Exit command and nothing I have found performs the same actions in the same way. There are a couple Menu options but none of them perform the way Menu should: functions as the Context Menu action when in the library menu and brings up the OSD during playback. The up and down directions work fine in the library menu but do not function to jump 10 min ahead or back during playback as they would with the normal Harmony remote. Is there a way to correct this? I just want to have all of the normal actions that correspond with the Plex button configuration that downloads to my Harmony remote.

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

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.

Hardware - Harmony® Smart Control

If I haven't used the Harmony Smart Remote for a few minutes, Remote Buddy does not react to the first button press. (FAQ015E0263)
Please verify that no power saving options are enabled at "Remote Buddy > Preferences > Hardware > Bluetooth Receiver".
When the Harmony Hub connects to my Mac, I'm asked for a PIN. (FAQ015E0262)
Please enter 0000.

User

26.02.2014 18:04:51

Re: Missing/Incomplete Actions for Plex Home Theater

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

Hi, There are several guides on the Internet that describes how to set up RB, Logitech remote and Plex/XBMC. I used the guide in the link to map the harmony buttons to the corresponding "Apple remote" and the Plex/XBMC button. Despite this, there are some actions that are missing in RB (I've started a thread about the missing "XBMC display OSD action" but no response yet). I hope this guide will help you with some of your problems.

http://miniharmony.blogspot.co.uk

(I hope it's OK to refer to other links)

BR
Philip

User

26.02.2014 19:20:03

Re: Missing/Incomplete Actions for Plex Home Theater

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

Thank you for the reply. I was actually about to post that I had solved my problem and share my solution for anybody else with similar questions. What I discovered this morning while searching for more answers is that the "Virtual Remote" in Remote Buddy not only sends button presses but passes through the Apple Remote ID (AR ID) that the IR receiver receives. That means to get all of the functionality of the Harmony Plex Remote you don't have to know to which AR ID and button each Plex function is mapped to then map Plex actions to those buttons in Remote Buddy. The setup is *much* simpler. Once you have added all of the AR IDs used by the Harmony remote for Plex to Remote Buddy (by pressing all of the buttons on the remote until Remote Buddy has added each AR ID 150-160 except for 156) then you create logical remotes for each AR ID and match them to each corresponding recognized remote: assign AR 150 to ID 150, assign AR 151 to ID 151, etc. For the last part, go to Mapping > Global mapping and map each button (up, down, left, right, select, menu) to the same virtual remote button for all the newly created AR logical remotes. Now Remote Buddy is transparent to the Harmony remote and passes every button press from the remote to Plex as if Remote Buddy wasn't even there. Hope this wasn't too confusing and will help some others trying to achieve this same functionality.

User

26.02.2014 21:51:01

Re: Missing/Incomplete Actions for Plex Home Theater

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

Here's a Q&A from 2009 with a pictured step by step explanation of how to use Virtual Remote actions to pass through incoming Apple Remote button presses to make it easier to use Plex' own Harmony profile:

http://www.iospirit.com/blog/article/131/Remote-Buddy-and-Boxee-Plex-and-XBMC/

I strongly discourage to use the Plex Harmony profile with any other apps, though, since the Plex Harmony profile contains many errors. F.ex. some IR codes weren't properly recognized by the Harmony when it was programmed. So the raw IR code sequence will just be replayed by the Harmony and what you'll see is that you press a button once, but the Harmony sends the Apple IR codes for multiple button presses in quick succession. Or, alternatively, the Harmony plays it back only once, making short and long presses indistinguishable.

Best regards,
Felix Schwarz

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