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Remote Buddy Forum

Overview 

AuthorThread
User

23.06.2014 10:52:01
Remote gets disconnected after some inactivity time
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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Hi, 
I am having this issue for a long time now.

RB works fine with may Apple Remote, I mostly use it with Plex Home Theater. Global mapping only contains menu press hold to pull up the RB menu. 
Plex remote it's set to standard, and is not set to start/stop plex. Plex is set to dim the screen after 5 minutes.

the onky deviation from a standard setuo mifht be that i have Plex start by a launchD command, instead of a startup item setup. That way, Plex restarts automaticallym in case it crashes.not sure if this matters,

The system is set to never sleep (in system prefs and Plex both are disabled). 
RB diagnostic shows now red errors.

When I reboot my Mac, everything works like a charm. However, where I don't use the system for a while, my remote doesn't work. 
There are two workarounds:

1. reboot my mac, and all is fine 
2. get the remote VERY close to my Mac mini and press the Menu Button for at least several seconds,. after that, plex works again with the remote.

whike this is not a deal breaker, i wonder, if theres a solution to this, because its just annoying to get close to my mac everytime i dont use plex for some time.

Thanks! 

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

Hardware
Hardware - Apple® Remote
Hardware - Wii™ Remote
User

26.06.2014 09:37:02
Re: Remote gets disconnected after some inactivity time
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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Thanks for asking!

the onky deviation from a standard setuo mifht be that i have Plex start by a launchD command, instead of a startup item setup. That way, Plex restarts automaticallym in case it crashes.not sure if this matters,

 
That might matter. Please verify that Plex runs under the user id of the logged in user (f.ex. via Activity Monitor). UI sessions and AppleScript under OS X are tied to a user ID and while in some cases you may still see a window on screen when an application is launched with a system user ID (f.ex. as root), this can lead to weird issues and AppleScript will not work correctly.

Remote Buddy actually uses UDP to send events to Plex, but depending on what you have set up - or what Plex does under the hood - it might still matter.

When I reboot my Mac, everything works like a charm. However, where I don't use the system for a while, my remote doesn't work. 
There are two workarounds:

1. reboot my mac, and all is fine 
2. get the remote VERY close to my Mac mini and press the Menu Button for at least several seconds,. after that, plex works again with the remote.

This is very interesting, especially the second workaround because it hints at a issue with the hardware or ambient factors. Here's why:

When the Apple Remote sends IR signals, they are received and decoded by the Apple IR Receiver in your Mac Mini. The Apple IR Receiver is not capable of providing a raw stream of IR signal input or strength information. It only relays the codes it recognized and decoded in its own hardware. That's why - from the software side - nothing is different whether your remote is near or far from the receiver.

If the signal strength makes a difference, that difference can therefore not stem from the software. Naturally, these are hot candidates to check (in that order):

1) ambient light, sun light, plasma TVs, bright or hot objects in the same room: all those can interfere with the IR signal. Please check the lighting condition when you experience this issue.

2) the receiver hardware may be faulty (f.ex. leaky capacitors (if any are used in this circuit)) and a reboot or strong signal may be sufficient to bring it back into shape for a while. Please try to control your Mac with another, non-iR remote (f.ex. AJAX Remote on an iOS device or browser) when you experience this issue - does that work?

3) If another non-IR remote works and you need to get this close to the receiver to make it work, this may also hint at an Apple Remote that runs low on power. Replacing the battery may be worth a try.

Hope that helps!

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

28.06.2014 14:17:31
Re: Remote gets disconnected after some inactivity time
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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Thank you Felix,

The launchD is run under the same user, and the loggend in user is also shown as running Plex in activity monitor. So I guess there is no user conflict going on. 
I will however try to disable the launchD and launch Plex Home Theater normally by double click to see if this improves my situation.

Among your tips to improve reception, only hardware failure or battery strength seems to apply in my case. My light situation is not critical at all. I will now replace the Apple Remote's battery as a first step and see if this helps.

I will keep you updated! 
thanks, Oliver. 

User

13.07.2014 15:16:31
Re: Remote gets disconnected after some inactivity time
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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Update: replacing the battery did not change anything.

So we are back to the drawing board, I guess :-(