Unable to get SageTV to "learn" a channel change prefix code

[Dargason]

I just got Uverse, and it goes into "idle" mode after 5 or 6 hours of inactivity. On wakeup, it comes up with a screen that says "Press OK to watch TV." or something like that. When this happens, Sage doesn't know to press OK and I miss the recording.

I guess this isn't a new problem and Sage has implemented a workaround. You are supposed to 'teach' an IR code and set it as a channel change prefix.

The problem is that when I try to "Learn New Command" it comes up with a screen asking me what to call it, and then when I hit OK it immediately responds that there was an error in learning the code. Sometimes it flashes up a box VERY quickly that says something like "Hold the IR Remote up to the receiver... etc. etc."

I am using an HD-PVR with the built-in IR Blaster control. I can learn new codes using Blastcfg and control the STB, so I don't think this is a hardware problem... Also, I've been using this HD-PVR for over a year without issues using my old STB. I think there must be something wrong with my installation or configuration.

I have run HCWClear and reinstalled the hauppauge stuff multple times. I uninstalled SageTV and then reinstalled it, and that didn't help. I am running SageTV 7.1.7 and Windows7 64-bit. HD-PVR driver version 1.5.6.

Anyone know how I can fix this? I just need to get Sage to send the "OK" code and wait a second before changing channels...

Edit: I just upgraded my HD-PVR drivers to 1.5.7 and it does the same thing. Blastcfg works and can learn things but SageTV cannot.

[Dargason]

Well, I did some more hunting and made a few guesses and here's what I came up with.

The key was something I found here: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33920

I'm not using an .ir file because I'm using the built-in HD-PVR blaster, but I guessed that maybe I was using the file called "StubDevice.ir". So I added the " | ok" thing to it to make it this:

StubDevice 38000 400 4 600 800 | ok

This seems to work, although if I try to configure the remote controller through the sage UI it will strip off the " | ok" so I'll just have to remember not to do that. Reinstalling sage will probably also break it...

[Dargason]

Well, it mostly seems to work, except that if I'm recording several consecutive shows on the same channel for a long period of time, the STB will go idle.

For example, there is a Harry Potter marathon thing today where ABC is showing all the movies in a row. It started recording at 6am this morning, and at about 2:00 this afternoon, the box went into idle mode.

I thought this would have been avoided by the "Always tune" setting being enabled? Does anyone know for sure that the Always Tune setting does in fact tune the channel even if the next recording is coming up immediately after the one that just finished?

[wayner]

This may depend on how your box works. With my box even when you re-key in the channel number it does not actually retune the channel if the number you keyed in is the channel being watched. Perhaps your system is the same?

[jerryt]

My Dishnet boxes need "OK" to wake from sleep. The prefix of "OK" on each channel tune has not had any ill effects in the last two years.