HD300 remote extremely delayed

[gilded07]

Bought the HD300 in 11/2010 and has worked fine until recently. Tonight is the 3rd time where all of a sudden, I have to hold down on a button on the remote for 3-4 secs to get a response on the screen.

Blue link blinks when when I press buttons on the remote. NIC shows green/orange blinking lights.

I've unplugged all three cables, let the unit cool down and reset and still nothing.

Its strange, all works if i hold down the buttons for an inordinate amount of time.

Is my remote dying? Is this typical of an HD300 about ready to die? Its over a year old so I suppose warranty help or service-for-a-fee is out of the question...

Any ideas?

(wired network)

[michelkenny]

Silly idea but have you tried replacing the batteries? I've noticed when my batteries are low that my remote's response time gets longer.

[gilded07]

Not silly at all!! Given my situation, any advice is welcomed.

However, I have changed the batteries and used a battery tester to make sure the new batteries are fully charged.

When the HD300 is off (red light showing), I have to hold down on the power button for several seconds the remote to get it to finally come on (have never had to do this before)...that's why I wonder if the IR circuitry or something is going bad in the remote or HD300.

<sniff> <sniff> 'cuse me while I wipe the tears as I contemplate life without SageTV OR...

pimping my wife to come up with the money to buy a new HD300 on ebay...

Or...someone on here will enlighten me and all will be well again!

[graywolf]

Do you have another remote that you can try (from another room maybe?)
Do you have another HD300/HD200 in another room that you can see if it will respond to the suspected "bad" remote?

[gilded07]

Yes, just finished doing that.

Results of latest testing:

• Used a brand new HD100 remote (had in reserve, still in plastic) and had same problem with it
• I have the HD300 remote programmed to control the Samsung TV's volume and on/off and it works fine - quick response and full control of these functions - conclude that the problem can't be with the HD300 remote
• When I hold the HD300 remote up close to the HD300 (say, 2'-3' from the HD300), it works much better and perhaps, almost normally. When I start to get further away like 5'-6' I start having the problem and when I sit in my sofa (9' or 10' away), I'm back to having to hold down buttons on the HD300 remote for seconds to get the HD300 to respond

[graywolf]

Hmmm. TV functions work normally but HD300 functions do not.

That would lead me to "guess" that the Remote IR Transmitter is fine?
That the problem might be with the HD300 IR Receiver?? Not picking up the signal strength (why the distance matters?).

Do you happen to have one of the HD300 IR dongles (forget if that was standard or optional equip). If you do, try using that to see if it picks up the "signal" better.

Of course I have very little technical knowledge about IR Transmitters/Receivers so I could be totally off base. But hey, worth a shot.

I take it then that you don't have an alternate HD200/HD300.
Do you still have the HD100 to use as a quick test for the Remote?

Does sound more and more like it is an issue with the HD300

[tmiranda]

Check the Java Heap usage. If you're running out of Java heap the HD300 will react very slowly.

Edit:

pimping my wife to come up with the money to buy a new HD300 on ebay...

Please provide a picture of your wife so we can determine if this option will work

[gilded07]

LOL!

She asked me why I was taking her picture...

And now I can only see out of this one eye. But I can still type on anonymous message boards!

I looked in system info and I see this for java heap

284/389/389 (used/total/max)

Is this an indicator for my HD300 slow performance? If so, how do I change it?

[gilded07]

found the thread that explained how to increase the heap size.

I increased it to 512MB and it now shows up in sys info as:

152MB/211MB/519MB (used/total/max)

Did all this w/ SageTV service stopped and then rebooter server.

Haven't noticed any improvement in the HD300 response time. Its even slow to turn on (from red light to blue light).

I'll try dusting off the HD100 and trying it out with the HD300 remote next.

[gilded07]

HD300 remote works fine with HD100 extender so my problem must be with the HD300 itself.

However, new problem. Sound stopped working on the HD300 and also does not work on the HD100. However, sound is fine via placeshifter software on two different PCs so something I must need to reset for the extenders.

Have rebooter server a couple of times and unplugged and rebooted (and latest firmware) on HD100. Still no sound.

ugh. Love SageTV but it can be high maintenance at times.

[tmiranda]

Increasing the heap size will help. Next thing to try is to wipe the settings for the HD300 (and maybe the HD100 too).

1. Stop Sage.
2. Get the MAC address of the HD300 (I think it's printed on the label.)
3. Delete the .properties file in the "clients" folder for that MAC address. The .properties file name will begin with the MAC address.

See if that helps.

[gilded07]

Yes, deleting the client props file did restore the sound - thanks.

However, still no improvement on the response time.

To summarize, if I hold the HD300 remote 2'-3' from the HD300, it works fine but any further away than that, and I have to hold each button down and wait for the HD300 to respond and sometimes, as one might imagine, the HD300 will over-respond and go too far.

I have performed a factory reset on the device as well (plug in device while holding down back button). No improvement in performance.

I have an IR Remote blaster than came with my Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 years ago. I've never used it but do you think it might help? There's a mini plug on the front of the HD300 for adding an add'l IR receiver. I didn't buy the one for the HD300 but I wonder if the one that came with the PVR150 might work? The instructions say to plug it into the actual PVR150 tuner card but that's not possible because the SageTV server with the 150 in it is located in different room than the HD300. I think you have to load software too...anyone tried this approach? (i.e. an older, external IR receiver with an HD300)?

Or for that matter, any other 3rd party IR receiver with the mini plug jack?

Thanks

[tmiranda]

I don't know about adding another IR receiver, it's worth a try to see if the issue is with the HD-300 IR receiver.

Do you have any other devices or random clutter near the HD-300? In my house if the kids put things on the ledge in front of the TV anywhere near the HD-300 (not just in front of it) it screws up the reception. Don't ask my why, but it does.

Another possibility is the power supply, if it's starting to fail you will see strange things. Do you have another one with the same voltage, amperage and polarity that you can try?

How old is the HD-300? If it's less than a year old I'd contact support.

I'm all out of ideas after that

[gilded07]

Strangely enough, last night, the HD300 was responding like it's supposed to.

I changed nothing - just tried it from the sofa like I always do - fully expecting it not to respond - It was responding quick and snappy.

Ghost in the machine? Who knows? It acted up like this a few weeks ago too and then snapped back to normal.

Either way, this has prompted me to start thinking about alternatives like, instead of spending crazy $$ on a used HD300 replacement, maybe getting an HD200 for much less.

Or, building my own htpc client (a friend says he may have an unused SageTV client license laying around). I've built several desktops around here and building a cool/quiet front end would free me from the proprietary SageTV hardware that they no longer sell. I may have to do some searching or start a thread on good PICOpsu / quiet front end options.

Oh, and SageTV support replied, telling me my HD300 is out of warranty (which I knew), but that I might consider looking on ebay for the separately sold IR transmitters (didn't see any). May have to search this forum to see if anyone has used a non-HD300 IR transmitter rather than the one that was sold by SageTV for the HD300.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[briands]

Do you by chance have a plasma TV? I think they can cause issues with IR.

[gilded07]

Nope. Samsung 52" LCD purchased new in Feb 2009.

[mistergq]

I would still up the java heap to 1000. Usually I never break 500, but every once in a while, I see a large java heap number.

I like the HD 200. The only issue is blurays, I cannot hear the audio if it is on MTS or something like that. I have fixed that by making it a MKV file and reencoding the audio.

Otherwise, I am very happy with the HD200s.