Is my USB UIRT dead?

[craigap]

For the passed 14 years my USB UIRT has served me well. Today, however, it does not seem to transmit the IR signal to SageTV. It seems to be recognized by the PC (win10) when I unplug and plug it in. The red light on the front still flashes, but not IR codes show up in the remote setup section in Sage. The Remote I use is a Logitech Harmony that still seems to operate everything else just fine, so I don't think the remote has anything to do with it. I have also made sure all my mappings were still in my properties file. Could it be that the UIRT is dead even though it still has the flashing light and my PC recognizes it and installs the driver for it? Anything else I can try to confirm or deny it's demize? And, can anyone confirm that Jon Rhees is still building and selling UIRT's, or if there is an alternative available?

Thanks,

Craig

[wnjj]

Try setting “debug_input_events=true” in sage.properties. Then look for log messages like “Recvd Event IR:”. Of course that will only work if everything is configured and all of the drivers are good which means it would probably be working fine.

If you get desperate, I could probably build a simple .exe to listen and echo anything it “sees”. No promises on when though.

Jon’s website (http://www.usbuirt.com) is still up and he did answer emails when I was working on the 64-bit Windows conversion a bit over a year ago.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by craigap

For the passed 14 years my USB UIRT has served me well. Today, however, it does not seem to transmit the IR signal to SageTV. It seems to be recognized by the PC (win10) when I unplug and plug it in. The red light on the front still flashes, but not IR codes show up in the remote setup section in Sage. The Remote I use is a Logitech Harmony that still seems to operate everything else just fine, so I don't think the remote has anything to do with it. I have also made sure all my mappings were still in my properties file. Could it be that the UIRT is dead even though it still has the flashing light and my PC recognizes it and installs the driver for it? Anything else I can try to confirm or deny it's demize? And, can anyone confirm that Jon Rhees is still building and selling UIRT's, or if there is an alternative available?

Thanks,

Craig

Being that red light on the front still flashes soon as push on remote button that tell me it still pick the Receive Signals.

I add an independent USB-UIRT tool that maybe helpful in determining if the USB-UIRT can Receive and Lean signals the remote controls codes.

If that is working first thing I ask you are you using a 64bit ver SageTV ?.

If you still run a 32bit ver of SageTV I try resetting SageTV as new Install, just move both Sage.properties, autobackup and Wiz.bin, bak file to some where else that is your backup. Dose it still have some problem yes or no ?

If Yes try uninstall tell to del the file when removing from device manager and then reinstall the USB-UIRT drivers see if that helps any.

[sic0048]

I use a USB-UIRT for my automation software and have found it to become unresponsive now every few months. It worked flawlessly for years. I'm not sure what the issue is.

Unplugging the device and plugging it back it did not fix it, but I have found that rebooting the computer seems to fix it.

[Tiki]

I recently (last couple months) have seen my USBUIRT become unresponsive in Sage (could no longer navigate the Sage menus), but I could still see the red status light blink on the USBUIRT when I pressed buttons on my remote. It’s happened maybe 2 or 3 times. Restarting the Sage UI has fixed it for me every time.

I am using 32-bit Sage in service mode on a Windows 10 machine.

I have been using Sage and USBUIRT for many years without issue, so maybe this is related to a Windows update?

[craigap]

Thanks to everyone for the speedy input. I will start tinkering with your suggestions over the next week or so, and see if I can't zero in on the problem. Just to add some additional info: This is on Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Sagetv 9 64 bit. My computer did do an update the other day. Maybe I will also try to roll that back and see if that does anything as well.

Thanks again.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I recently (last couple months) have seen my USBUIRT become unresponsive in Sage (could no longer navigate the Sage menus), but I could still see the red status light blink on the USBUIRT when I pressed buttons on my remote. It’s happened maybe 2 or 3 times. Restarting the Sage UI has fixed it for me every time.

I am using 32-bit Sage in service mode on a Windows 10 machine.

I have been using Sage and USBUIRT for many years without issue, so maybe this is related to a Windows update?

I assume USB-UIRT won’t be updated in any way going forward?

[wayner]

I don't think the USB-UIRT has been updated in a while. I think it was the personal project of one person, Jon Rhees, who occasionally posted on this forum. He is a user on this forum but be hasn't posted for a while (once in the last thirteen years). But you might want to PM him - his username is jrhees - see https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sea...rchid=12193927

One alternative for a blaster, assuming that you can get it for a good price on somewhere like eBay, is a Global Cache IP2IR. There are threads here on this device and it connects via ethernet and is controlled via IP commands. It is overkill in some ways but it does the job.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I assume USB-UIRT won’t be updated in any way going forward?

Well AFAIK it’s still an actively sold and supported product, so I wouldn’t assume that. But not sure that any updates are necessary.

[craigap]

I fixed it. Not entirely sure what did it, but what I did was: downloaded the SageTV v9 64bit installer and ran the repair function. I started to go through the initial setup of Sage up to and through the portion where you do the remote setup. I got back on the forum because that "Known Issue" with the UIRT was showing up, so I followed the directions and copied that one file into the Windows/System32 folder. Then I realized that I didn't start the service first, and so I did that and obviously all the setting were done already now. Tried the remote and it worked. The test on the bottom of this post is from the installer page. Maybe windows reinstalled the driver for the UIRT and the 64bit got replaced with the 32bit one.

Thanks for all the input.

Craig

On the 64 bit version USBUIRT install may not complete fully and you may need to perform the following manual steps AFTER the install completes.
Copy uuirtdrv.dll from "SageTV\redist\usbuirt\amd64" folder into your Windows\System32 directory. Note that there will already be one there from the USB-UIRT driver install, but it is the 32-bit one and shouldn't be there anyway (the 32 bit one will be in SysWOW64 folder). Warning: If you reinstall the USB-UIRT driver for any reason it may replace this file with the 32-bit one.

[craigap]

Thought I would just add that Jon Rhees is indeed still building and supporting the USB-UIRT. Took 4 days for an email response, but got one nonetheless.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by craigap

Thought I would just add that Jon Rhees is indeed still building and supporting the USB-UIRT. Took 4 days for an email response, but got one nonetheless.

Wow - didn’t expect that. great news