Gradual loss of IR control

[Bob Fitzgerald]

Hello!

Got a report of a C40 running TC6.1.1 that gradually loses the ability to control it using the IR remote.  A reboot of the codec restores functonality temporarily.  I have the end user prepared to capture event feedback when the issue starts to happen to see if the codec is even getting the button presses from the remote, but is there anyplace in the logs on the codec that would also show this information?

Thanks!

[Paulo Souza]

Hey Bob,

Sorry if my answer may look a little stupid, but have you checked the batteries of the IR remote? Tried to use a new one?

Regards

Paulo Souza

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[ahmashar]

Hi Rob,

login to the codec via GUI and navigate to Configuration > System unit   and make sure IrSensor is set to "Auto" not "On" or "Off".

regards, Ahmad

[Bob Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the responses,

Paulo - always good to cover the basics.  Yes, first the batteries were replaced then an entirely new remote was tried.  No change in the issue.  IR worked fine after a reboot, then over a period of a couple of days the response became more and more intermittent until they had to reboot again.

Ahmad - will double check, but I'm 99% on the IrSensor setting is configured as Auto.

For troubleshooting this, I'm having them monitor a couple of feedback registers.  I recently found that on the EX-series codecs you can issue "log ctx IRsensor debug 9" to get information about what's going on with the IR communication, but it doesn't seem to work for the C-series.  Is there an alternate command I could use?

Thanks!

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Bob,

You can use the IR sensor of the codec or of the camera in order to send the commands from IR remote control, the common is to use the camera. Can you try use only the IR sensor of the codec instead of the camera?

I think you should isolate the problem to check if it as a problem related to the IR sensor itself, physically speaking, or any another software issue related to the codec.

If you find that, when using the IR sensor of the codec, the problem does not occur, so you should try to use another camera to check if the camera is the problem.

The latest version is TC 6.2. It is always a good idea upgrading the system to the latest software version.

Regards

Paulo Souza

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[Martin Koch]

Hi Bob:

I just tried it with an old c90 with tc6.2 and that worked fine:

Jul 26 18:14:17.739 ppc appl[2794]: 74211.58 IRSensor     IRKeyHandler::keyEvent IRId = 0x0, IRCode = 0x1e

Jul 26 18:14:17.740 ppc appl[2794]: 74211.58 IRSensor    IRKeyHandler::sendKeyEvent key=0x17 down=1

Jul 26 18:14:17.945 ppc appl[2794]: 74211.78 IRSensor     Key-up after:     70 ms

Jul 26 18:14:17.946 ppc appl[2794]: 74211.78 IRSensor    IRKeyHandler::notifyNoKeyPress

Jul 26 18:14:17.946 ppc appl[2794]: 74211.78 IRSensor    IRKeyHandler::sendKeyEvent key=0x17 down=0N

you get that after entering via ssh as admin:

log ctx IRsensor debug 9

and then as root:

tail -f /var/log/eventlog/application.log |grep -i irsens

then press some keys, you get out by pressing ctrl-c

As you already switched the remote its most likely not the case, but the remote control also has a

hidden switch in the battery compartment which can lower the transmit power, but then the signal should always

be bad an not changing. (at least the old ones had that switch)

As Paulo suggested an upgrade is always a good point to start. TC6.2 is out, so you should test with that.

I have seen the strangest things disapearing after an upgrade :-)

If you can rule out the configuration, the physical parts and have a direct view in between the endpoint / camera and the remote and you do not get some better answer here, I would recommend that you escalate this case as a service

request to tac and report later on how it went.

Martin

[Bob Fitzgerald]

Hi Martin,

I mistakenly was tryig to run the commands while logged in as root. 

[Martin Koch]

Thats why I explained it. ;-) Any news about your issue?

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[Wayne DeNardi]

As Martin has suggested, check the switch behind the batteries and set it to the high power setting (towards the top of the remote).  While we haven't seen the "gradual loss", we've experienced some "inconsistency" in some of our rooms with it on the low power setting.