Harmony 700 remote and button programming for WMC

[soureel]

Skip, replay and stop buttons on my Harmony 700 are not working for Windows Media Center.

All of the buttons except these appear to be working fine. I have logged into MyHarmony, and run through the procedure for updating the buttons.

Buttons-> Remote Buttons-> Select Device->MediaCenter PC. On the next screen, where the remote is visually represented, I scroll down to the skip and replay buttons. When I hover over them, the popup message says the Skip Forward, Replay and Stop buttons are already assigned to Media Center PC. I drag the commands for each button and drop on their respective button anyway, just to make sure. I sync the remote, go to my PC, start WMC. Using the remote, Play, fast forward, fast rewind and all the other buttons work, but Skip, Replay and Stop continue to be "dead" buttons.

I've also programmed the buttons by Activity (WMC), but they remain nonfunctional.

I realize this posting would be probably be better suited on a Logitech forum. Already posted there, without resolution. If anyone using a Harmony remote has run into this issue, I would like to hear from you.

[Crash2009]

Where did you buy the remote?

[mcewinter]

Do you have iTunes or Chrome running in the background? Simply having Chrome installed you need to toggle off "run in background" or something of that nature, within the settings.

Edit: This is repeatedly covered on this forum, a sticky might be appropriate as Chrome and iTunes are commonly installed on a HTPC.

[soureel]

Come to think of it, Chrome is running in the background, and last night when I tried to use those buttons within WMC, they functioned instead for play.google.music which was open and playing in the background. http://www.omgchrome.com/stop-chrome-ru ... d-windows/. But then why do those particular buttons not work for WMC but the rest of the buttons do?

[soureel]

Stopping Chrome from running in the background absolutely took care of the problem. Thanks!

[soureel]

latest quirk with the Harmony 700 and WMC- the number buttons do not change channels. If I press a number, say 3, then the number 3 appears on the screen momentarily, but the channel does not change. The only way I can currently change channels in WMC is by selecting a channel from the Guide.

[mdavej]

Try a different channel. If a channel is not in your guide, it won't be tuned.

[soureel]

Doesn't work even though channels punched are in my Guide

[mdavej]

Since you see the number on the screen that means Harmony is sending the right signal, so it's not a remote issue. Can't think of a reason it would stop working. But one workaround might be to also send an ENTER command or leading zeros.

[soureel]

Since you see the number on the screen that means Harmony is sending the right signal, so it's not a remote issue. Can't think of a reason it would stop working. But one workaround might be to also send an ENTER command or leading zeros.

Nope. Tried that. Nothing happens...

[mdavej]

I'm out of ideas then.

[Crash2009]

Send it back and claim defective. Wouldn't be the first one to get sent back.

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-R ... d-p/414751

[adam1991]

I don't know what you mean by "the number 3 appears on the screen momentarily".

Is it identical to the number 3 that appears when you use a MC remote? Does a MC remote work at all?

[mdavej]

Send it back and claim defective. Wouldn't be the first one to get sent back.

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-R ... d-p/414751

Sorry, but 3 people with alleged battery problems 5 years ago has nothing to do with WMC not changing channels. OP presses 3, WMC shows 3. That means there is no problem with the remote. Also, OP has also not mentioned any battery problems whatsoever.

Since the 700 was discontinued a few years ago and only recently reintroduced, the OP's remote is way out of warranty and unreturnable. If by some miracle he did return it, they'd simply give him another which would behave exactly the same way, which is correctly.

FWIW, my 3 700's have worked fine since day one, going about a month between charges. Many mistakenly think these remotes will charge from any USB port. They only charge from the wall charger that comes with the remote, which is by design.

BTW, the 700 is only $49 at Best Buy this week, which is a great deal. Any fans of Harmony remotes should definitely pick up a few.

[Crash2009]

I thought you were out of idea's.

Can you point out the part of this post where it says the OP has the New or Old style?

[mdavej]

I didn't introduce any new ideas. He talks about old/new style the same place he talks about battery problems. My guess is only a few thousand people have the new style since it's only been on the market a few weeks.

If the OP tells us the original remote works fine, then we can start looking at the 700 again. But I doubt that will be the case.

My question is, when we know WMC has lots of issues, and we have direct evidence the remote is fine in this case ("3" on the screen), why do we continue to blame the remote?

[Crash2009]

Yea, I suppose you're right about that. It's just a shame that everything get's blamed on WMC. Maybe it is time to set her out to pasture. My hardware choices have always been "What works with WMC?" If it don't work I send it back. Most hardware I buy just works. Even stuff that isn't supposed to work "WORKS"

I think we should go back to basics on this one..... MB, CPU, RAM, Power Supply, maybe even the chipset driver,

Since you have the exact remote, and obviously have 1000 times more times experience with it, I'll move on to something else regarding the remote subject, but before I move on, I have a couple questions for soureel

Soureel So, are you saying ....Could you clarify a few things for us?

Old or New style remote? Model # please.

Are we talking about the "Channel Surfing" buttons? Up/Down?

When you press up does it always show "3" on the screen? Irregardless of what channel you are on?

Let's just say you are watching channel 1510 and you press down, What happens?

What happens when you press UP?

Does this only happen with certain channels or is this with every channel.

Mdavej, can you lock the programming after it's been set? And maybe back it up? I just re-read posts 1-17, I realize I shouldn't be reading without ingesting a half a pot of coffee first, but I still cant see the old/new statement. Model number should clear that up.

[mdavej]

There is no way to change the programming on a Harmony without connecting to a PC. The one and only backup is always on the web server.

I think the next step is to prove or disprove the original MCE remote behaves the same when entering channel numbers.

[joeer77]

I have never got the page down or page up buttons to work inside the guide with my remote (Logitech 650). They work on my Xbox extenders but not on HTPC. Does anyone know how to fix? I have looked in Harmony software and there is not a page up/down option to assign to these buttons. Right now they are direction up/down buttons.

[mdavej]

Ch+/- = PgUp/Dn

So just assign those functions to the buttons or your choice, or simply use the existing Ch buttons.