Xbox Media Remote Problem (Unresponsive at boot)

Troubleshoot and discuss the XBOX 360, XBOX One, Linksys, and other extenders.
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eubanks718

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Xbox Media Remote Problem (Unresponsive at boot)

#1

Post by eubanks718 » Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:14 am

Hi everyone,

I am having trouble with my Xbox Media Remote. Currently I have my Xbox set to turn on and start up into WMC extender. I use my Xbox Media remote to turn on the Xbox. I find that after booting into the WMC, the remote is not causing any response to WMC. during these times, if I turn on an xbox controller, the controller is able to move the selection around and interact with WMC. If I either boot back to the Xbox Dashboard and reconnect or turn off the Xbox and turn it back on to allow it to boot into WMC then the remote works appropriately. I have tried using an HP WMC remote and it exhibits the same problem. I have paired a harmony remote (harmony 550 at one point) and also had this same problem. This occurs on both of my Xbox extenders (one slim, one not). My WMC is running on Windows 7. I was wondering if there was any sort of service on the windows 7 backend that is not functioning properly given that this issue exists on multiple xboxes and remotes.

I could not find this topic discussed with any search and have heard of one person that had this same problem on a separate unrelated thread so I was wondering if anyone has come up with a solution to this problem.

Thanks in Advance!

glugglug

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#2

Post by glugglug » Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:28 pm

I was intermittently having a similar issue to what you describe after an update to Malwarebytes 3-4 weeks ago.

I'm thinking maybe WMC is sometimes not the front window in the extender session - pushing the start button on the remote would make it responsive again, presumably by bringing WMC back to the front.

Ended up switching from Malwarebytes to Avira and this stopped happening. Now have the new slow extender guide from Rovi :(

jwilson2899

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#3

Post by jwilson2899 » Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:26 pm

I am having the same issue with my setup as well. Windows 7 PC, 3 Xbox 360 extenders. The 2 that get used the most have exhibited the issue you described. Yesterday I couldn't even get the main living room one to respond after an Xbox reboot, so I actually had to reboot the WMC PC to get functionality back. Everything was fine last night, and first thing this morning, but at some point while watching TV it stopped again, as I tried to go into the guide and it was no longer responsive.

Maybe this is MS's ay of trying to kick us off of WMC, lol

eubanks718

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#4

Post by eubanks718 » Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:38 pm

Thanks for that tip glugglug. pressing the green button on the remote does seem to restore focus to the extender WMC and allow the remote to work. Interesting that switching from malwarebytes seems to have fixed the issue for you. I don't have that installed so something else must be causing it for me. Now if only someone else knows of a more permanent solution..

poit57

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#5

Post by poit57 » Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:22 pm

My brother has been having a similar issue where after WMC loads on the Xbox and connects to his computer, he cannot navigate WMC with his Logitech Harmony remote. Rebooting the PC helps resolve this issue temporarily, but he said he is having to reboot the PC about once per day. This issue started about a month ago.

My brother also has Malwarebytes Premium running on his computer. Other than completely switching security software, are there any exceptions I can try to configure that might improve this situation?

glugglug

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#6

Post by glugglug » Thu Jul 23, 2015 12:32 am

poit57 wrote:My brother has been having a similar issue where after WMC loads on the Xbox and connects to his computer, he cannot navigate WMC with his Logitech Harmony remote. Rebooting the PC helps resolve this issue temporarily, but he said he is having to reboot the PC about once per day. This issue started about a month ago.

My brother also has Malwarebytes Premium running on his computer. Other than completely switching security software, are there any exceptions I can try to configure that might improve this situation?
There is an option in there somewhere to "Start With Windows" that what it is really doing is having the MalwareBytes service launch the UI app that goes in the system tray for each logged in user (including the extender users, you can see the mbam process in each extender account in task manager). I tried disabling this option and instead putting shortcuts to the UI app in the accounts of normal users, and it worked for a few days, but eventually happened again. Not sure what else triggers it.

ewtaylo

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#7

Post by ewtaylo » Sun Jul 26, 2015 1:28 am

So I am having the same issue. I have 3 extenders. The behavior is only on 1 of them. Not sure when the behavior started, but it has been a few weeks now. Initially the xbox is responsive to my logitech 550. Then it stops responding to play/pause/FF/REW/guide, etc. It will still respond to power off.

My WMC runs on 8.1 and has not been updated in a very long time. I do not think the issue is the xbox. Its something about the connection to the WMC. If I cycle power on the xbox everything is ok. If I hit the green button, it starts working again (pretty sure about this). It occurs intermittently. I tried unpairing and re-pairing the extender and it still happens. I have run sfc /scannow.

I will try using process explorer to see what tasks the extender user gets. maybe killing something there will help.

ewtaylo

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#8

Post by ewtaylo » Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:25 pm

Nothing new to report. Since I made this post I have not seen the behavior. Prior to that I was seeing it at least 3-4 times a week. I suspect it was something I had running on my HTPC. I closed down everything I had up (notepad++ and IE) and I have not seen the behavior. I will post back if I start seeing it.

xxviper06xx

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#9

Post by xxviper06xx » Fri Aug 21, 2015 4:22 am

Has anyone found a permanent solution to this issue? I have 3 X360 extenders and all of them experience this issue from time to time. I am able to get extenders responding again by pressing the media center button but this is a bit of a nuisance as I have to go to the other room and get a remote that has the media center button. I do not use malwarebytes so I dont think that is my issue.

poit57

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#10

Post by poit57 » Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:17 pm

My brother's Xbox continues to randomly have this issue where it will stop responding to the media remote after we launch WMC on the Xbox. We have discovered in the past few weeks a workaround of sorts -- simply use the Xbox game controller for a few seconds

Once the controller is connected with the system and we can see that we can navigate the menus, we can go back to using the media remote as normal. We're not sure why this seems to work, but it has worked consistently since we first tried it a couple weeks ago (the Xbox isn't used for gaming, so he didn't keep the controller handy). This is a much better solution than rebooting the PC every time the remote stopped working, especially when it is in the middle of recording something.

mdavej

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#11

Post by mdavej » Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:25 am

This is a longshot, but is Icaros (thumbnail generation program) running on the PC? I've seen it cause random problems with extender sessions.

Slinkynose

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#12

Post by Slinkynose » Wed Apr 27, 2016 3:10 pm

I was having this same problem, and after reading this thread it made me think about programs I had recently installed. I do not use Malwarebytes, but I had just installed PRTG Network monitor to play around with it.

After I uninstalled that, the extender remote behavior went back to normal. It has been ~24 hrs and everything is good. If the problem resurfaces I will report back.

Some details about my setup for reference:
Win 7 64
Zotac Mobo NIC
Also running Plex, Microsoft Security Essentials, HTPC Manager, etc.

Xbox 360 Slim 4GB extender

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