[solved] logitech harmony touch general hid (1 Viewer)

Stéphane Lenclud

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  • April 29, 2013
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    CyberSimian,

    thanks so much, that was exactly the information i needed.

    I successfully remapped stop, pause... buttons

    Now i have only one problem missing: power on / poweroff (standby)

    The problem is when pressing the "off" button on harmony (see attached screenshot) no command is received in mediaportal (and nothing is logged)

    In myharmony.com config for "Windows Media Center SE" device the off button is simply not recognized and not selectable for re-mapping

    Does anyone have some more harmony knowledge how to get that fixed?

    and probably configure harmony action to wake-up mediaportal (and the htpc) from standby?

    thanks for your support!

    The Harmony 'off' button is used in activities as an auto macro that powers off all the devices in your activity.
    As you noticed first hand I don't think you can use it for anything else which is rather limiting.
    I would use one of the Harmony button long press function to send the 'power toggle' command.
     

    CyberSimian

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  • June 10, 2013
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    I successfully remapped stop, pause... buttons
    Could you post the values that work? I am really curious to see what they are! :)

    The problem is when pressing the "off" button on harmony (see attached screenshot) no command is received in mediaportal (and nothing is logged)
    When I was investigating the Ortek/Hama remote, I wrote a keyboard test program that used the Windows programming API function "ReadConsoleInput()" to read the button presses. It worked for all buttons except one -- the "Power" button. When I later wrote an AutoHotKey script to trap the Ortek/Hama buttons, that too was unable to trap the "Power" button. :(

    When you press the "Power" button to shutdown, hibernate, or sleep the system, you want that instruction passed to every piece of software that is running in the system. So I believe that Windows intercepts the "Power" button, and converts it into a Shutdown/Hibernate/Sleep message that is broadcast to everything in the system. I think that this is why my keyboard test program never sees the "Power" button, why AutoHotKey cannot trap the "Power" button, and why the MediaPortal "Centarea HID" won't see the "Power" button. :(

    Does any of this matter? Hopefully it doesn't. I think that your problem probably lies with the settings in the Windows power plan that is active on your system. Some points:

    (1) Windows uses the term "power button" to mean the power button on the system unit, and the term "sleep button" to mean the power button on the remote control. All WMC-compatible remotes actually send the signal for the sleep button when you press the power button on the remote. So there is some scope for confusion here! Let us use the term "sleep button" to refer to the power button on the remote.

    (2) Decide what action you want the sleep button to perform. The choices are: shutdown, hibernate, or sleep. If you want to wake the HTPC using the remote, sleep is the easiest to get working. (I use hibernation, but it is considerably more complicated to get working.) I will assume that you will use sleep.

    (3) In the power plan, you can choose what action is to be performed by the power button, and by the sleep button. Either button can be allocated any of the choices (shutdown, hibernate, or sleep). So I would suggest that you want:
    power button (on system unit) = shutdown
    sleep button (on remote control) = sleep

    (4) When you press the sleep button, the system will now interpret this as "sleep" and broadcast a sleep message to everything in the system. But if TV Server is in the middle of performing a recording, you don't want the system to sleep. To stop the system sleeping, you need to enable "Away mode". This also is defined in the power plan. With away mode enabled, the system will continue running until the recording is finished, and then it will sleep.

    (5) @HTPCSourcer and @Stéphane Lenclud mentioned that the "Off" button on the Harmony is in fact a macro. But if the HTPC is not needed for the next activity, the Harmony should still be sending the signal for the sleep button to the HTPC (which Windows will interpret as "sleep").

    (6) If you modify the power plan to use the settings described above, and the "Off" button on the Harmony still does not work, it is probably because it is transmitting an unusual code (i.e. not the normal code for sleep). If so, you need to modify your Harmony config, but not the Harmony's "Off" button (which is the macro). What you need to modify is the power button for the HTPC device in the Harmony config. If you have a dedicated HTPC remote that works, you could use the Harmony software to learn the "Power" button from the dedicated HTPC remote code. If you don't have a dedicated HTPC remote that works, I don't know what to suggest. It probably means going for the "nuclear option" and using IRSS (which I have never used).

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    HTPCSourcer

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    (5) @HTPCSourcer and @Stéphane Lenclud mentioned that the "Off" button on the Harmony is in fact a macro. But if the HTPC is not needed for the next activity, the Harmony should still be sending the signal for the sleep button to the HTPC (which Windows will interpret as "sleep").
    The thing that I found to work the best is to set the Harmony to leave the HTPC always on. Might sound strange, but I am happier to leave the standby to Windows and/or MP's PowerScheduler. This way one safely avoids all issues with sending the PC into sleep by mistake and ruining recordings.
     

    CyberSimian

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    This way one safely avoids all issues with sending the PC into sleep by mistake and ruining recordings.
    This is what "away mode" is intended to avoid. But I think that the default for a new installation of Windows is "disabled", so it needs to be enabled explicitly. (PowerScheduler probably does this.)

    Also, I don't remember what the default definition is for the sleep button in the power plan. If the default is "shutdown", that definitely would ruin recordings if you pressed it! :(

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

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