MCE remote arrow keys not working (1 Viewer)

[claudesaid]

Hi all

This is my first post and I hope someone will be able to help me as I have now exhausted all I could think of in terms of solutions. After many hours (of frustration), I finally managed to get MP setup on Vista.

My MCE remote works fine for all buttons except the crucial arrow keys and OK button. So I can't move around the menus in MP and can't move my cursor in the TV guide... I am instead using my mouse

I tried everything but to no success: IR Server Suite, MCE replacement plug-in.... as a matter of fact, whatever remote key mapping I do within the IRSS plugin (whether it is MCE basic or MCE (Full)), it seems to be ignored. Only the mapping under the Remote menu in MP configuration (first tab for MCE remote where option is ticked) seems to work and I can't access the arrow or OK buttons from there.

Can anyone out there help me?

Many thanks

 

[atkellyx]

hi

I may have had the same prob and it's nothing to do with mediaportal.

My MCE reomte worked fine for years then the arrow and ok buttons stopped. EventGhost proved that the pc was receiving signals but mediaportal seemed blissfully unaware.

Turns out some MCE remotes are partially programmable. See here:

eirikso.com How to program the buttons on your MCE Remote

I used the reset procedure and now am all fixed. Can only assume my 11 month old decided some programming was in order.

Hope this helps someone, I was at my wits end and about to ditch the whole htpc and buy an appliance.

cheers

 

[claimui]

According to the wiki: MediaPortalSetup_Remote/MicrosoftMCE - MediaPortal Manual Documentation

Please note: The following buttons can't be remapped using the ?Input Mapping Editor, they are currently handled by the operating system. You can modify them by changing mappings in "Keys and Sounds", but this is not recommended.
This problem will be addressed in a later MediaPortal version. Until then you shouldn't try to touch those buttons, you might experience unexpected behaviour.
Numeric buttons 0-9
Cursor buttons
OK
*
#
Clear
Enter

In my case, what I had done is disabled the automatic handling of the MCE Remote in Windows (XP Pro in my case). You can do this with registry settings (there is another thread somewhere on how to do it). I did it through IRSS, which has a little checkbox that does the same thing.

After I disabled automatic handling of the MCE Remote, I found that the arrow keys no longer work in Media Portal. As the wiki states, that's because MP depends on Windows to handle the arrow keys, so if the arrow keys don't work in Windows, they won't work in MP.

Something like this may have happened in your case. I'm thinking that IRSS or the replacement driver or something you did disabled automatic handling, and now your arrow keys no longer work. Easiest way to check is to see if you can use your remote in any other Windows application. If the arrows are not working in Windows, then they won't work in MP.

I'm still thinking about how to fix this. I would like to disable automatic handling (it interferes with MP on my computer in other ways), but I still want the arrow keys to work. Does anybody know if mapping the keys using the Translator tool in IRSS will do the trick?

 

[claimui]

Follow-up to my last post. Here is what worked in my case (i.e. disable automatic handling of MCE remote but still use arrow keys in MediaPortal):

Install IRSS (including the MP Control Plugin)
In MediaPortal Config, enable the MCE remote
In MediaPortal Config, enable the IRSS MP Control Plugin
Go to the MP Control config window
In the first tab (Remote Controls), bottom of the window, go to the drop down list next to Add Remote and select Microsoft MCE, then click Add Remote
This will add a "Microsoft MCE" remote to the upper window, with a list of buttons you can map underneath. Scroll down to "Up", highlight the "Up" item, then press the Up Arrow on your remote.
You should get a message saying something like "Mapped 'Up' to 'Up'", and under the "Up" item you should see a new mapping with your Up button.
Repeat for the other arrow keys and the OK/Enter key. In my case, I also needed to map the Vol+ and Vol- keys since they were not working in Media Portal either.
Click OK to save your changes, exit the MediaPortal Config window, launch MediaPortal and give it a try.

 

[claimui]

I mentioned in my last post that I needed to remap my volume keys since they no longer worked after I disabled automatic handling of the MCE remote. I did it the easy way of simply mapping the volume up and down keys to the + and - keyboard presses.

I just found https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/ir-server-suite-irss-165/ir-server-suite-version-1-4-2-test-build-3158-3281-a-33512/index67.html#post362501 which gives a way to use Translator to map the volume settings to "Windows Messages" so it can simulate the original MCE remote commands. Depending on your system, this may be a better solution. Even if you don't use it in MediaPortal, it will at least let you change the volume in your other applications (emulators, etc).

Common Windows Messages:

Volume Up
@ = Active Window
793 = Message
0 = Word Param
655360 = Long Param

Volume Down
@ = Active Window
793 = Message
0 = Word Param
589824 = Long Param

Mute
@ = Active Window
793 = Message
0 = Word Param
524288 = Long Param