MCE Remote 'Back' Button lowers volume in Windows 8. (1 Viewer)

[Marienkind]

I've been using MediaPortal 1.11.0 for a while and had no problems on Windows 7. When I recently upgraded to Windows 8 though it started acting funny. The 'back' button on the Microsoft Media Center remote is used to go up/back a menu. It still does that but now for some reason it also lowers the volume too every time it's pressed. I've tried a lot of things to fix this.

1. Remapping the Back button to Escape, and ended up with button that acts like it was pressed several times. Going all the way back to the main menu, if not 2-4 folders at once, when I just want to go up by one.

2. Set MediaPortal to Windows XP compatibility mode. (W7 and Vista made no difference) This fixed the problem by disabling volume control all together but video playback suffers frame rate issues.

3. Setting volume control to Master Volume makes no difference. Back will still lower my main volume when in MediaPortal. In menus or when something is playing. Even when I have it set to Wave, MediaPortal's volume is somehow still tethered to the master volume.

For what it's worth I have the Channel Up/Down buttons set to control the volume when a video is playing but not when navigating menus. If this is somehow the cause it never happened in Windows 7. =/

 

[Marienkind]

I'm bumping this thread because I figured out why this happening. In Windows 8, the MCE Remote 'back' button is mapped to the ' - ' (minus) key. That's a hotkey for lowering the volume in Media Portal. So my question now is, how can I unbind this key? Is there a configuration file I can edit?

 

[tony72]

Hi, I'd highly recommend providing some basic info about your setup; fill in your system specs in your user profile, and upload some logs, then I'm sure someone will help you out. There are lots of different remotes that are described as "MCE remotes", which may behave very differently.

I'm not an expert, but in my opinion, your issue is caused by something outside mediaportal. The button is performing the mediaportal function it's mapped to; the volume change is on top of that, so that sounds like something else is picking up the button press at the same time.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

had no problems on Windows 7. When I recently upgraded to Windows 8

Hhm, it appears a little bit strange that you upgrade to Win 8 rather than to Win 10.

It is quite difficult to provide substantial feedback without seeing detailed logs with activated key/remote command logging. In any case it is not MediaPortal acting strange but more likely your Windows settings are affected.

What you could do is to upgrade to MP 1.14 (or 1.15pre - or 1.15 Final if you wait until Tuesday), which uses a different remote handling system (HID) rather than the old MCE mapping approach. That said, you are likely to lose your current settings and would need to remap certain keys - not a big thing given the fact thatthis is a one-time activity only. 1.15 will cure some volume OSD issues that may exist under Win 10 (don't know about other systems).

Nowithstanding I would consider upgrading to Win 10.

 

[Marienkind]

had no problems on Windows 7. When I recently upgraded to Windows 8

Hhm, it appears a little bit strange that you upgrade to Win 8 rather than to Win 10.

I needed to upgrade my OS for better streaming on Twitch. Windows 8 has what I need without all the invasions of privacy.

OT: I'm just going to remap the back button to 'U' on my remote and see if I can slow down the repeat delay. Because the only problem with this workaround is the button occasionally acts like it was pressed several times.

 

[Stéphane Lenclud]

@Marienkind You need to tell us what kind of remote and receiver hardware you are using. How do you remap those keys? Which software are you using to do that?

Which remote handler are you using in MediaPortal configuration? HID?

See: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/hid-known-issues.134347/