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Harmony Touch and Xbox 360 problems

post #1 of 12
2/5/13 at 10:01am
Thread Starter 
(What, no Official Harmony Touch thread?)

Anyone here using the Touch with an XBOX 360?

If you are, and it controls the Xbox reliably, let me know what your device delays are, the duration of your power command, and if you've added anything to the activity start/stop or device power commands. Thanks!

I'm having trouble with power on/off, both in my Play Xbox 360 activity (uses the Xbox device) and my Watch TV activity (uses the Windows Media Center device, which the Xbox is set to respond to). Power off almost never works, help doesn't fix it, but going into device->Xbox and sending PowerOff or PowerToggle turns it off, so I know the IR commands are correct.

It seems like the remote is either not sending the power commands or ignoring the durations and delays. The Xbox is ordered to turn on and off first in activities, but I've noticed the TV and AVR respond as soon as I press Off... that would indicate to me the Xbox power command is NOT being sent for 3 seconds like it should be. Sometimes rebooting or resetting/resyncing the remote will get it to work for a while. Another odd quirk is the "Advanced Help" page has no commands at all for the Xbox and WMC devices.

I have no doubt this is a bug in the firmware of the Touch, I'm wondering if anyone has found a workaround?
Edited by ArcCoyote - 2/5/13 at 1:08pm
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post #2 of 12
2/5/13 at 12:46pm
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1431592/new-logitech-harmony-touch

The 360 has always been picky on power on and off. To fix it I simply modified the activity entrance and exit to emit two Power On/Off commands with a slight delay between them instead of the one in the default activity.
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post #3 of 12
2/5/13 at 1:04pm
Thread Starter 
I'll try that. One of the interesting things about the myharmony web config is you can set whole sequences of commands and delays for the device power settings. I already have the PowerOn or MediaCenter and PowerOff commands being sent for 3 seconds but apparently that's not good enough for the Xbox?

When starting the Watch TV activity, the Xbox should already be getting the "WMC Green Button" command (which powers on straight to WMC) twice! Once as a power on command and once as an input command... and it still doesn't turn on some of the time!

Power off almost never works. I think I tried sending PowerOff more than once, only to realize that it was really the same command as PowerToggle... rolleyes.gif

The reason I keep thinking it's a bug in the remote or the software is that the Xbox is set as first to be turned on and off, and the power commands are set to be sent for 3 seconds. During this time the remote shouldn't be able to send another command, right? When I press Off, the TV and AVR usually turn off immediately, meaning the Xbox power command was either not sent or was sent for a split second. On the rare occasions the Xbox does turn off, I get to watch it do the "fade to black" before the rest of the system powers off... that's about 3 seconds!

I'll try removing the devices and activities that use the Xbox and adding them back. I've had to do this to fix weirdness with the old software.
Edited by ArcCoyote - 2/5/13 at 1:26pm
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post #4 of 12
2/5/13 at 2:05pm
I assume you do have decent line-of-sight between your remote and xbox for the duration of the activity start-up.

Too bad you are stuck using the myharmony.com website with the Touch.
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post #5 of 12
2/6/13 at 3:06pm
Thread Starter 
There is something stupid going on with the commands in the MyHarmony database:

Windows Media Center device: PowerOff will not turn the Xbox off. It turns it on! (I wonder if PowerOn and PowerOff are reversed)

Xbox 360 device: PowerOff sends the same command as PowerToggle. Not sure if PowerOn is correct either.

Also, the WMC "MediaCenter" command doesn't work during activity startup. The remote just isn't sending it as a power or input command. I can understand not sending the input command, as it thinks WMC is already on the correct "input", but it does seem to be doing something for 3 seconds during activity start. I'll try having it sent more than once at power on and/or manually adding it to the activity.
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post #6 of 12
2/16/13 at 8:49am
Hi,

Glad to see I'm not going crazy. My problem is that every time I turn off the 360, the HTPC turns on. If I send the PowerToggle command for the 360, it turns off the system and turns on the HTPC. If I send PowerOff, it works fine. But I've set the settings for power off for the 360 to send PowerOff, yet it seems to keep sending PowerToggle. It matches this problem you have:
Quote:
PowerOff sends the same command as PowerToggle.

Let me know if you have any luck...
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post #7 of 12
2/17/13 at 9:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nmunson View Post

Hi,

Glad to see I'm not going crazy. My problem is that every time I turn off the 360, the HTPC turns on.

Same problem here. I posted my problem over in the HT Computer forum here: HTPC, Xbox, and Harmony Remote.

Originally, I believe the "Power Toggle" used to always power on my HTPC as it is for you, so when I went into the Harmony Remote Software to change it to Power On and Off it indicated that there was an update for the Xbox and MCE devices. After I updated, the Power Toggle now turns on the HTPC occasionally. Still not a solution.

After testing I determined the "Power Toggle" and "Power Off" Xbox command will sometimes turn on the HTPC roughly 1 out of every 7 times I press the remote commands.

nmunson - what IR dongle are you using? I am using a Rosewill dongle and from my post mdavej suggested I use a Adesso/Ortek dongle as it "won't respond to MCE protocol at all and will give you independent control." Curious to see what you're using as I am considering ordering an Adesso to see if that solves the problem.
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post #8 of 12
2/17/13 at 4:42pm
Thanks for the link to your other thread. Good catch on the IR dongle brand - yes, it's a Rosewill as well. I tried looking for the updates as you suggested you saw but I wasn't presented with any in the Logitech software. Was that just through Devices -> 360 -> Troubleshoot?

I think I may order the Adesso as mdavej suggested because this is driving me nuts smile.gif. I did think of one more thing to try though before buying it. I'm not sure what HTPC you're working with but I have XBMC, so I was thinking of watching what command is sent when the problem occurs by watching the XBMC logs. Then, with a custom Keyboard.xml file (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=keymap), I could set XBMC to do nothing when it receives it instead of shutting down. I think this may work. I'll post here either way.
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post #9 of 12
2/18/13 at 10:06am
If I remember correctly, I believe it did indicate there was an update for my device when I went through the trouble shooting steps as you mentioned. It then added a second device and transferred my settings to the new one. I then had to remove the old device within the software. I originally set the remote up around May and didn't get to use my setup that much as I had to go out of state for work until the beginning of this year. So I didn't really use it for 6-7 months, but when I came back I started seeing the power issue and then did the update. Not sure how new your setup is, but maybe you already have the "update" to the device.

I use XBMC as well and think I am going to order the Adesso ARC-1100 and use the IR dongle from that. But, I would like to know if you set up the dongle as a MCE Keyboard, or set it up as the ARC-1100 specific device within the Harmony software. My concern is I don't see the option to set keyboard letter commands within the ARC-1100 device options as I use some XBMC keyboard letter commands. Anyone know?
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post #10 of 12
2/18/13 at 10:54am
You must set it up as the ARC (or Ortek VRC-1100), not MCE in the harmony config.

I don't think it has any keyboard letter commands, so you may be out of luck there. I'll do some tests in the next few days and see if any such commands exist or not.
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post #11 of 12
2/25/13 at 5:00am
No luck with the custom Keyboard.xml, I think I'll purchase another receiver as well.
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post #12 of 12
4/5/13 at 12:00pm
Here's an update:

I ordered the ARC-1100 and so far it has not turned on my HTPC from the Xbox "power toggle" or "power off" commands. But, it doesn't have some of the functions I really wanted that the MCE receiver offers (mouse commands from Harmony One remote, Windows start key, alt + function key, etc.). So I ordered the HP IR receiver most seem to recommend. And... same problem as the Rosewill.... Turn the Xbox off, the HTPC turns on...

It would seem that MCE receivers either respond to the Xbox power toggle and off commands, or Harmony is sending an "incorrect" Xbox power command that somehow turns on a computer using an MCE IR receiver.

What I don't understand is it seems some people are not having this problem using the same type of equipment I have (and nmunson). Hoping someone can offer updated insight.
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