occaisionally losing contact with Girder

[salsbst]

Twice now (over the period of a few months of use) I have had girder lose contact with the USB-UIRT. Symptoms are that events are not triggered in Girder when I press buttons on my remote (although the red light blinks) and that Girder commands which should cause channel changes via USB-UIRT on my cable box do not have an effect.

Exiting and restarting Girder does not seem to solve the problem. Rebooting the OS seems to get things working again.

The next time this happens, is there anything I can do to narrow down the problem?

Thanks,
Stuart

[jrhees]

Stuart,

Yes! The next time you see this happen, try this:

1. DISABLE plugins in Girder (F9 key)
2. Unplug the USB-UIRT
3. Plug the USB-UIRT back in
4. ENABLE plugins in Girder (F9 key).

See if this remedies the loss. Then PLEASE report back!

Thanks,

Jon

[salsbst]

Ok, thanks, Jon. Will do.

[salsbst]

This just happened again. When I tried to re-enable plugins I got an access violation by girder.exe at address 0056DE59. Read of address 00000070.

[salsbst]

.... and after the access violation Girder and the USB-UIRT were back in touch. Odd. I wrote my last post before figuring out that Girder wasn't going to be unloaded. So, I guess your method works if one is willing to deal with the access violation method. Just to be safe I'm going to relaunch Girder now anyway.

[Guest]

I have the exact same problem as salsbst mentioned in his first post dated Aug. 26, 2003. Except my USB-UIRT loses contact several times a day with Girder. When I press the remote, the USB-UIRT red LED blinks and the girder icon flashes but there is no response to the key. I have found that closing and restarting Girder solves the problem. This is the second computer I have used with Girder/USB-UIRT and both have the same problem. It is very frustrating. Any ideas?

[jrhees]

Guest,

This doesn't sound like the same problem *either*. If the Girder icon is still flashing, then Girder *is indeed* still talking to the USB-UIRT. What you need to do at this point is bring up the Girder screen and see what status and/or code is appearing on Girder's status bar each time you press a key.

-Jon

[salsbst]

Jon,

The occasional loss of contact with Girder on my HTPC hasn't hit me for quite some time.

However, I'm getting it quite frequently (3-4 times per week) on a different machine (I have 2 USB-UIRTs).

Symptom: Girder no longer recieves or sends USB-UIRT events.

Sometimes I can go to the plugins list, uncheck USB-UIRT and then recheck and apply and things go back to working. But about half of the time, it says, "Failed to initialize the hardware" or something like that. I can get it working again by unplugging and replugging the USB-UIRT.

Nothing to indicate a problem appears in the Device Manager.

Is there a log feature that I could enable to see what happens in its last moments of life? Anything else to try?

Thanks,
Stuart

[jrhees]

Unfortunately, there's not any real log to speak of, and the activity between the PC and the USB-UIRT does not occur unless something needs to be transmitted.

The first thing I would try if I were you is to *switch* the two units and give it a week. If the problem moves with the switch, then we have a suspect USB-UIRT. If not, then we'll pay more attention to the PC.

-Jon

[salsbst]

I had a feeling you would suggest that. I'll do it. Actually the one that is having these problems is the the original one (that had very occasional problems on the HTPC). It is going to cramp my style a little bit b/c my first one has a longer cable, but in the interest of getting to the bottom of it I don't mind pointing my remote in a strange direction for a week or so.

Thanks,
Stuart

[nmendelson]

Could this problem be tied to the external emitter?

I had this problem at first, and got a replacement, and it kept happening. Specifically, Girder would just suddenly stop receiving commands from the USB-UIRT, and if I tried to toggle input devices off and on, it gave a message saying the USB-UIRT isn't responding. Then when I removed the external emitter and replaced it with a model suggested here (Xantech something or other), all the problems seemed to go away.

Recently, though, I've been having the same problems sometimes (though a lot less frequently). Every now and then the USB-UIRT and Girder lose contact and the only way to reestablish is to unplug the USB cable, plug it back in, disable input devices in Girder, then re-enable devices in Girder. Sometimes it happens after a day and other times it can be fine for a week or more.

Since I use the USB-UIRT to turn on all devices, this is extremely annoying, because when the activation sequence doesn't work I need to start digging out old remotes just to get the screen on to gio through tis routine.

Will removing the external emitter solve this problem? I only need it to turn on a single device so I could replace it with some sort of IR blaster -- if I knew that would solve it.

[jrhees]

I am not sure we ever came to the definite conclusion of whether removing the external emitter would indeed solve this problem. Its still somewhat at the theory stage.

The current revision of the USB interface has supposedly made some improvements in the area of noise susceptibility. We could try yet another unit and see if it helped. However, this seems to be a somewhat isolated problem.

The other thing you might try is a *powered* USB hub. If you have one you can 'borrow' for a week this may tell a lot. If you try this, though, make sure the hub is indeed in 'powered' mode (many have a little switch to make the hub use the external wall-wart).

-Jon

[nmendelson]

The other thing you might try is a *powered* USB hub.

Just to be clear: are you saying that a powered USB hub has some advantage over just plugging it into the motherboard, or are you saying that a powered hub is better than a non-powered one?

[bryan_chow]

I'm suddenly having this problem on one of my USB-UIRTs (I have 2) as well. About once a day my USB-UIRT stops responding. The red light blinks, but no event gets triggered in Girder.

Restarting Girder usually fixes it, but sometimes the system reboots when I try to do that (probably access violation like what the others see).

I've unplugged the external emitter and will see if that helps.

Bryan

[ewingr]

I am watching this thread with interest. I'm just setting up my system, and having quite a bit of problems with inconsistent response when I send IR commands to the UIRT. I have been blaming the new remote.

If this communication problem happens, I presume it stops altogether until the 'fix' (reboot...or whatever). In my case, it just that it works sometimes, and doesn't others.

I am insterested in an answer to the above question related to the powered USB hub: Is that better than hooking the USB to the motherboard, or just better than a non-powered hub.