I am running the latest version of HA with a Broadlink integration and an RM4C mini.
I have learned codes and set up buttons to run the codes. The codes run just fine if pressed once but more often than not, a second press of the SAME code will send two sets of codes.
To illustrate: I press ‘1’ I get ‘1’ if I press ‘1’ again so as to get 11 (channel), I get 111. This is repeated with all the number buttons where the result can be clearly seen. It seems to happen with all other buttons as well but since there is no visible feedback, it is hard to tell for sure.
Any idea what I could have done wrong in the setup - the traditional remote works as expected.
Oh, I can press 12345 and I actually get 12345 … it’s only if I press a key twice in a row that the error occurs. If I pres 1223 I get 12223. If I press the ‘2’ keys rapidly I will get only a single key transmitted as in I send 1223 but hit the ‘2’ too quickly one after the other and it translates as ‘123’ and if I wait a bit too long between the ‘2’ keys I will see ‘12223’.
I am suspecting a connection to delay_secs and hold_secs for skipping the second key in pressing the key rapidly but haven’t got a clue how pressing the same key twice can send three commands for the same key.
A quick update - I ‘learned’ the code for ‘1’ again and sent it back out with the remote.send_command and it behaves exactly the same - pressed once I get ‘1’ pressed twice I get ‘111’ (or two ones when the second one is sent). I tried different delay and hold times with no change observed. I again confirmed that if I press the ‘1’ twice on the standard remote control, the received code is ‘11’.
I had a similar issue when I first bought the broadlink. Besides learning individual commands, try to learn sequences… if you want 11 to work, try the following:
Thanks obaldius but that just isn’t practical. I would have to have a button for every channel I watch (ie ch 211 because of the ‘11’ combination) and ch 213 since I can’t have some channels on a single button and others on multiple buttons. The way I have set things up is that there is a script for each button (or presumably button sequence) so all of a sudden you add let’s say 100 different scripts that show up every time you want to use the entity picker for anything making this a big mess. It’s bad enough having to dig through all the scripts even though there are only maybe 50 so far. I haven’t figured out yet how to break things up or if it is even practical to break things up.
Are you doing everything via the UI or do you learn buttons by capturing codes, retrieving it from the log and then manually coding the scripts?
I’d you have the raw codes, try to compare it with a DB like this: http://irdb.tk/find/.
I couldn’t find the right terms now and can’t remember exactly but there are different encodings and protocols. My suspicion is that your original remote is sending some kind of composite code and what’s captured isn’t exactly right, or said differently, not what the device is expecting on the second keypress.
This is highly speculative, but capture the same button twice (without pressing anything else in between) and see if the codes are identical. Perhaps the original remote control has some kind of state that affects multiple button presses. Or, if it is indeed identical, wait longer or shorter between repeated (simulated) presses to see if it makes a difference.
I am mixing up ui and yaml but for these tests I am doing strictly ui so as to not introduce an error somehow.
Great idea about capturing a double key press and comparing it.
Thanks!
parautenbach, great idea but unfortunately there must be some ‘this is the end of the key press code’ kinda thing embedded because I can not learn the code for two presses of the ‘1’ key. The RM4C Mini knows that I have hit the ‘1’ key and thinks it is done.
obaldius, you had another method of learning two codes but I do not understand how to implement this since all my code learning was done through the remote.learn_command service from the ui.
I compared the learned codes from earlier (button 1) with the new recording of what was supposed to be button 11 (but recorded as a button 1). Anyway, the two codes did not match!
There was some mention of ‘rolling codes’ in my research - I will dig into what exactly that is and see if maybe there is a link.
Learned 4 more instances of the ‘1’ button and they are all different from each other but all result in a ‘1’ received if pressed once and multiple one’s received when the ‘1’ is pressed a second time.
I did it from the UI too. In my case, I fristly learnt all individual codes from the UI: 1, ,2, 3, etc… Once all were learned, I assumed that if I called the send_command service like the example below it would work:
But it didn’t, it was inconsistent… so I ended up learning all sequences and they worked.
It worked for me because I just had like 15 or 20 codes to be learned… but if you want to emulate all the combinations this is definetely not practical.
I did some major digging into IR codes, how they are transmitted and everything in between. I ended up understanding only a tiny fraction of what is going on but it was enough to get me going.
For those looking for the same information, this is what I found out:
The remote IR codes that my cable box used (Arris 2150 as supplied by Shaw Cable) expects most (some/all) buttons to have two separate codes. Call them code a and code b. Each button, when first pressed, emits the ‘A’ code and the next press will be the ‘B’ code before going back to the ‘A’ code on the third button press.
If you learned only a single code (alternative set to false during the learn command), then the receiving equipment would get confused when the second key press was from the ‘A’ commands and not the ‘B’ commands.
The secret was to learn two codes (alternative: true) for keys such as numbers were the same number could be sent twice in a row.
I also needed to change the scripts for each button press - I had sent the b64 codes directly but I did not know how to alternate between the two b64 codes for key presses so instead I called the button names (command: button name) together with all the other parameters. Example:
This would execute the stored commands for the button labeled ‘Next’ for the Shaw remote control.
Note that you could execute many key presses by listing them under commands such as:
command:
- Button 1
- Button 1
- Button 2
This would send out the key sequence ‘112’ (I named the key presses as ‘Button 1’‘Button 2’ etc when I learned the key codes)
This fixed all the inconsistent behaviour so far but I have not yet exhaustively tested things.
Note that when called this way, the system automatically toggles between the two codes recorded per key and takes care of all the details.
I should point out that there are many many encoding schemes. It’s pretty much the wild west as far as codes is concerned. Any manufacturer can do their own thing. Some adhere to standards, some expand on standards and others do their own thing. In other words, this method worked for me with my equipment but might not work for you.
A somewhat related note: if you manually edit the config/.storage/Broadlink_remote_‘mac address’_codes file, be prepared for some big surprises and make a backup before you edit the file!!!
It took me several hours to track down an extra comma that resulted in the file content being unreadable and no codes being sent at all. I believe it was also the cause of my RM4C mini becoming unavailable even if no codes were sent which totally baffled me.
Also keep in mind that if you do edit that file, you need to reboot the HA host computer to make that change permanent. I do not believe that just restarting the Supervisor (or server) or any other sub system will result in the file change to be permanent. I suspect the file stays in RAM and is re-written when accessed.