MCE_Vista: MceIr pipe is not available

THRobinson · Post by **THRobinson** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:11 am

I've seen a few posts (many posts) about this error but never seem to find a solution apart from rebooting.

MCE_Vista: MceIr pipe is not available, app doesn't seem to be running
Will continue to try to connect to MceIr
Message = The system cannot find the file specified.

Sometimes I won't get this for over a week, some days like today I've had to reboot 3x in the past hour.

I've been using EventGhost for about 8 months now, been an ongoing issue since day one. I've formatted my system a few times, this past week I replaced the motherboard/cpu/ram as an upgrade and re-installed the system again so, thinking probably not a hardware issue. However, sometimes I'll see the receiver light flickering, and/or weird events appearing in the log like "MceRemote.Unknown.58" where the number changes. I've checked and no other IR emitting remotes anywhere so no idea what is happening there. Maybe getting some sorta feedback from the USB?

Anyway... is there a fix for this at all? Apart from rebooting the system numerous times in a row?

THRobinson · Post by **THRobinson** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 1:39 am

Nothing? I'm sure other people get this error...

Went 3 weeks without instance, then 3x last night within half an hour and gave up... worked fine all day today, then got the error, reboot, 2min after reboot error came up again, and now 10min later again.

Something has to be triggering it, makes no sense to go 3 weeks without a hitch then can't go 5min without getting them repeatedly.

Since my post 2 months ago, I've upgraded my motherboard, cpu and memory. Pretty much a different system. Also bought a copy of Win7 64bit, fresh install so essentially a different computer.

Are there any known conflicts with XBMC? AVG Anti Virus? etc?

pingomister · Post by **pingomister** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:01 am

I do get that error sometimes, randomly. Does restarting the mce service work for you?

THRobinson · Post by **THRobinson** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:12 am

Holy crap... a reply!

System restart fixes it.

I think I figured it out... the IR receiver would sometimes blink a lot, and the EG log would show a lot of random unknown entries etc... seems that some LCD/LED screens backlight mimic IR almost, found it in a post somewhere, and sure enough, I took a book and moved it around the IR receiver and the light would stop blinking. I moved it down a shelf and in another 10" and very rare it detects any stray signals anymore.

I think it was just getting confused at all the signals flooding in and crashed the service. My best guess anyway. Since moving it, I've not had that MCEIR PIPE error again.

Otherwise, when I had it, a reboot was the only thing that would fix it. And even then sometimes it would crash 3min after again.

Luca Brasi · Post by **Luca Brasi** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:58 pm

Hi,
I've got the same issue. As it works for weeks without trouble I am not that bad bothered by it but a solution would be very welcome. For me I can get it to work again by de-installing and installing of the drivers in the plugins config. It's done in a minute and I don't have to restart.
Do you have a plasma tv? I have and the guy who sold the receiver to me told me that this would be the reason for all that MceRemote.Unknown.* noise....
Luca

THRobinson · Post by **THRobinson** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:06 pm

I have a 40" Sony Bravia LCD HDTV system.

Like I said the light would go nuts some days on the HP receiver I have, and I would walk around, close the curtains, hid all the remotes, phone, etc trying to see what may be causing it, if another remote, or maybe some sorta feedback through the USB port. I then switched motherboards/ram/processor as part of an upgrade so, figured would elimiate it being a problem with the USB ports, plus I have onboard USB and a PCI card for extra ports and same issue between the two. Also upgraded my O/S so had hoped that resolved any software issues as well.

Once I read in passing about the screen giving off 'fake signals' I grabbed a book/binder and held it over top of the receiver when it was blinking, and voila, stopped. Moved it to the shelf below and set it in at the back and now, only time it seems to get fake signals is at night when I walk in front of the TV, like, reflecting off me I suppose.

Haven't had to restart in a month.

Fear though is, once I get a new MAC, this PC will be put into one of those really nice cases that look like stereo equipment, with an IR port on the front... worried once that happens, I'll be grabbing random signals again and can't really move it.

Luca Brasi · Post by **Luca Brasi** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:20 pm

Yeah it's funny, after I read your post I took a white postcard and held it in front of the receiver so it could reflect the radiation from the plasma nicely. EG log went crazy instantly...

THRobinson · Post by **THRobinson** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:29 pm

Weird huh?

I would never have thought it, but makes sense given that it emits all manner of lights and such.

But like I said, I'm not a programmer or anything but, I think EG getting flooded wit SO many unknown signals at once caused it to just crash.

Hopefully others with the same problem find this post and it fixes it for them. I posted this months ago, and I posted last Fall about the same issue, and this week was the first time anyone responded to either post. I don't know if it's a case of simply no one using the forums, or just in general not very helpful, but, I've posted a few things since last summer, never got a response to anything and had to try to find answers on other sites like XBMC. No idea where I read about the LCD screen emitting IR though... was a random Google link.

Luca Brasi · Post by **Luca Brasi** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:39 pm

Yeah I posted about something else the other day. No one responded and I saw a lot of zero reply threads here. A while ago it wasn't like that. EG is a great piece of software I would hate to see it dying...

blaher · Post by **blaher** » Thu Sep 06, 2012 3:45 am

Does anyone know if it is possible to generate any event from an error message?

MCE_Vista: MceIr pipe is not available, app doesn't seem to be running
Will continue to try to connect to MceIr
Message = The system cannot find the file specified.

If any of those 3 lines above could be used as a trigger, then we could stop and restart the service automatically when needed as per:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3987

Thanks

Luca Brasi · Post by **Luca Brasi** » Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:36 am

I can't get into it right now as I didn't have the problem for weeks. I will need to have the error messages in the log. I will try as soon as the service crashes...

comstriker · Post by **comstriker** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 2:22 am

Yea I can confirm the issue you guys are having... and I came to the same conclusion regarding the plasma interference.

However, if the service DOES crash, you shouldn't have to reboot... as pingomister alluded to earlier, go into your system services and start/restart the "AlternateMceIrService".

pingomister wrote:I do get that error sometimes, randomly. Does restarting the mce service work for you?

comstriker · Post by **comstriker** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:23 am

anybody have an idea of a slick way to restart that service if it crashes? Doesn't seem like you can use the log messages as events.

Here's my solution (Win7 X64), which seems clumsy to me and I haven't been able to replicate the error to verify that this works:

1. Enable Process Watcher plugin
2. Observe the event running "net stop AlternateMceIrService" in an administrative cmd shell and watching the eveng it EG (obviously drag and drop it to your macro)
3. I added a 3sec wait here to let the OS cleanup up the crashed service, don't know if that's necessary
4. Add Start Program action. Executable = cmd.exe. Command line options = "/c net start AlternateMceIrService".

1 Caveat - starting and stopping services requires admin privileges. So this won't work UNLESS EG IS RUNNING AS ADMINISTRATOR for a lot of operating systems.

Would love feedback if anyone tries this successfully. And I don't like having to run EG as administrator.

michaeljc70 · Post by **michaeljc70** » Sat Oct 20, 2012 2:50 pm

I have my IR receiver in a closet in my basement, so there is no TV generating signals. I have had this problem though once in a while.

It is good now knowing that I can just restart the service rather than reboot.

pingomister · Post by **pingomister** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:48 pm

Excuse me comstriker, that processwatcher method sound good to me, but what exactly is the event that you use to trigger the service restart?
Oh and there are ways to start and stop a service with UAC enabled and without Eventghost running as administrator. I did that on my configuration. You would have to use "sdset" in a command prompt window (running as administrator, of course) to allow the service to be stopped or restarted by any user. It's a bit complicated.

Please use this link to try and understand it:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/erikr/archive/2 ... ndows.aspx
And I'll let you know that this is what I put in my AlternateMceIrServiceservice configuration (don't be frightened lol)

D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;IU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SU)

Feel free to ask me for help if you don't succeed. Cheers.

EventGhost

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