EventGhost

OS: Window 7 Professional 64 bit (SP!)
EventGhost: 0.4.1.r1582

I have one of these. It works perfectly with WMC, but I wanted to have my TV power off when I put the HTPC to sleep and power back on when I woke it back up. I was able to sleep/wake the HTPC just fine with the "moon" button on the remote, and I hooked up a null-modem cable to the LG TV and am using libLGTV_serial along with two .cmd files in Windows' Task Scheduler to power it on and off. This worked just fine except for one thing: it would power on the TV even if the HTPC woke itself up to download guide updates or defrag the HDD. I only want the TV to come on if *I* turn it on with the remote. Hence, EG: Task scheduler doesn't seem to be able to discriminate between a wake that is manual and one that is scheduled.

The Problem:
EG installed with no issues. I went into Task Scheduler, and set it up to run on startup with elevated privileges, and verified that this was working. I then removed the Task Scheduler events I had been using to control my TV and put equivalent ones in EG. That also worked as expected. According to the online manual, an additional plugin is required to capture events from a WMC remote, so I installed the Microsoft MCE Remote -Vista/Win7 plugin. This installed the "AlternateMceIrService" as part of its process. So far, so good. Everything was working at this point and remote button presses were showing up in EG's log. Before I made any further changes, I figured I would shut down the HTPC and restart it. Upon restart, signals from the WMC remote were not registering in Windows. I uninstalled the MCE remote plugin from EG, but that didn't help, so I went into Device Manager and removed the IR remote and HID drivers and unplugged the IR receiver. After that I restarted the HTPC and when I plugged the IR receiver back in, it came up and installed and is now working normally again. Obviously I missed a step somewhere here along the line, and I'm hoping someone can tell me what I need to do to get EG and my WMC remote playing nicely together.

I was hoping someone else out there got something similar working and would be willing to give me a couple of pointers... I don't need (or want) to use EventGhost as an interface between my MC remote and WMC--the remote already works perfectly with the stock drivers. All I want is for it to detect the remote button presses so I can script in the RS232 commands to control power on my TV. My problem is that when I install EG, the MCE remote stops functioning properly: button presses show up in EG but aren't passed through to WMC.

Mythra wrote:I don't need (or want) to use EventGhost as an interface between my MC remote and WMC.

It won't take long to drag the remote presses into EventGhost. There's an MCE plugin with all the actions that comes with EventGhost. It will allow you more flexibility than just the stock driver.

Well I couldn't seem to get this up and working, so I went ahead and tried Intelliremote instead. Although this is more limited, it was much easier to get working and I was able to assign the power function to an unused key on the remote. Problem solved.

You can do the same exact thing with EG, it takes 1 min or less to assign a button to a command

I guess this wasn't evident in my OP, so I will restate the issue more clearly: Before I installed EG, everything was working with the default Windows driver: I installed EventGhost for extra functionality. After installing, everything was STILL working...until I rebooted the machine. After the reboot, remote button presses weren't being detected by Windows default drivers OR Eventghost. How could I configure buttons on the remote when EG isn't even detecting them? After my initial post received no response for some time, I gave up and found another solution. No doubt EG does what you need it to do, but I couldn't get it to work, so I had to find something else.
I will say this though. BOTH Intelliremote and EventGhost intercept remote button presses instead of simply detecting them. Maybe there is a good reason for it, but on the surface, that seems to me like a poor design choice, as it adds an extra layer of complexity (and hence another potential point of failure.)

What you are seeing is how the operating system works (all of them: Windows, Linux, etc). Only one app can use (connect to) a hardware device at any given time - usually they connect to and 'own' that device - switching apps is manual (specified directly by the user) or in rare cases VERY sophisticated coding can do it - but I've only seen this once or twice.

The only way to have other apps "see" the IR commands is to use that app that has control of the device forward commands to the apps you want - but this is not how people write software and makes things very complicated for the coder... sometimes impossible to even accomplish.

All of this unnecessary since EG can do everything you want. Use EG to control all the apps... as it was designed to do. There are default profiles (when appropriate plugin is installed) for WMC, XBMC and many other apps.

Well, my question here from the start has been "how can I get this working?" I initially installed the profile for WMC and it was working fine until I rebooted. I posted my original query on 9/1 and by the time I received a response (on 9/20) I had given up on it and went another route. At any rate, none of the responses has focused on troubleshooting the actual issue. I'm not here to debate the benefits of EG, but to figure out what is necessary to get it working. So... given the info I provided in my OP and my response on 10/2, do you have any suggestions on what I might try to troubleshoot this? At this point I have a working solution in place with other software, but I would still like to know how to get EG working properly, as it might be useful in the future with another project.

Correct me if I'm wrong...
your goal is to get 2 different apps to use the same hardware (IR receiver) at the same time?
... if this is correct, I will state again: You cannot, it will not work baring some other code made specifically to do this. I don't know of any that exists. BTW, it is against best practices for coding to have 2 apps share the same hardware at the same time. If it worked before, it was a fluke.

If this is not what you are trying to do, then please try explaining in a different way that you did before since is it not clear.

If you want to trigger a command line while using WMC when a specific IR signal is received you will need an app that runs in WMC and can use IR commands that WMC sees. You can try an app that is called "Maximizer" - it is made to work with WMC and keyboard presses... I'm not sure if it is do exactly what you want, but it is worth a shot.

BTW, with the time you've spent messing with everything you have done + all of these posts, you could have already had EG 100% working for what you want.

Wait... you thought I was trying to run EventGhost and Intelliremote AT THE SAME TIME? Of course not. That would have just been asking for trouble. I only switched to Intelliremote after I was initially unable to get EventGhost working properly and had given up on getting any response to my query here.

BTW, with the time you've spent messing with everything you have done + all of these posts, you could have already had EG 100% working for what you want.

To date, none of the responses here have provided me with any actual troubleshooting tips that would help me get it working:

All of this unnecessary since EG can do everything you want.

You can do the same exact thing with EG, it takes 1 min or less to assign a button to a command

It won't take long to drag the remote presses into EventGhost.

That is the essence of the responses so far, and none of it is relevant if I can't get it working in the first place. This in spite of the fact that I clearly stated in my OP that it was working prior to my reboot. And by working, I mean that the remote was controlling WMC like it should and the keypresses were showing up in EG's log...

WMC is an APP! You cannot have WMC AND ANY OTHER APP get IR commands at the same time.

I'm not sure what you're not understanding here... stop telling me I'm not help... the problem is you are not understanding.

do what you want, I'm done trying...

WMC=Windows Media Center. MediaCenter is the Application I want to control with my remote. Are you saying EG won't work with MediaCenter? My understanding was that using EventGhost + WMC plugin would allow me to add extra functionality. But to do that, I need to get EG working properly with my infrared remote...

EG works perfectly with WMC... I've been using it for years.

You are confusing the hell out of me.

If you want EG + WMC working together where EG receives IR, then sends WMC commands (e.g. the way it is made to work), that is simple. It works just like that with a clean EG install + the WMC plugin when using an RC6 remote/receiver that is made to work with WMC.

If you want BOTH WMC & EG to get IR AT THE SAME TIME then this WILL NOT WORK - 2 apps cannot control the IR receiver at the same time.

that is the way it is.

Livin wrote:EG works perfectly with WMC... I've been using it for years.
If you want EG + WMC working together where EG receives IR, then sends WMC commands (e.g. the way it is made to work), that is simple. It works just like that with a clean EG install + the WMC plugin when using an RC6 remote/receiver that is made to work with WMC.

Yes that would be just fine... only when I installed EG and the WMC plugin, it stopped working after the first reboot, and I'd like to know what additional steps would be necessary to get a working install.

Mythra wrote:

Livin wrote:EG works perfectly with WMC... I've been using it for years.
If you want EG + WMC working together where EG receives IR, then sends WMC commands (e.g. the way it is made to work), that is simple. It works just like that with a clean EG install + the WMC plugin when using an RC6 remote/receiver that is made to work with WMC.

Yes that would be just fine... only when I installed EG and the WMC plugin, it stopped working after the first reboot, and I'd like to know what additional steps would be necessary to get a working install.

I just re-read the thread on the plugin ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1838) and found something that 'might' accomplish what you are looking for... viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1838&start=45#p21614

... I still suggest just simply using EG to control WMC, just to avoid problems as don't see any benefit to WMC & EG both grabbing IR commands; and much more customization abilities if only EG does - and no potential conflicts.

Anyway, try a completely new install of EG... uninstall EG and reinstall making sure to use the latest version, then install the MCE plugin.