[The_Hawk]

I'm using a Logitech Harmony One and thought I had things sorted... until today.

I've got an Apple TV 3 and a Mac Mini running the latest stable release of Kodi (upgraded in today from 14.x in the hope of fixing my problem).

The Apple TV receives remote signals from both the original silver remote and the Harmony remote just fine. I've even managed to get it to ignore the commands from the "plex remote" setup I have for the Mac Mini.

The Mac Mini receives all the Plex Remote commands BUT it is also picking up the commands for the Mac Mini which means it's doing things when it shouldn't.

Is there anyway I can get the Mac Mini to ignore the other commands?

[The_Hawk]

UPDATE... a few minutes later.

I've been reading more and more stuff with no direct answer, but I was reading how the remote setup actually works thanks to a post by DBMandrake.

In my case I went in and reset the remote settings to default within Kodi and then turned back on the Harmony remote and the "Allow start of XBMC using the remote" switch. It seems that the simple act of turning it off and on again (even though I've updated and reboot a couple of times) has done the trick and it's stopped picking up the Apple TV remote signals! YAY!

Hopefully this might help out someone else one day with the same issue.

There is another way that should work to stop the ATV remote from triggering the harmony remote - you need to change the remote ID of the ATV remote so it doesn't clash with one of the eight ID's which the "Plex" profile uses, and then learn that reconfigured ATV remote on the Harmony rather than using the one in the Harmony database.

A quick run down on how the Apple remote works and how the Plex profile exploits this to send extra buttons from a harmony.

Each Apple remote has a "Remote ID" which is a kind of prefix which it sends in addition to the button code you press - there are 255 different prefixes available. So when you press menu one remote might send "ID 23, menu", while a different remote might send "ID 57, menu". From the factory apple remote's come with a random remote ID's configured and there are enough possible codes that chances of a clash between the devices you own is unlikely.

An "unpaired" remote actually just means the Mac / ATV will accept ANY Remote ID. When you "pair" the remote by pressing menu and next together what actually happens is the remote sends a pairing instruction to the Mac which tells the Mac "only accept this remote ID from now on" so it is actually the Mac/ATV which is paired, not the remote.

This means other devices will still respond to the remote as nothing at the remote has actually changed - it still sends the same codes for the same button presses, the "pairing" is at the Mac/ATV end, also this pairing command has to be sent when other devices are not watching otherwise they too will be paired to the same remote...(they would also receive the "pair to me" signal from the remote)

The way that the Plex/Harmony profile ("Multi Remote(Harmony)" in XBMC) works is that the extra buttons are sent by repeating the same basic button codes (menu, back, forwards, play etc) with a different Remote ID. From memory eight such Remote ID's are used to give the total number of available buttons.

So the Mac thinks it is receiving commands from up to 8 different Apple remote's. To receive the codes from all these "different" remote's the Mac must be un-paired - if it was paired it would filter out all but one Remote ID thus most of the buttons wouldn't work.

The XBMC Helper app runs in the background and intercepts the Apple remote commands to prevent the OS from handling them itself, and by looking at the Remote ID it can figure out if a button press is really menu, or in fact one of the many extra functions which happens to map to the "menu" key plus a different Remote ID.

To prevent the OS mis-interpreting these additional remote's you really should have "Allow start of XBMC using the remote" enabled in XBMC Settings - this keeps XBMC Helper running in the background even when you exit XBMC, intercepting the remote codes to prevent the OS getting confused by the Harmony/Plex profile. (Otherwise the buttons would start adjusting system volume, launching Frontrow etc)

The problem with this whole scheme is that (a) the Mac must run unpaired, and (b) the set of eight Remote ID's the Plex profile uses is fixed and cannot be changed - so if your Remote ID of your genuine Apple TV/Mac remote or the Apple Remote profile on the Harmony website has the same Remote ID as one of the eight used, you'll get a clash.

The Apple remote profile from the Harmony website also can't have it's Remote ID changed - the pairing button simply sends the pairing code that says to the mac "pair to me", but the Remote ID is always the same, and was determined by whoever captured that Apple remote code and uploaded it to Logitech...

Here's what you should be able to do though - I haven't tested it because I don't have an ATV, but I believe it should work.

On a genuine Apple remote you CAN change the Remote ID. Rather than holding Menu and Next for 5 seconds to pair, you hold Menu and CENTRE for 5 seconds - this will increment the Remote ID as well as sending a pair command for the new Remote ID. If you change it enough times it should move out of the range used by the Plex/Harmony profile and no longer clash with it.

So take your genuine ATV remote, test it to see if it is clashing with XBMC on the Mac, assuming it is hold Menu and Centre for 5 seconds to change the code - after this you might need to go into the System preferences on the Mac to make sure it didn't pair to the Mac (either that or cover the Mac while sending the pairing code) - if it did just unpair it in the Mac again.

Test the remote on the ATV and make sure it doesn't falsely trigger any functions on the Mac. If it still does try again - remember there are eight possible Remote ID clashes that could occur, so you might have to try as many as eight times.

Once you find a Remote ID which doesn't clash - simply use IR learning on the Harmony to learn the ATV remote rather than using the profile provided on the website - this locally learnt copy of the profile will have the Remote ID that you have determined doesn't clash. There's no need to try to learn the pair code either, as long as you keep hold of the original ATV remote to send the pair code with Menu and Next (not centre) if you ever need to pair again.