[xekon]

Thanks black_eagle. I actually had lirc_0.10.0-2 installed and working (and it still does on my other system)

but for some reason after dist-upgrade and a reboot it was broken.

I followed the workaround you listed, it worked.
I then unmarked the package as held and dist-upgraded again to see if it would work again with 0.10.0 (nope)

I then tried the workaround again! this time nothing worked.
I then did:

sudo apt purge ir-keytable lirc
sudo apt-get install -y lirc lirc-compat-remotes
sudo dpkg-reconfigure lirc
sudo irw
sudo systemctl stop lircd-uinput.service
sudo systemctl disable lircd-uinput.service

and now my remote is back to working with lirc_0.10.0-2

If I narrow down the exact cause I will post back, its very odd for sure, but for the moment I am working again with lirc_0.10.0-2

with lirc_0.10.0-2 irw shows output like this:

000000008001006c 00 KEY_DOWN devinput-32
0000000080010067 00 KEY_UP devinput-32
000000008001006c 00 KEY_DOWN devinput-32
0000000080010160 00 KEY_OK devinput-32
00000000800100ae 00 KEY_EXIT devinput-32

under lirc 0.9 for the few minutes I tried the workaround irw showed like this:

000000037ff07bde 00 KEY_RIGHT mceusb
000000037ff07be6 00 KEY_STOP mceusb
000000037ff07be6 01 KEY_STOP mceusb
000000037ff07be9 00 KEY_PLAY mceusb
000000037ff07be9 01 KEY_PLAY mceusb
000000037ff07be7 00 KEY_PAUSE mceusb