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Topic:
Strange Pronto Behavior
This thread has 6 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Monday December 21, 1998 at 00:28
George Mills
Historic Forum Post
I went to turn on my VCR with the basic VCR "ON" button and nothing happened. Hmmmm, must of missed that button. So I program it, use it and all is fine. Later I go to use it again, not programed.
So I programed 3 buttons to be my ON for the VCR.

One of the 3 buttons always works and the "bad" button moves around. Sometimes button 1 works, then 1 will stop and 2 will work, then 2 will stop and 3 will work and then 1 will work again.

I tried a reset and no change.

It sounds a lot like "the button that could not be programed" posted a while back and when I added 3 flavors of the same button it added a new twist to the situation.

Bugs in something like this is not unusual and expected. I'll be happy as long as they are fixed in a timely manner. It would be nice to know what triggers it so that I can avoid it.

For reference I have:

System 3.3, App 4.1 and CCF USA 1.1 and 38% free mem. No macros programmed and only one page per device so far. About 8 devices.
OP | Post 2 made on Monday December 21, 1998 at 00:42
jack schultz
Historic Forum Post
George,
Sounds like it could be a corrupted .cfg file perhaps.
We had another user with a Pronto that just seemed to "fail" altoghether and I haven't yet gotten it back via a UPS call tag although Philips engineering definately wants it back as soon as I have it back so they can determine whether it too has a corrupted file.
If the problem persists, we'll be happy to send a replacement to solve the problem. If you can stand the problem until software releases, I suspect that all will come clear when the program is uploaded from Pronto imto your computer, checked, adjusted if necessary and reloaded. When software is released, I believe that most if not all people will do most of their programming with the PC attached, then save the file just in case there's any kind of a failure so they can simply reload.
Of course Pronto has flash memory but strange things can still happen.
Please keep me posted if the problem persists.
OP | Post 3 made on Monday December 21, 1998 at 00:50
George Mills
Historic Forum Post
I managed to get it to work.

I first tried deleting all the buttons on that
page and adding them back. Still problematic.

I was using my Sony TV remote which has a small universal remote for VCR built in to program the VCR into the Pronto.

I went back to the orginal VCR remote and it works.

To verify I went back to the Sony remote and still acted very strange.

Strange that an IR code could cause the "working" button to jump around.

All I can think of is that each button had "partial" streams recorded but with the orginal remote it gets a full "Power Toggle" stream.
OP | Post 4 made on Monday December 21, 1998 at 01:07
jack schultz
Historic Forum Post
George,
Happy to hear that it's working fine now.
Actually, in the software, there are selections for active and inactive icons. If I load an icon into all of the active and inactive locations but don't assign any commands to it, it will not appear on the screen as it has no action. I suspect that this could somehow be related, perhaps in some sort of a key sequence in the learning module of the internal setup program, but this is only a guess.
I can say that I have had NO UNUSUAL problems with any setups I've done via ProntoEdit. Every button works as it should, and, things only move when they're told to do so.
Do let me know if you have any further problems as I know Philips engineering will want to "search and destroy" the problem.
OP | Post 5 made on Monday December 21, 1998 at 16:11
Daniel Tonks
Historic Forum Post
Sorry I haven't been on the forum much - I picked up the flu last week. At the beginning I used it to my benefit (redesigning the site) but for the past few days I just haven't been up much.

Back on topic, during review of the Pronto I had two strange occurances. Please remember that I'm using a pre-release software version. The first was when programming the "TAPE" device. I had quite a routine worked out, and I was flying with labeling buttons, learning codes, etc. but suddenly the screen just went static. Just random placement of pixels. Solution (rather than the reset button) was just to pop the batteries out for a second, then put them back.

Second happened when I put the Pronto down on it's charger while running. The screen changed to horizontal, upward scrolling lines of static. Oddly the backlight and LCD timeout functions still operated, but the screen wouldn't revert back to a useable state. Once again, the solution was to simply pop the batteries out for a second. Seems to me there was a brief burst of power that confused it. All in all, for the amount I've used it and considering it's pre-release status, it's been very stable. A heck of a lot more stable than my computer! :-)

This of course reminds me of one thing I'd like to use the PC Software for - the Pronto only has one set of tape controls per "TAPE" device, with room for an A/B switch. My tape deck, on the other hand, has indipendant IR codes for both A and B control. Can't wait to fiddle with the software...
OP | Post 6 made on Wednesday December 23, 1998 at 16:01
Steve Mahon
Historic Forum Post
I had the same problem(s) that Daniel describes above and solved it with the same solution (remove a battery). I beleive the real problem is the design of the battery connections. NEVER have I seen "spring" type connectors for the positive battery terminal. This makes for a very precarious connection that perhaps becomes intermittant, causing power spikes!
OP | Post 7 made on Wednesday December 23, 1998 at 16:47
jack schultz
Historic Forum Post
I have to agree that I too have never seen both ends having spring arrangements....could be to do with the dock battery.
As far as the odd appearances, I would think that with a little practice, one could learn to install the batteries in a way that would cause a "spiked" boot sequence to occur and thus cause the problem. It is very good to note this problem as it may be addressed in software (pause xxx on power on boot) and certainly for others to know that it's a simple fix and not a dead Pronto.


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