Very Odd MX3 Issue

[stuart264]

This is very weird, the “OK” button on my MX3 Airmouse failed the other day, so I took the easy option and ordered another one exactly the same which came yesterday. The first thing I discovered was the new MX3 won’t work with the dongle for the old MX3, swapped them over and everything worked fine except for powering on so I “cloned” the power button setting from my old MX3 to the new one thinking everything would work fine, it doesn’t. I don’t remember having to program the old MX3 at all, I think it worked straight out of the box.

I have spent the last few hours going through every guide I can find and nothing seems to fix the issue. Can anyone with a bit more experience of the MX3 shed any light on this?

[cubimol]

You don’t give enough information about the circumstances to give an answer to your problem.

Remember that MX3 has two modes of operation. ‘Infrared’ mode (allows programming of keyboard codes) and ‘USB keyboard’ mode.

I think MX3 is an excellent remote.

PS.- I leave the MX3 manual here, read carefully how to pair the USB adapter and how to switch between the two modes of operation.

2.4G_Air_Mouse_Remote.pdf (906.9 KB)

[stuart264]

Thanks for that, very similar to the one that came with the replacement MX3, for your info I am running it it in USB mode (though the infrared keyboard works fine)

[AndyInNYC]

My MX3 just started ‘malfunctioning’ in the same way.

All buttons are working - except the OK. When I press any button - including the OK - the red light illuminates on the remote, so it is sending the keypress.

If I use the KODI remote program on my iPhone, the button registers.

I haven’t made any changes; I am running 9.2.5 (not nightly) on an Amlogic QBox S905.

I’ll try dmesg from ssh and see if the box is registering the keypress; anything else I can try to help diagnose the issue? It’s a PITA to need to have the phone next to me.

Andrew

[stuart264]

Try fresh batteries.

I could never pin down the fault, I suspected that as the “OK” was the most used button that the SMT component on the PCB was failing way under its stated lifecycle, the cost of a replacement at the time was about £7-8 It was easier to order a new one than faff around with it.

[AndyInNYC]

Fresh batteries didn’t change a thing. However …

I took my second remote upstairs and it would control the first box (ie they were on same frequency(?)).
Same problem - no OK key.

I re-imaged the first box and the problem went away. Clearly there was something going on within Coreelec that was the issue.

Everything is working, and all is well on the remote front (and hey, I have fresh batteries in the remote to boot).

Andrew

[stuart264]

Did you move the receiver to another USB port?

[AndyInNYC]

Among the things I tried, yes I moved the port.

Creating a new install on my sd card made the problem go away. Cost me more in time than a new remote , but I was up and running faster than an Amazon delivery.

Unless it reappears, I’m unlikely to try to figure out what went wrong.

Andrew

[stuart264]

@AndyInNYC Thanks for replying, I know you have fixed your issue but I have been plugging away in spare moments trying to figure out what’s the core problem is I did some digging around for more information on the MX3 and managed to track down a component level teardown. The upshot of which is that the USB dongle is very underpowered (way under FCC limits) and prone to RFI interference from the device its connected to or adjacent devices, even with fresh batteries the range is about 10 feet from the device.

The suggested solution is to add a male to female USB extension and move it away from the device, as one ran me the dizzy height of £1.45 for a 25cm cable I thought it was worth a try to see if performance improves.

The issue with the OK button may be down to wear on the underside of the rubber button, causing it to make a bad contact with the circuit board and there is some discussion about using conductive paint to improve the contact. While I do have my old MX3 kicking around somewhere I don’t have any conductive paint so I cant test it out.

[AndyInNYC]

Once I rebuilt the box (new image) the OK button worked perfectly (as did all the other buttons).
At least in my case, I don’t think wear was an issue.

Andrew

[stuart264]

The 25 cm USB extension arrived this morning, solved the problems I have been having straight away. Now all I have to do is find where I put the antistatic Velcro and mount it out of sight on my TV cabinet.

[AndyInNYC]

I use black electricians tape on the back of the TV