Thanks for the suggestions! I have been trying to reset the thing and it really doesn't look like it's interested in coming back to life. I'll keep trying though. Am I correct in understanding that for some people at least, it is possible to get past the "Invalid CF..." error message by just being persistent in trying to reset the thing? I am successful at getting the reset switch to cut the power and cause the thing to reboot, I get a little beep and the splash screen as it boots, but then it just goes straight to the error message again.

If the reset will eventually get me past the error message, then am I correct in understanding that once it gets past that error window, I should immediately try to download a default.ncf, preferably from some computer's serial port that hasn't already wrecked the thing? I am going to keep trying to reset this thing, I just wanted to make sure that I understood what should be happening, if it did work.

As for the software, I'm using the current version of NEO Edit, but not the current firmware update. I am thinking that if I can't even get the thing to accept an NCF file from the current software without crashing, then there is no way that I could make a firmware update work. I saw a post from somebody else that tried to update the firmware as a possible solution to this problem, and it made his remote completely catatonic instead of just stuck on an error message.

I sent the original message in this thread to the Philips support desk, thinking that since there are so many people experiencing this problem, that they must be familiar with it and have some kind of workaround by now. I got a form-letter response this morning: "Please download the latest version of ProntoNEO Edit from the website: www.pronto.philips.com"

Wow, helpful support, there.

I'm going to keep trying to recover this remote, but if you are reading this forum thinking about buying one, don't. I'm on my second one now, it's a useless brick just like the first one, and Philips obviously doesn't care. Instead of saving time and making my wife's life simpler, she gets to deal with the stress of hearing me bitch about the thing and I have wasted several hours researching, installing, updating, driving back to Best Buy, and sitting around with a paperclip trying to get the thing to reset. Go and buy yourself a cobblestone brick, it's a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the Neo, and it basically has the same functionality.