That sure sounds like the remote is just missing the keys as opposed to messing up the processing of it.

Does it always miss the first key pressed after the remote was left alone?

Or can you be say punching in a channel, and it misses a digit out of the middle?

(goal: isolate a startup problem)

Does it always miss keys you use all the time, or does it seem like it'll miss any key?

(goal: isolate a bad contact)