My serial extender appears to be sending commands multiple times even though I have it set to send once. This means that the volume goes up multiple times with one key press. I have connected the serial extender to Hyperterminal on my PC and checked the output - when I press the volume button on the remote one time I get a stream of commands in the terminal window - about 14 if I have the settings at send 1 time and wait 100ms between repeats or 3 times with a 500ms wait between repeats.

Any ideas or recommendations for things I should try to help identify the issue.

Cheers.

Change the delay to 1000ms or 1 second and see if you get proper debouncing for a single press. Then, check the ramp up/down based on this timing by pressing and holding the button.

If you like, you can also send an email problem report to prontoteam at philips dot com and include your XCF as an attachment, also state which device/page/button you are having problems with so that they can try to reproduce. Also include all pertinent info about your environment (network mode), router, etc...

It may not seem totally logical but I have now implemented the solution the pronto team recommended - thought I would let everyone know. The behaviour was actually deemed "standard" and results from a small quirk with the way macros are implemented.

Basically when the macro specified is a single serial command (volume up say) and there is nothing else in the command list - that serial command is automatically repeated while the key is pressed. This can result in many commands being sent, even if the key is pressed for less than 0.5 of a second. It sends the command the number of times specified then does the delay before sending the command again and so on - so send "vol up" 2 times with a 100ms delay results in
vol up
vol up
100ms wait
vol up
vol up
etc

So for me I wanted it to go up in single increments so sending once was right. The speed of increase was too fast so the delay needed to be higher to better match the command to the time the button was pressed - I had this set at 500ms but still saw 4 volume up commands. Unfortunately the serial repeat delay only seems to accept times up to 500ms - setting anything more than this simply gets reset down to 500ms... Interested if anyone knows how to set a longer delay (say 1000ms) so I can try to match auto-repeat timings?

If I only want one press to equal one command (ie pressing the mute key), then the way to do it is to place a second command into the macro which stops the auto-repeat of the command - so simply placing a small delay command after the serial command ensures the commands are only run once. I have implemented this with a 100ms delay and it works fine. Anyone spotted this gem in the manual anywhere?

Buttons with one action are mpy Macros. When/if you added the 2nd action, you made it a Macro.

But, when you do this, don't you lose the "while pressed" functionality? Please post as to whether or not you lost this "while pressed" functionality.

Yes, with the second command in the macro you do indeed lose the when pressed functionality. This is exactly what I wanted for things like the the mute button where no repeat is needed.

It would have been good to keep the "when pressed" repeat capabilities for volume controls etc but without being able to match the delay correctly I cannot escape my original problem where the briefest of presses caused the volume to change by at least 4 increments.

I'd send a feature request to prontoteam at philips dot com and point them back to this thread. That is, if the 1000ms delay would help things....

Lyndel

I've got this problem in reverse. I have an IR audio processor, and RS232 video processor which allows OSD of ASCII. So for example I want a simple 2-step macro:

VOL+ (Audio Processor)
OSD = "Volume Up" (Video Processor)

I therefore need the press-and-hold functionality to keep refreshing the OSD while raising/lowering volume

The irony for me, is on single activity RS232 commands (e.g. video processor aspect scroll) I correctly get a single action for a single button press. Very rarely get a double-press action for a single actual press if you know what I mean. Can easily browse menu with RS232 up/down/left/right without suddenly jumping five lines down a menu!

The RS232 commands work as a "while pressed" - IR code if the RS232 is the only command in the macros action list.
If you happen to see more then 1 command passing after a short press with a repeat time set of 500 ms, it might be due to the network latency. Checking that with a ping command could possibly tell more?

Thought I would post a quick update to this thread now that I have downloaded the latest software/firmware.

It all works as expected now - I can set the delay in the RS232 page to 100ms with no additional delay in the macro and the Meridian volume goes up and down in 1 step increments. I can also press and hold to get the repeat change...

Just waiting for the PS examples now so I can start a better Meridian integration.