I'm testing a new amp and created a watch TV activity along with a listen to MP3 activity. For the listen to mp3 activity I added my TV as a passthrough device so I could view the song info (displays for about 5 sec when starting new song). I mapped the tv power toggle to a soft button on the mp2 activity so I have the option to view the song info. In testing the setup I started the MP3 activity, turned off the TV using the soft button and then changed activities to watch TV. The TV did not turn on....help fixed it. Does the remote track the device power states only as they are related to activity or should it have tracked my power off? Since I purposely did not learn the TV power toggle to another device in the mp3 activity, I thought the remote would recongnize/track the power toggle.

No it only tracks power in activities so when you did a manual it put it out of sync.
Try all the buttons under device mode to see if any of the power buttons give you a discrete ON/OFF or just TOGGLE
If you find discrete just use those for ON and OFF

No, it doesn't track power state changes unless they are initiated by the remote. It does not track manually turning devices on or off even if you use the harmony in device mode. It could but that would be a lot of extra processing and since the power is supposed to be handled by the activities it's not really necessary.

The workaround for your case is to create 2 activities - one with the TV and one without. When you first start it up, use the one with the TV. When you're done, select the activity without the TV. You can switch back and forth as needed and it will maintain the TV's power state automatically.

Thanks wiz, it worked. So the remote can track the discrete on off but not the toggle. Makes sense.

It's not tracking the discretes. What is happening is that it will always resend a discrete code because sending it twice won't hurt anything. It will only resend a toggle when it thinks it needs to because sending it twice can put the device in the wrong state.

So when you switch activities it is resending the discrete ON command no matter what state it thought the TV was in before. That's why it works.

" ...it will always resend a discrete code because sending it twice won't hurt anything...So when you switch activities it is resending the discrete ON command no matter what state it thought the TV was in before. That's why it works."

Why then would it not work in my original setup? If it did send the power on discrete when changing to watch tv, wouldn't it have powered up the set? It does not appear that my tv enters a different state for power toggle vs power off/on.

Because you had it setup to use a toggle to begin with. Remember the question in the power setup ("one button for on and off vs. one button for on and a different button for off")? Your original setup was a toggle so when you turned off the tv manually during listen to MP3, then selected the watch TV activity it thought the TV was on and since it was setup for a toggle it knew not to resend it. At this point the harmony doesn't know you have discretes because you told it to use the toggle command. When you changed the setup to discretes it started resending the discrete power on command whenever you enter an activity.

Capiche?

Got it. I installed my system over a year ago and have not had to answer the power questions, the defaults for the tv device worked fine. Actually, I rarely get prompted with those questions for the systems we install (especially the TV's...usually LG). I've used them if there are issues with the install. Do you know if the default is to use the discretes for on/off or toggle? Anyway, I do understand the logic and will be able to adapt it for my customers. I've had only one that wanted the tv on/off for a music activity so this experience will help me set it up for them with minimal effort. For this scenario I will use the discrete on/off commands when available.

Just add a new copy of the same TV device and then check the power setup to see the default setting.