I'll agree about that seeming to be a fix. I have the 3100 and it was driving me NUTS because I could never get to the finishing line programming it to replace the 6 remotes on my coffee table. Every single time, without fail, you would reach the point where you've spent ages programming it, only to load a code somewhere and have it fall over and not let you delete the button or the component, forcing you to do a global reset and curse at the hours of wasted time.
After doing the VOL-/CH- initialisation, I made sure that after I touched the button to load the code in learn mode, I let the "learn" icon flash about 3 or 4 times, then briefly operated the teaching remote until the "learn" icon stopped flashing - this happens as soon as the 3100 gets a good frame, so there's plenty of time to do this within the 6-second timeout window it gives you. I found that the 3100 would give me a result within 500mS maximum, after which I let go.
I *do* however need the continuous transmission mode on some keys, namely the volume paddle for the TV, surround sound system, fast play buttons on the VCR, and volume on the hi-fi, so on these components I do hold down the teaching remote until the 3100 fully exits the learning mode after the 6 seconds, but again I wait for the 3 or 4 icon flashes before beginning.
Using this approach I have, for the first time ever, been able to get to the finishing line and have successfully loaded the equivalent of my 6 remotes. Now it's quite possible that this is just luck, and it'll fall over tomorrow if you want to change a code, but I do think that the length of time the 3100 is grabbing a frame is the root of the problem.
I originally thought that my new 3100 (received 2 days ago) was defective, but after reading about all the other users' similar experiences, I realise it's a bug in the firmware. It seems to me that there's something in the way the firmware handles the frame grabbing that makes it store an illegal frame into the E2PROM, and once that happens, it doesn't recognise it and so won't let you remove it.
I've written enough comms handlers and memory management routines as a designer of embedded microprocessor systems to recognise faults like this by smelling them. The 3100 just doesn't "feel right" when this happens and it immediately smells like a buffer overrun and that the programmers didn't do enough testing before this thing hit the market.
I have to say I'm very disappointed in SONY, which I always perceived to be an engineering-first company (in spite of all the consumer stuff they manufacture, you have to admit that the engineering is generally pretty damn good) and am surprised that they let this one through. I spoke to Technical Support (and to be honest wasn't expecting anything more from them than their being able to read the instruction manual - I wasn't disappointed there) who were, of course, useless, as this is probably one of those design faults where Engineering's aware of it (how could they not be?) but everyone's chosen to shut up about it because it's already been released.
I don't blame Support - they probably never even got told the 3100 has a lemon-ware section hidden inside it. All those poor buggers can do is quote the manual.
I'll keep my 3100 as it's working now, but SONY should put out a recall on the 3100 at least, and offer a swapover or firmware update to cure what is, for me at least, a loss of respect for the company.
I really thought they would check things out far more thoroughly before releasing a design.
