I'm in big trouble!

My MX-450 started acting up a bit so I factory reset it and reapplied a backup of the configuration using the archiver software. Since that time the remote has had garbled text and little black squares on the screen making it mostly unreadable. I wrote it off as something bad in the electronics and purchased another one.

Now, here's my big mistake. As soon as I got the new one I tried to apply the backed up config to it. I chose:
1. User Configuration Only.
Except, after it downloaded config data it then downloaded firmware and IR firmware. When the device reset I had the same garbled screen on the new device. There must be something corrupt in the archived backup. I tried another factory reset but it doesn't clear the garbled text.

What are my options? Is there a source to get fresh firmware I could download? Live update seems to only update the archiver software. Is my 2nd remote trash now also? I've only had it 20 minutes! Please help as this is getting very expensive and I still don't have a working remote.

Very poor pic of the screen. Best I could do with such a tiny screen. But you can see that as you scroll the menu, the text becomes garbled.

[IMG][/IMG]

this was discussed over at the URC Control Room forum.  here is a post from tech support that might help:

"Hey Guys,
We've been getting a couple of 450 remotes in with missing pixels around the "Main" and "Page" buttons. This issue can be fixed and is usually caused by downloading a file from a previous 450 remote that had an earlier firmware version. The Fix: Download the MX-450 archiver, do a Live Update, when downloading to the remote select option 3(Firmware & Database Update)."

Thank you. Fixed!

I am having a similar problem, but the fix above did nothing. I've tried resetting the remote from the remote to factory settings. Tried resetting the remote to defaults via download.

Have updated the firmware & database repeatedly. Downloaded the MX-450 archiver repeatedly. Everything I've done does not repair the garbled text throughout the remote. It worked wonderfully until I just tried to do a firmware and database update.

Even tried on a totally different machine running Windows 7 instead of 8, but it did nothing.

At this point, I'd be OK, (though miserable) with doing a complete reprogramming of the whole remote, but I can't even get the factory default reset to display correctly, so would be impossible to re-program the whole remote.

At my wit's end. Concerned that I may have somehow bricked it.

Figured this out. Needed to carefully follow the steps here:
[Link: universalremote.com]

I hadn't done this step first:
The first step is to perform a software update to receive the latest IR codes and firmware. Execute a LIVE UPDATE by clicking the Satellite Dish icon, or by clicking HELP > LIVE UPDATE

Usability is a real problem on that archiver software, but I understand this is not really intended to be used by the general public. Love the remote, just have to remember the little intricacies to make it work.

Tech support call was useless. Just gave me a "firmware update should fix that". Oh well, "we'll replace it for you at at the same price you purchased it at". There was no process to go through the actual steps over the phone to do the upgrade to see where I went wrong. Would have only taken a couple of minutes.

Clearly they don't have the residential consumer market penetration to afford real tech support.

I know this thread is old, but just ran I to this issue as well. The key to having this work is running the Archiver as an administrator. Took me awhile to figure this out. If you don't, the program will say 'update required, restarting software' or something to that effect, and nothing will happen. If you run as administrator, you'll then see a dialog box showing you the update process. Hope this helps someone else!

Yes, very helpful, thanks!!

Thanks Dudley! Worked for me!

This tip from Ensign has proven very helpful to me today. I thought I had thoroughly bricked mine. Thanks, ever so much.

I know this a very old thread and post but does anybody has the steps necessary to fix the remote? The provided link doesn't work anymore.

Thank you