I just got the Pronto 7000. The remote was renewed by Philips, but I did not buy it from them. The remote starts up OK, the touch screen works, however, all the hard buttons only work for about 15 sec, or until the LCD screen shuts off. If I reset the unit or unplug and plug the battery back, the buttons start working again and stop when LCD shuts off. The firmware upgrade did not fix the problem. I called Philips and it is looks like I will need to send it to them and pay $235 for the repair.

Has anyone experienced the same problems and what other options I might have?

Sorry so late to this, but I just got my 7000 last night. it exhibited the same issue that I could reset and it would boot, but after about 15 seconds, it would just shutdown.

I finally got it to work in this manner:

Plug the USB cord directly into the Pronto and the computer.
Reset the remote
your computer should say it found a new device, ProntoProNG or something like that.
Go ahead and load the driver, even if the remote dies on you.
reset the remote
now try to flash the firmware. I was able to keep the device active throughout the update.

Once this was completed, everything worked as it should.

I had a similar event on a tsu3000.
My client claimed the pronto would lock up.
I took the pronto for 3 weeks and used it at my house with my program.
The remote worked great.
Last night I gave the remote back to the client downloaded his program into it
and if you were to hit the Ch+ and CH- at the same time the remote would lock up.
The firmware did not work. As long as you didnt hit 2 buttons at the same time
there was no problem.
I am curious if you problem is related in that we are using a corrupted file?
What do you think?

Does the remote fail using the Default PCF (from the install folder) if you press both CH+ and CH- at the same time? And, just curious as to why customer was pressing both buttons or was this a case of customer just surfing channels?

Sorry but I have to ask, why would one press CH+ and CH- at the same time? What was trying to be accomplished by doing such?

In my case the remote had the same symptoms with any PCFs, default or not. I say had, because Philips agreed to fix it with out charging me. So I sent about a week ago. I should get it in couple of weeks. I hope it will be fixed.