Testing volume control from within the plugin works great but controlling volume from the main app is less reliable or slower.

Admin
2014-03-19 14:53

If volume works very well when testing inside the plugin but it is less reliable or slow when using from the main app, the most likely cause is multiple profiles associated with the same receiver.  If you are experiencing this problem, follow the steps outlined below to check for some common issues that can cause performance problems.

Sometimes when setting up the plugin you may end up with multiple profiles while trying to find something that works.  You may also have set up multiple profiles intended for different DirecTV receivers but didn't specify which DirecTV receiver to use with the given profile.  These scenarios were especially more likely before the Setup Wizard was introduced.

At the top of the main setup screen in the plugin is a drop-down list of all profiles.  Press it and choose each profile one at a time then check for the following:

1) Check for unused profiles
If you know it to be an unused or old/temporary profile, simply press the [Delete] button near the bottom-left of the screen.  If you are unsure whether it is needed or not, you may also change its control method to "None/Disabled".  Having extra profiles that are not used at all can cause very poor performance when sending commands from the main app, especially if no receivers are associated with the profile or it is associated with the same receiver as other profiles.  In general, you should have one profile for each TV that you control and it should be associated with the one DirecTV receiver that is in the same room.  An exception is that if you use a TV in conjunction with an AVR or sound bar, then you may have two profiles associated with one DirecTV receiver:  One for the TV and one for the AVR.  In that case, also see the FAQ linked at the end of step 3 below.


2) Confirm the associated DirecTV receiver(s)
Before the wizard was introduced, this step may have been overlooked while setting up the volume plugin.  In case it was overlooked, the default behavior of the plugin was that if no receiver was specifically chosen for this profile, it would be associated with ALL of your DirecTV receivers.  If you have more than one DirecTV receiver or more than one profile, this can lead to problems.  Generally speaking each profile should only be associated with one DirecTV receiver, specifically whichever one is in the same room.  So if you are creating a volume profile to control volume on your living room TV, that profile should only be associated with the DirecTV receiver that is located in the living room.

3) "Disable" unneeded commands
This is more likely to apply if you intentionally have multiple profiles associated with the same DirecTV receiver.  For example, you may have a profile for your living room TV and another profile for a stereo (AVR) in the living room.  When you have multiple profiles associated with the same DirecTV receiver, this will slow down performance when pressing volume, mute, power, or other volume-plugin related buttons in the main app unless some things are tweaked.  The reason why you don't see this slow down while testing is because the internal test only tests the current profile selected in the plugin.  For some things like "Power", there isn't much you can do about slow downs because you would obviously want to control power on both the TV and AVR in this case.  However, most people who use two profiles like this (TV and AVR) generally only use the TV for a "picture" and control volume and mute solely on the AVR.  If this applies to you then please see this other FAQ for instructions on how to optimize your profile settings.

 

Repeat these steps for each profile in the plugin.  Once finished, be sure to press the BACK button to exit the plugin then try controlling volume from the main app again.  If you have cleaned up some things in the plugin you should notice an improvement in performance.

 

Tags: Volume Plugin
Average rating: 3.43 (7 Votes)

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