My experience with Harmony Elite Setup (Remote (was) stuck on Harmony logo Screen)
After fighting with a firmware update for 4 hours and getting the remote stuck in no-mans land and finally working out what the **** was going on I thought I'd post my experience incase it helps others.
I love your remotes Logitech, this is an upgrade from an Ultimate to Elite for me... but for god sake sort out your firmware updates and recovery processes!
Firstly the good... the out of box setup and transfer of my old settings using the IOS app was flawless. I had it up and running in less than 15 mins using my old profiles on the new hub and elite remote. Great!!!. .... But that's where things started going wrong... The remote would freeze and reboot... and eventually after the third time I decided to check for updates.
Well that's where the real fun began... ok so you have to connect everything to a PC to update firmware. OK got it.. have done a few time before with the ultimate remote so I know what to expect.... except... after trying on 3 different PCs It was still failing the update between 30 and 50%. Tried different USB cables. another dozen google searches and Logitech forum browsing and nothing I turned up was getting me any where.
So eventually after maybe 20 attempts.. yes I'm persistent... I reset the remote by holding menu and off buttons for 20 seconds. OK now what... well still it wouldn't update and now it wasn't detected anymore when plugged into the computer. This was really going down hill fast... So now it was stuck either in recovery safe mode with the arrow circle above a little remote icon or on the harmony screen.. which of course wasn't detected by the PC software either.....
So what next? Pull the battery out, which involves 2 different size jewelers screwdrivers to get the tiny screws out and another tiny flat blade to pop the cover off just to get the battery out...
Yeah I'm starting to fume and spout all sorts of expletives now... and this is only 2 hours in to a 4 hour ordeal... so I stopped and had dinner and then got to work again....
So now I've got the remote booting back to the harmony screen and it's just stuck there doing nothing,,, no indication of what its doing or what I need to do... OK so I'll try plugging it in to the PC again... oooppss nope still not detected... OK I'll try the Hub and remote recovery, as directed by the lovely brief online troubleshooting guide.... ahhhhh but it gets through resetting the hub and wait for it... nope it still doesn't detect the remote even in recovery mode or with the harmony logo screen up... hmmmmmmm stuck in an infinite loop... what to do next???
Have way too much ice-scream (yes that's intentionally misspelt) and try calm down...
After all I just spend $550au on this sucker and it's now a useless paper weight.
Seriously though I did eat way too much ice-cream and after 4 hours I decided to get the old IOS harmony app fired up to see what it can make of the situation... So I delete my old hub and the new hub, and then proceeded to setup the new hub again, ok so far.. I'm feeling calmer and the hub is now setup again.... I feel like GOD!! All bow before me... I actually achieved something, I felt like I was on a role again.. OK so the IOS App now tells me to put the remote on the cradle to re pair it with the hub.. ok makes sense..
So I do as the IOS App tells me and I place the remote in the charging cradle... low and behold the ****** of a thing connects and starts to download my cloud settings...
WELL FFS the **** things working again... why couldn't the dumb**** PC software tell me the remote needed to be re paired with the hub?
?
After all this faffing around the **** things also updated to the latest firmware, somewhere along the way of trying to get the firmware in it must have got far enough to complete even though it failed at 50%.
So moral of the story, never trust a PC... no seriously if you get stuck on a harmony screen it means the remote has lost it mummy and its gone in hiding until you reunite it with it's mummy using the IOS app.... (re pair it with the hub by putting in the cradle and running the new hub setup on the IOS app - dumb PC too dumb to work that out for you!)
Then and only then can you attempt the cycle of the firmware update again.. hopefully not to be stuck in an infinite loop. I was lucky I escaped with my sanity and a working remote with the latest firmware... but Logitech fair suck of the lifesaver... for GOD sake sort out your troubleshooting guide on the PC and fix up your firmware timeouts! jeeshh...
Yes I still love you Logitech Elite - but you better ****** well not break 2 days after warranty or your gonna have a meeting between the concrete and my car tyre!