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[CountryBumkin]

For some reason every time I start MC20 on my client machine, I can't control anything with the remote until I first click on the Theater View screen with the mouse.
I believe this is described as the "MC screen not having the focus". I programmed a mouse click on my remote to temporarily solve this problem.

Also the windows Task Bar now shows at the bottom of the screen in Theater View (I think that is where the "focus" is going). I set the Task bar to auto hide but that didn't solve the problem.

I looked through all the settings but have not found anything to fix.
I think this problem started with the installation of MC20.0.27 (and the new WDM driver).Or maybe that's just a coincidence.

Any ideas?

[Hendrik]

Are you actually using the WDM driver, as default audio device even maybe?

[mwillems]

For some reason every time I start MC20 on my client machine, I can't control anything with the remote until I first click on the Theater View screen with the mouse.
I believe this is described as the "MC screen not having the focus". I programmed a mouse click on my remote to temporarily solve this problem.

Also the windows Task Bar now shows at the bottom of the screen in Theater View (I think that is where the "focus" is going). I set the Task bar to auto hide but that didn't solve the problem.

I looked through all the settings but have not found anything to fix.
I think this problem started with the installation of MC20.0.27 (and the new WDM driver).Or maybe that's just a coincidence.

Any ideas?

This used to be a big problem with MC losing focus on startup, but a fix late in version 19 fixed most of the issues folks were having.  I still get exactly the issue you describe on startup with some systems sometimes (task bar visible, MC not in focus).  The main thing that causes it for me sometimes is when a program autostarts after MC has autostarted, which "steals focus."  

The old school solution is to make a custom MC startup shortcut that's on a timer, so that it starts after everything else is already up.  If you're comfortable with batch scripting it's pretty easy to do.

[6233638]

For a long time now, Media Center's fullscreen messages (e.g. "Press Esc to exit Fullscreen") have actually been causing Media Center to lose focus for me so that I have to click on the program to interact with it.
 
They only display the first time you enter a fulllscreen mode though.
 
Does it happen every time you enter Theater View, or only the first time when these messages are displayed?

[CountryBumkin]

I don't think so. In MC, the Audio device is listed as "Samsung-4 (NVIDIA High Definition Audio) WASAPI". It lists the same in the Windows 8 Sound properties.

The only change I made recently (other than the standard Windows updates) was to change the Windows desktop theme to "non Aero" because sometimes I would start playing a video and popup window would appear saying "Aero was being disabled". I'll switch it back to an Aero theme to see if that's related somehow.

I think this is not related because it just started yesterday (and the remote control problem is a few days older), but I am also getting failures trying to play recorded and live TV Shows and Audio.

I waswatching live TV and changing TV channels and got the "Failed to open" error, so I switched to music and the first track played, then it "failed to open" the next track. I cleared the log and restarted Windows/MC then tried the same TV and music, and got the same errors again. That was yesterday and I have not had a chance to look into it further.
But the log is attached.

[CountryBumkin]

For a long time now, Media Center's fullscreen messages (e.g. "Press Esc to exit Fullscreen") have actually been causing Media Center to lose focus for me so that I have to click on the program to interact with it.
 
They only display the first time you enter a fulllscreen mode though.
 
Does it happen every time you enter Theater View, or only the first time when these messages are displayed?

yes. This happens every time I start MC on this client machine. Once I "click" on the screen one time, everything is then controlled fine with the remote.

To clarify, it only happens once, when I go into MC. Once I have focus I don't have a problem again until I leave the program (which really means I shut off the TV - not the computer) then I come back to watch and turn on TV. Theater View is displayed on the screen but I can't get control to work.
-- So maybe the TV (which displays "HDMI 1" for a second) on the screen is stealing the focus.

[CountryBumkin]

@mwillems,
There is nothing on this computer running but MC. It's dedicated/connected to the bedroom TV and I don't shut off the computer - I just shut off the TV when not watching, so nothing should be starting before MC. I don't even let the computer sleep.

[mwillems]

Based on your description, I'd put my money on Aero.  Disabling Aero disables desktop composition, vsync, and a few other window management goodies, so that could easily explain a change in the way window focus/task bar interaction works.  I used to use non-aero themes exclusively, and I know that enabling desktop composition solved a number of problems I'd been having.

I think trying to re-enable Aero (or at least desktop comp.) may be a fruitful avenue of investigation.

[CountryBumkin]

Based on your description, I'd put my money on Aero.  Disabling Aero disables desktop composition, vsyncm and a few other window management goodies, so that could easily explain a change in the way window focus/task bar interaction works.  I used to use non-aero themes exclusively, and I know that enabling desktop composition solved a number of problems I'd been having.

I think trying to re-enable Aero (or at least desktop comp.) may be a fruitful avenue of investigation.

I'm going to re-enable Aero now and test. I'll post back shortly. Should only take a couple of minutes to see if that is the cause.

[CountryBumkin]

It's not Aero.

I enabled Aero desktop theme, rebooted computer and started MC. Oddly, MC "stopped working" message came up immediately so I had to close and restart again. MC started up okay, but I still could not use remote until I clicked on screen with mouse. Then I went to a live TV show (old 480i movie on "GRIT TV") and the message popped up about "Windows is disabling Aero". I never used to get a message about Aero (maybe it was in the background).

I hit Stop button on the Harmony remote (which just turns off TV). Then did my normal Media Center startup - which is I hit "Media Center" on remote which turns on TV and sets input to HDMI1. This time the remote worked fine. I then exited MC again, turned off TV, and retried and the second time, I could not get remote to work (had to use mouse again).

This problem is new (within the last week). And I was not seeing the task bar on the screen before.

I have a log of this last "Stopped Working" error but it says file is too large to attach. It's 1.75MB.
PS. I using the latest version 28.

[CountryBumkin]

I just noticed my other client (Living room) has the same issue with the remote - and the task bar is showing.
It must be related to 20.0.27. As I just upgraded to that version a day or so ago.

I'm going to roll back to 20.0.26 and see if that fixes it.

[pfm555]

Do you have media center and server set to start in the options>startup>windows startup on your client. If I understand your problem this is what I had to do to get MC to recognize the remote commands without using the mouse first to open MC. Matt or Jim sent back an email and said I only needed to have the server set to start. Hope this helps.

[CountryBumkin]

Do you have media center and server set to start in the options>startup>windows startup on your client. If I understand your problem this is what I had to do to get MC to recognize the remote commands without using the mouse first to open MC. Matt or Jim sent back an email and said I only needed to have the server set to start. Hope this helps.

No. On the two Clients I only have it set to start "Media Center".
On the Server I have it set to start "Media Server".

I've rolled all the way back to MC20.0.24 and I'm still seeing the problem. I'm going to look at (rolling back) my nVidia grahics drivers. I believe I updated to 344.11 last week. I can't think of any other changes to  my clients that would have caused this.

Latest nVidia drivers are 344.48 so I'm going to try those. Installed on first computer - so far no issues with remote or task bar showing. But it's still too early to declare victory. I'll post back later.

[glynor]

It could be a seemingly-unrelated application running on the system, just FYI.

I've seen tray icons that steal focus.  Ultramon used to do it, back in the day before I switched to DisplayFusion, for example.

[pfm555]

CB
set the clients to start both mc and server. This it what solve my issue which after reading your post again is exactly the same issue I was having.

[pfm555]

CB
Let me apologize. I should have not made my last response as you guys know much more about MC than I do. Everyone one including you have been real helpful in my short time with MC and I just wanted to return the favor. Sorry again.

[rec head]

I have not updated my Nvidia driver to the latest but the Nvidia Experience or whatever it's called will steel the focus. Sometimes subtly. I have also found the auto-hiding the Windows bar to cause more problems than it is worth in regards to MC theater view.

[CountryBumkin]

It looks like the madVR task bar icon was to blame. I found a setting a few weeks a go (that seemed like a good idea) that puts a madVR icon on the task bar whenever madVR was running. I didn't realize then that it would cause focus problems - but apparently that's whats happening.  Whenever I watch a movie, show, or TV that activates/uses madVR and the icon appears on the task bar and that steals focus from the Theater View screen.
I have disabled the madVR icon and have not seen any issues with losing focus since. It may be too early to know for sure - but I have not had any issues for a couple of days now.

[6233638]

Damn, it is neither of those for me.
 
What I see is that the first time I enter a full-screen mode after launching MC, I have control over it until the "Press Esc to exit fullscreen" or other prompt disappears, and then focus is lost.