My Panasonic Viera Remote all of a sudden stopped working with my Raspberry Pi 2

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

Hi all,

I’ve had my Raspberry Pi 2 for around a year now and love it. I’m using it to play videos and movies from an external hard drive that is attached to it.

When I first set it up I was pleased that the remote for my TV (Panasonic TC-P60U50) worked with it. I could use Play, Pause, Fast Forward and Reverse, Stop and the Volume Control. I was very happy with that.

All of a sudden a few days ago the remote stopped working. I’ve tried all of the different Viera settings on the TV but no luck. I have rebooted the Raspberry Pi 2 a few times with no luck. Later today I will try unplugging the TV for a while.

Does anyone have any ideas or can someone with the same TV share their Viera settings? Thanks.

2

Turn everything off at the mains for ten minutes.
Make sure you are on the latest version of OSMC. You can check in My OSMC what version you are on (bottom left).

3

Thanks. I will try that. I am on the latest version as I just updated it a few days ago.

4

That did the trick. Thanks!

5

Well, that evening it stopped working again. I’ve tried everything with no luck. I have a WD TVLive remote I can try if I can figure it out. I see it listed in the Raspberry Pi remote settings.

6

That will only work if you have connected an IR receiver to your Pi.

7

Thanks. I just tried tweaking a few of the settings and now I cannot even see the Raspberry Pi on my TV. I have everything powered off right now. I’m wondering now if it’s just dying. Next step would be a clean install. Maybe time to get a Raspberry Pi 3.

8

You probably broke your config.txt and need to restore that to defaults.

9

I did a clean install and now the remote is working perfectly. I’d forgotten how easy it is to do a clean install.

10

Well, it happened again. Our power went off and when it came back on my Panasonic remote no longer worked with my Raspberry Pi 2. A clean install fixed it last time but not this time. I’ll try again tonight. Very frustrating.

11

Still no luck. Interestingly enough, if I plug the Raspberry Pi HDMI cable directly into my Panasonic TV the remote then works in OSMC. Then when I plug the HDMI cable back into my Yamaha RX-V667 receiver the remote keeps working until I shut the receiver off and then turn it back on.

I have two new HDMI cables that I am going to try tonight.

HDMI Cable 3 feet - IBRA Ultra Slim High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet ARC CEC - Supports 4K 2160p, HD 1080p, 3D - Xbox PlayStation PS3 PS4

12

New cables didn’t help. I’m about ready to give up.

13

I finally solved it. My Panasonic TC-P60U50 TV only supports a maximum of three attached devices. We recently added an Amazon Firestick to one of the HDMI inputs on our surround sound receiver so with that, the DirecTV box and the Blu-Ray player, the Raspberry Pi was the fourth device. Remote is now working.

14

There are limitations in CEC re. # of players, recorders etc.

You can only have two Recorders, and three Players by default I believe. Then you have to change the LA manually (which Kodi allows for example) to a free address. However I think if you do this, some functions may not work as expected because some devices on the bus will expect a different role depending on the address.


Address	Device
0	TV
1	Recording Device 1
2	Recording Device 2
3	Tuner 1
4	Playback Device 1
5	Audio System
6	Tuner 2
7	Tuner 3
8	Playback Device 2
9	Playback Device 3
10	Tuner 4
11	Playback Device 2
12	Reserved
13	Reserved
14	Free Use
15	Unregistered (as initiator address) or Broadcast (as destination address)
15

Thanks, Sam. I still have a few issues to work out. For example, the Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, etc. buttons on the remote are not working and I have to use the onscreen ones in OSMC.

Also, when I turn on the TV the receiver is automatically switching to HDMI3, which is OSMC on the Raspberry Pi.

And when I turn off the TV the surround sound receiver is not turning off and was before.

16

That’s probably because of the LA being taken by the Pi.

17

Well, just to update this discussion. I continued to have trouble using my Panasonic remote with my Raspberry Pi 2 with Viera Link. It would work and then all of a sudden just stop working. I was thinking of giving another multi-function remote a try. I had a Logitech 650 years ago and did not like it and got rid of it. Last week I ordered a Logitech Harmony Smart Control with the hub on sale for $69.99. Also on Friday I ordered the Bluetooth dongle that’s listed in the OSMC store. I figured for $12.00 or so I didn’t have much to lose.

Anyway over the weekend I started installing the remote. I was shocked when it worked with my Raspberry Pi 2 even without the dongle and has continued to work. I also have the remote controlling my TV, surround sound receiver, Blu-ray player, Amazon Fire TV Stick and SACD player. Very happy with it so far!