Weird behavior with 2 Denon receivers. Any help?

Hey guys I have had my remote running in the theater for awhile now and everything has for the most part been running as expected. Recently I've added other rooms as well and since then I've had some odd behavior that for the life of me I can't eliminate.

Basically, there's a Denon X6700H receiver in the theater and an X1700H in the bedroom. I've been running Bowlingbeeg's method to have the volume level pop up on the remote screen when you adjust the volume level and this has worked perfectly until I added the Denon in the bedroom. The popup still comes up on the screen but the volume level doesn't change...basically it's stuck.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on but tonight I started looking at the server variables associated with each receiver. It turns out that even when I'm using the remote in the theater and the theater receiver is set to active myServer is changing the variables associated with the receiver in the bedroom. It's not trying to actually control the receiver in the other room, just for some reason I can't explain the variables don't seem to be mapping correctly.

For example, when I turn on the system in the theater the correct devices turn on and I can adjust the volume as expected. When I look in the server variables though myServer shows the av_2_power variable (theater receiver) still set to 0 (i.e. off) and the av_32_power variable (bedroom receiver) set to 1 (i.e. on). The bedroom receiver is definitely still turned off though. If I turn the volume up/down in the theater the volume physically changes in the theater, but it's the bedroom volume variable that gets updated in myServer.

Does anyone have any idea how I can correct this? Reloading the room doesn't fix it, nor does rebooting the server. I guess I could delete everything and set things up again from scratch one by one but I would REALLY like to avoid this if possible. Any and all ideas would be most welcome as the on screen volume thing is just about my favorite feature with my SmartRemote.

Thanks in advance for any help! I've managed to track down every other gremlin I've come across but this has me at my wits end.

The default variables follow the pattern {{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume}} where {{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}} tracks the AVR in the room and {{activeroom_{{clientname}}}} follows the active room.

If you have multiple Denons then it might be easier to track the active Denon AVR. The server variable for the active Denon would look like {{active_denon_{{clientname}}}}.

You could then change {{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume}} to {{av_{{active_denon_{clientname}}}}_volume}}, {{av_{{active_denon_{clientname}}}}_mute}}, {{av_{{active_denon_{clientname}}}}_power}} etc.

If different AVRs are in play then instead of {{active_denon_{{clientname}}}}. you can use {{active_avr_{{clientname}}}}.

Other than that I will have to look at your pages to see how you have the volume overlay currently implemented.

I think originally I was using a "zone_" variable for the button label but at some point I switched over to the variables that Dave pointed out "{{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume}}". Or if you want the actual db value then you can use "{{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume_db}}".

bowlingbeeg wrote:

I think originally I was using a "zone_" variable for the button label but at some point I switched over to the variables that Dave pointed out "{{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume}}". Or if you want the actual db value then you can use "{{av_{{{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}_avamp_id}}_volume_db}}".
 

You were definitely using a "zone" variable, but I've been using "{{av_2_volume_db}}" for my overlay button pretty much from the time that I first implemented this. I don't really care about having a volume overlay in the bedroom (the receiver is in plain sight from my bed so I can see the volume on the receiver display) so I didn't think it was a big deal to do it this way.

Let me see if I can possibly explain this in a bit more detail. Apologies for rehashing my previous post and laying this out in such exhausting detail...it's really more to help me make heads or tails of this than anything else.

The theater receiver is device id #2, and thus it's associated server variables are of course labelled av_2_*** in myServer. The bedroom receiver is id #32, and it's corresponding variables are av_32_***

When I set the theater as active the theater receiver is correctly set as active for that remote, as you would expect. As an example, I'm currently looking at the variable "active_denon_remote1" (the remote in my hand) and it's value is 2, corresponding to the theater receiver myServer ID. When I press the volume up hard button on my remote it's linked to "volumeup.{{activeroom_{{clientname}}}}", triggering my volumeup.theater macro. Inside that macro is the command "AV|{{theater_avamp_id}}~Volume~Up!" along with the other commands you originally outlined in your tutorial on how to do the overlay in the first place. The volume on the theater receiver indeed does actually increase and the overlay pops up as it always has, however the number on the button overlay stays at 37 (where it was when this stopped working in the first place).

When I go under the Denon driver page and twirl down to see the variables for the theater receiver and bedroom receiver I see "av_2_power" set to zero, indicating myServer thinks the theater receiver is still turned off. It is actually now turned on. Likewise, "av_32_power" is now set to 1 (it is actually off, and has been off) . This is obviously the reverse of what it should be.

If I look at "av_2_volume_db" it is set to -37. If I look at "av_32_volume_db" it is set to -25. If I adjust the volume up or down and refresh the server variables in the driver page it is "av_32_volume_db" that changes accordingly, not "av_2_volume_db".

I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how switching to something like {{active_denon_{{clientname}}}} for tracking purposes is going to change the situation. Those variables are already being set to the correct receiver ID. I don't understand how the remote is physically controlling the proper receiver but updating the variables for a completely separate device ID.

Regardless, I'm going to play around with using these other variables to see what happens, but I don't have high hopes. Even still, I GREATLY appreciate the feedback from both you and Dave. At least I have something else to look at since I've been banging my head against a wall on this for a few days now. If either of you (or for that matter anyone else reading this) have any other ideas I am all ears.

For grins, I just changed my overlay button variable from "{{av_2_volume_db}}" to "{{av_32_volume_db}}". Pressing volume up is still physically changing the volume in the theater, but now the overlay volume button is changing values, even though the bedroom receiver is still turned off and the active room is still set to the theater. This is what I thought would happen, but the whole situation is still bizarre.

Nillaz wrote:

I don't understand how the remote is physically controlling the proper receiver but updating the variables for a completely separate device ID.

That does seem like a back end problem that Dave would have to dig into.

{{active_denon_{{clientname}}}} will track as it is tied to the SelectDevice command.

Since I cannot remote into your server can you email me the html page(s) that are in play?