Here’s the story: My aunt calls me in a panic the other night because her remote control isn’t working. I go to her house and check it out. She’s right. Her old universal remote isn’t doing anything to her TV or VCR. I checked all the connections and everything looked good and everything functioned fine manually.
I changed the batteries. No help.
I tried putting the codes in the remote again. No help.
I went and bought a new RCA universal remote: things got interesting.
The code for the TV worked fine (it’s some off-brand TV Teknika). However, after manual and automatic attempts, the Toshiba VCR would not seem to code into the remote. Even weirder, after about 30 to 40 button presses on the remote, it wouldn’t control the TV anymore. It was as if it dropped the codes after a certain amount of time or key presses. Again, brand new batteries.
Any ideas? Any suggestions? Somthing simple that I’m overlooking?
I used to manage a Radio Shack store. We sold hundreds of RCA branded universal remotes. I’d say that better than 99.9% of the problems with them were user error. However, I’ve never encountered the problem you’re describing to the best of my recollection. Assuming you didn’t accidentally enter the programming mode and wipe out the stored data, I’d say it’s a good possibility you have a defective unit. If the problem persists, you should take it back and exchange it for another. It could be something as simple as loose battery contactsbut with a new remote, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Vetbridge it’d be tremendously funny if it wasn’t me on the receiving end of the phone.
I don’t think there’s anything I could have done to clear the code. In fact, the simplest test was: I turned the TV on with the remote and just started pressing the “up” channel button. This worked fine for 25-30 presses and then the remote wouldn’t do anything.
Somehow, for some reason, I don’t think it’s a defective unit. I’ll probably get a different one and see what happens but in the meantime, if anyone has any thoughts, feel free to chime in.
From your description, I can’t imagine it could be anything else. If you have access to a differenty brand of TV, try reprogramming the remote for THAT one and see if it does the same thing. If it doesn’t, maybe it’s an oddity of programming for that one particular code. In any case, if the remote won’t hold the code for that TV, I’d certainly call that defective, even if it was built “correctly”. Perhaps trying a different brand of remote. I’ve got an “One For All” brand remote I use for my TV, DVD player and VCR and it works flawlessly for all three. I tried an RCA remote at one point, and although it did work, some of the special function buttons either didn’t work correctly or wouldn’t work at all.
I have no solution but I also have a RCA universal remote (it came with a VCR) that just started having the exact same symptoms you describe. I can put the code in to control the TV and it’ll work for a day or so. I then have to reenter the codes and again it works on the TV. It can always control the VCR it came with.
Until I saw your post I was convinced my toddler son was somehow getting it and resetting the codes. Just tonight I put it completely out of his reach to make sure it’s the remote and not him.
I now believe that the estimable Q.E.D. is correct. My uncle (her brother) took a spare remote to her house tonight and it worked fine. The RCA remote now won’t work at all.
