I had been experiencing a lot of crashes by the Mythbox in my family room. I was doing a lot of 'work' on it and attributed it to that. I changed it out for a Mythbox that had sat under my desk and run like the sunrise ..... until it resided in the family room,where it crashed three times in a week !

Both boxes have Streamzap remotes, and receivers... which blinked inexplicably.... but I didn't figure it out at the time. I couldn't find any stuck remotes.

Some glimmers came when a new Dish settop box was installed & I had trouble with the remote responding on it. A google search turned up that IR tossed off by your flatscreen (particularly during warmup) causes remote problems for a lot of people, using boxes operating on IR frequencies different from the ones the TV remote uses....

A reason for crashing Mythboxes began to formulate... I banished the crashing problem by banishing the IR remotes and using the Mythweb remotes.

Fortunately, the Google searches provide a solution that works: Masking the IR receivers windows with an appropriate number of layers of printer paper (one worked for me...)[The Dish box started responding too...] The background IR is blocked but the beam from the remote gets through.

So if you are having mysterious problems with your Mythboxes or remotes .....

2 related/unrelated stories.
I had an ifrared keyboard for the last 3 years randomly when i adjusted the volume on my Onkyo receiver it would cause the system to lock up requiring a hard reset.
My daughter has this bouncy horse thing that interacts with a box that is plugged into the TV. When that horse is turned on no remotes work at all. It blasts the living room with signals.

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My System

...& one more related/unrelated...

Flying an infrared controlled helicopter in the same room as a Mythbox will crash it (the box... not the helicopter....

I've seen the TV interference issue particularly with Plasma TVs not with LCD yet in my experience. That's why I went RF instead for a front end I have that is near one of my plasma TVs.

The Google provided material makes clear that plasmas may be worse, but LCDs are offenders too...esp. some models (like mine..Sharp...)

I got one box controlled by an RF Firefly, but it covers the entire house, so the other boxes have to be IR... Streamzaps and Hauppauge Silvers....

Indeed! I have one of those on the front end the kids use the most. I use Harmony 890s on the other front ends. Works really well.

It's too early to tell for sure, but this might be the best little tip in months. A simple piece of white paper as a hood around the IR sensor for my old keyboard, and not an error or a dropped keystroke to be seen. Unbelievable...

I was surprised that I hadn't seen anything about this here before...

I think we're geared to look for problems in the software too much ! ....

Software Engineers fix hardware problems in software all the time

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ABIT NF-M2 nView | Athlon 64 X2 3800+ | 2GB DDR2 800 | HDHomerun | GeForce 6150 (onboard) | WD 640 GB SATA HD | DVD-RW (sata) | StreamZap IR receiver with Logitech Harmony remote

Vizio 37" LCD HDTV (1080p)