Optik randomly mutes the volume

[sammysjeep]

This has now happened twice in the past couple days (wireless 4K box). Watching tv and it just randomly mutes.
Flip to numerous channels - muted
Try a recorded show - muted
Turn tv off then back on - still muted.

Seems only solution is to unplug the optik box for a minute then wait while it powers back on and reinitializes (upto 5min).

What is the cause for this? And more importantly, how can I prevent this from happening again?

[WestCoasterBC]

What box are you using? Arris or Technicolor? I have never had this issue happen in all the years I’ve had Optik TV on all generations of the receivers.

[sammysjeep]

Arris

I’ve had optik for almost 5 years and have never had this happen before... now twice within a couple days. Weird, so figured I’d post up in the forum.
The same box/setup for just about 2 years.

[xray]

When you say it's muted are you referring to the volume on the Optik box or the TV?

[sammysjeep]

Appears to be the box - as the actual mute icon for the tv is in a different spot - I can mute/unmute/increase/decrease the volume on the tv but no sounds come out.
Currently waiting now for about 15minutes while the latest mute restarts itself and the box does its initializing.
Thankfully this has happened AFTER todays football game ended.

[HintonEast]

This happens to me every once in a while while holding my Telus remote,,trying to jump ahead on a recorded show. Somehow, my hand must hit another button, while pushing the right arrow.. I have to reboot Telus box to fix.

[HintonEast]

Same happens to me. While using the slim remote.

[tryingtohelp]

error?

[tryingtohelp]

New Telus Optik TV user.

In 4 days have experienced unexpected muting about 10 times.

Here is repeatable way that causes the Telus 4K Wireless Digital Box to Mute and Unmute the sound with the Slimline Remote 2 for Optik TV.

In the following, the exact number of button presses and timing is undetermined but usually being patient it takes less than 5 minutes. Once known, the exact combination will likely work right away.

By pressing the “info” button multiple times eventually the STB mutes the sound. When successful, the sound mutes, and a large white mute symbol appears for a few seconds in the top right corner of the TV screen under the Optik TV label and the current time on the “info” screen.

By pressing the “info” button multiple times again, the sound will eventually be turned on. When successful, the sound comes back on, and a large white volume symbol with the number 25 appears under the Optik TV label and current time on the “info” screen.

In BOTH cases the symbols are quite different than the ones on the LG TV and the volume symbols on the Sonos BEAM sound bar. Neither the LG remote nor the Telus Slimline 2 remote mute buttons can turn the sound back on. These symbols must come from the Telus 4K Wireless Digital Box. They’ve never been seen on the much used older equipment.

A third case of pressing the “info” button multiple times sometimes brings up the normal Optik green screen with a message to press the “OK” button to start the TV.

Speculation is that multiple “info” button presses and timing generates a combination of IR codes the STB recognizes as mute toggle or mute/sound on codes.

Has anyone solved this issue?

Can anyone else repeat this method? It might take patience.

This mystery muting without knowing the cause is annoying and it would be good to know how to avoid it or resolve it.

The Slimline Remote 2 seems to vary between no press and rapid unintended multiple presses which are hard to manipulate and may be contributing to the problem.

[xray]

@tryingtohelp you likely have a defective remote. I have tried repeated presses of the Info button for over a minute and I can't get your results. It just shows/hides the info screen. If you have more than one Optik box see if you can get the same symptoms on the other boxes using the other remotes. Try swapping remotes to see if the problem follows the remote or stays on the Optik box.

[tryingtohelp]

Thank you xray. 

Per your suggestion, trying all three new Slimline 2 Remotes caused the 4K Wireless Digital box to mute the sound when the info button is pressed multiple times. Sometimes it takes up to 5 minutes but normally less. It varies. All three remotes are programmed to the first LG code, 1638, if that makes a difference. 

On the Arris PVR the same actions caused the mute only once, and it required many more button presses and time. The PVR doesn’t appear to be as sensitive as the 4K Wireless Digital box. 

The observations are:

1. The random sound loss experienced in this case seems to come from the 4K Wireless Digital box muting the sound. With the remote programmed to control the TV, the mute button works on the TV but will not unmute the STB. An unprogrammed Slimline 2 remote mute button toggles mute on and off on the STB and is a quick way to turn sound back on. 

2. It is not obvious what causes the STB to mute the sound, that appears randomly. The one thing that has consistently caused the STB mute is multiple “info” button presses on the Slimline 2 remote. It may not be the only thing causing this although it is unexpected behaviour and appears random, but repeatable.

3. It is possible this behaves this way with the remote programmed with TV code 1638.

Thanks again.

[xray]

---

@tryingtohelp wrote:

Per your suggestion, trying all three new Slimline 2 Remotes caused the 4K Wireless Digital box to mute the sound when the info button is pressed multiple times. Sometimes it takes up to 5 minutes but normally less. It varies. All three remotes are programmed to the first LG code, 1638, if that makes a difference. 

On the Arris PVR the same actions caused the mute only once, and it required many more button presses and time. The PVR doesn’t appear to be as sensitive as the 4K Wireless Digital box. 

---

When you say "pressed multiple times" are you pressing Info repeatedly in succession without pressing any other buttons or are you only pressing Info when you want to view Info and using the other buttons in between? When you say "button presses and time" are you pressing any other buttons during the "time" portion?

In theory programming the remote for the TV should not impact the Info button because that should always stay as the command for the Optik box. The only buttons that should change are TV Power, Mute and Volume Up/Down.

Are all your TVs LG? (see next question)

Can you reproduce the problem with the unprogrammed remote or a remote programmed for a different TV by pressing the Info button?

[tryingtohelp]

To make this happen it has been exclusively “info” button presses with no other buttons presses in between. Patience and determination required in most cases. Very occasionally it mutes the STB right away. Very random.

Suspect there are other easier combinations to “randomly” turn the mute on the STB, but the “info” button method repeatedly causes the problem. Not focused on the “info” button per se but it 1) identified the no sound issue as being caused by inadvertent mutes “on the Telus 4K Wireless Digital Box” in this case; 2) demonstrated repeatable method in this case; 3) demonstrates in this case that something other than the mute button can turn mute on, on the STB; and 4) that the mute button on the programmed remote controls the LG TV mute, but not the STB mute, which makes the normal fix of unmuting using the TV remote unworkable in this case. Other cases are likely.

Possibly caused by other simpler combinations as well but the bigger opportunity seems to be more easily returning the sound after this happens and that is easier by pressing mute button on an unprogrammed Slimline 2 remote. Could be forever finding all of the combination key presses that cause the STB to mute. If the problem (STB muting randomly) is known, then an easier solution to getting the sound back than restarting the box is to unmute the STB. Eliminating the cause of the problem likely difficult since it seems to be happening in other cases.

The other two TVs are an Epson projector through a Yamaha receiver which has never been programmed and an old Toshiba CRT TV/DVD combination unit that doesn’t use any of the normal Toshiba remote codes. Still plan to work on finding the Toshiba codes but not high priority since it will be replaced by a modern TV soon. The Toshiba is connected to the PVR but not used much.

Aiming to have the remote control the power, mute, and volume on the TV, and the sound bar and STB stay out of the way. Since the STB is randomly turning mute on occasionally, can live with needing an unprogrammed remote to occasionally hit the mute button to turn the sound back on the STB. Not ideal but it eliminates the mystery of how to recover sound after this happens.

Maybe this will help others sort out similar problems.

Much appreciate your help and good ideas.

Thank you.

[xray]

I'm finding it hard to understand how waiting a while after pressing Info button could mute the Optik box. The IR code is only sent when the button is pressed. No codes are sent while you are waiting. Is it possible you have something else in the room that emitted IR codes? Are you using other remotes to control something else? Has it ever muted without you pressing the Info button?

[tryingtohelp]

There’s no deliberate wait between “info” button presses, but there is always going to be a small variation in time between presses. It is not certain that the timing is an issue but it’s frequently necessary to press/release the “info” button only more or less continuously for a longish time to trigger the mute. Again not focusing on the “info” button but more on there are other ways of causing the mute, the seemingly random mute being the problem in this case.

Not sure how IR works but perhaps sending the same code twice in a row is interpreted as a different code by the STB. For instance if “info” button press sent a digital code of 10011010 twice in a row you could get 1001101010011010. Depending on which of the first 8 bits it detected, there are several different 8 bit results, some of which may not work, but one of which might be the STBs mute code. Timing might disrupt that.

There are no other IR devices in use at the same time.

The random mute has happened several times with the Slimline 2 remote, unknown cause, except one seemed related to playing with “info” button hence the experimenting and a possible cause, in this case.

The only deliberate mute/unmute is with the mute button on the unprogrammed Slimline 2 remote, and that consistently mutes/unmutes the STB as expected.

Thank you again for your help.

For those with mysterious random disappearing sound, check to see if the 4K Wireless Digital Box has muted the sound. If that is the case, you’ve found the reason for sound gone, and a possible solution is to use an unprogrammed Slimline 2 remote MUTE button to turn the sound back on on the STB.

As for the Slimline 2 remote, so far, not enamoured with it.

[xray · Accepted solution]

I agree, the Slimeline 2 remote can certainly be improved. I don't like the layout of the buttons. I find I'm always adjusting my grip back and forth in order to reach the buttons I need to press.

What might be contributing is your room. The IR signals bounce a lot and if multiple signals get reflected there may be some interference effects. I can point the remote more than 90 degrees away from the Optik box and still make it work because the beam angle is wide and it bounces around the room.

I'm building an IR remote controled speaker selector switch right now so I've already done some research. IR codes work by modulating (pulsing) a 38 KHz - 40 KHz carrier signal. It's possible interference of reflected beams can mess up the pulses if they overlap creating a phantom pause where there shouldn't be one.

[sangraal043]

This is the fix. Works 100% of the time. I have also found alternating between info+fwd skip rapidly seems to make it work quickly.

[sangraal043]

This is the fix 100%. Works everytime. I have also found alternating between info+fwd skip rapidly causes the mute/unmute feature to happen quickly.

[tryingtohelp]

Have just “deprogrammed” a Telus Slimline 2 remote (resetting it with 1000 or 9999 code?) and the Slimline 2 remotes MUTE button does bring up the large white MUTE symbol and the volume 25 symbols and does actually mute and unmute as expected. Also the green “Optik TV Press OK to continue watching TV” screen saver is activated if the mute button is pressed multiple times. The green screen is not immediate and requires patience and several tries to make it happen. 

It is possible some other key combinations on the remote may also be interpreted by the Telus 4K Digital Box as a MUTE IR code.

Is there any way to program the TVs off/on on the remote and leave the mute and volume functions on the STB?

[tryingtohelp]

In this case, with Sound bar, the Telus Slimline 2 remote controls the mute, but not the volume level on the sound bar. Back to programming in the TV codes for control. Keep an unprogrammed Slimline remote handy to reenable sound when needed.