I had a problem recently with one of my remote controls for my Direct TV system. There was a button on it that simply stopped functioning during the middle of watching one of my DVR programs. Ironically, I did what many of us probably do when situations like this arise, I over complicated it.
The button itself I’m speaking of is a “jog” button, which allows the user to shuffle through commercials pretty quickly. At first I did what anyone would do and that’s to keep pressing the button again and again, harder and harder, thinking that might fix it. It didn’t of course. Next I changed out the batteries, even though the rest of the remote was working just fine, and of course that didn’t fix the problem either. At this point, I started to get slightly frustrated so I called Direct TV technical support for help. Thirty minutes later after they had me program, unprogram, and reprogram it over and over to no success, a new remote was ordered and acceptance of the non functioning remote became necessary.
Two days would pass before I received the replacement remote and when I did, I promptly began going through all the steps to setup every device the universal remote normally controls. When all that was said and done, I clicked on one of my saved TV programs to ensure the button was working ok on this one. Alas, it wasn’t.
It was then I was back on the phone with Direct TV technical support once again trying to trouble shoot why this one button was now not working on two completely separate remotes. While I continued to troubleshoot with them, I decided to try the other remote from the back bedroom to see if it still worked, thinking maybe the functionality of that button was removed somehow, but it worked perfectly. I finally began to accept the fact that maybe the actual satellite box went bad somehow and that I’d need to get another one of those sent out to my home as soon as possible. But suddenly a simple thought crossed my mind.
Andrew, why don’t you try unplugging the power to the satellite box and see if it fixes the issue?
And you know what, it did, for both remotes actually.
So in the end, I realized how easy it is sometimes to over think what a solution is to some of the problems that can often arise in life. Thankfully, this situation was a great reminder of that and hopefully I won’t forget it the next time I begin thinking one of my Direct TV Remotes is “broken”. J
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
