# Problems with TXSR608 and Viera Link



## bmoliver (Mar 8, 2013)

I upgraded my old Denon Pro Logic unit to the Onkyo TXSR-608 about a year ago and initially everything was fine. My setup had my Panasonic TV (TH-C42FD18), directv DVR/receiver, CD player (Luxman DZ-112), and DVD player (Philips DVP5990) all hooked directly to the Onkyo via HDMI for everything except the old CD Luxman. The Onkyo was connected to the HDMI-1 plug on the TV, and Viera Link was enabled on the TV, and HDMI control was enabled on the Onkyo. With this setup, the directv remote would turn on/off the TV which in turn would in turn on/off the Onkyo. Viera Link on the TV was set to "home theater" so the directv remote would also control the Onkyo volume. All worked as advertised!

I'm not sure if this is related, but back in October 2012 I switched from directv to dish and hooked up the new dish DVR/receiver in the same manner as the old directv DVR/receiver. At this point all worked as it had before. About a month later in November, I started to intermittently lose HDMI control from the TV to the Onkyo (i.e., when I turned the TV on via the dish remote, the Onkyo would turn on but the volume would revert back to the TV volume). Sometimes I could fix this by changing the Viera Link setting on the TV back to home theater, but other times when trying this the TV would give an error message indicating to check the cables. Unplugging the Onkyo and/or the TV, or starting to play a DVD on the Philips, would fix the problem. Not sure what else to try, I installed a better quality HDMI cable from the TV to the Onkyo, and that appeared to fix the issue. In the last few days, however, the problem has re-appeared, and more often.

I realize this could be an issue with either the Onkyo or the Panasonic (or dish DVR, although I'm not sure how that could have affected the TV/Onkyo connection), and I am trying to figure out a way to determine which unit is malfunctioning. The Onkyo is still under warranty (2-yrs), so if it is the Onkyo, I presumably could get it serviced under the warranty.

Any suggestions as to how to isolate the problem unit?

Thanks, Brian


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

Hello Brian,
Welcome to the Shack.

I personally find HDMI cables to be very frustrating as I have had quite a few go bad on me. Because of this I may be a bit biased and would think you have a bad HDMI cable. A handshake issue is also a possibility. You may want to try to reset your equipment to factory defaults and see if that fixes your issues. And lastly, I have heard of quite a few people having similar issues that were caused by a PS3 in the system. The fix for that may be as simple as unplugging the PS3 power cord for a couple of minutes.


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## bmoliver (Mar 8, 2013)

Well, I don't have a PS3 (or an Xbox) so that can't be the issue. I also tried several other HDMI cards I had when the problem first appeared back in November and that didn't fix it, so that's when I got a better quality cord from Monoprice. With that new cord, the problem went way until the last few days. I don't know if you are familiar with Panasonic's Viera Link, but essentially I get two different effects:

1) I lose the ability to turn on/off the Onkyo with the TV remote. When this happens, the Viera Link menu on the TV is all grayed out.
2) The on/off control works but I lose the volume control. When this happens, if I go back to the Viera Link menu on the TV, the Speaker Output setting has shifted back to the TV. Sometime I can simply switch it back to Home Theater and that fixes it. Other times if I try that I get an error on the TV indicating to check the cabling.

Interestingly, one thing that pretty much always works in the latter case (i.e., cabling error) is if I turn on the DVD player (with or without a DVD). At that point, the Onkyo switches to the DVD and the TV turns on. If I then go back to the Viera Link menu on the TV, I can then switch the Speaker Output from the TV to the Home Theater without getting the cabling error.

Brian


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