Last Sunday evening (Aug. 28), the remote for my Pioneer DVD player started malfunctioning, i.e. not responding to certain commands and responding slowly to others. It had been working fine just minutes earlier, so I assumed it needed a battery change. I changed the batteries and the problem persisted. So I decided to stop watching DVDs and just watch TV. So I got the TV remote so I could switch the input to watch cable HD and the TV remote started acting up, responding slowly, e.g., I'd press a change to the input and then have to wait for the TV to respond. Again, I changed the batteries and the problem persisted. So I gave up. I've had remotes crap out before, but never two at a time. One (the DVD) was 15 years old, while the TV remote is nine years old.

The next morning, I tried both remotes again and they worked fine.

I'm guessing there was some kind of electrical interference that evening. I had the air conditioning on in the room, but I've had the a.c. on before without any problems with either remote.

Does anyone here have any idea what happened?

Thanks.

I'd guess it's either Mononoke or Hell Girl.

I've seen it before where sunlight interfered with infrared.

The other possibility is another remote that has something leaning on it, causing it to continuously send a signal, which prevents other remotes from working.

Ahhh, that was probably it. I sometimes put my notebook down on the pile of remotes and something could have been pressed. (I use a five-subject notebook to jot down viewing notes and those can be pretty heavy.) Thanks. I'll be more careful about that in the future.