FAQ

Will AutoRemote kill my phone’s battery? How is it always listening for messages if it’s not running in the background all the time?

AutoRemote uses Google Cloud Messaging, GCM for short, (http://developer.android.com/google/gcm/index.html) to receive its messages. This is a low power feature that is always enabled on your phone. When GCM receives a message it wakes up the recepient app (in this case, AutoRemote) and lets the app take care of it. AutoRemote is awake for that split second it takes to process the message and send it to Tasker, and then is shut down right away, so it never remains in the background.

 

Why do my AutoRemote messages take so long to arrive at times? Sometimes it’s instant, but sometimes it seems to take for ever!

Android’s push notification listener might be timing out on your phone/router.

Try this app to fix it: Push Fixer

Here‘s a reddit post explaining the issue. Thanks to Kristijan Ristovski for pointing me to the reddit article.

Also, this is what Google has to say about network settings:

If your organization has a firewall that restricts the traffic to or from the Internet, you’ll need to configure it to allow connectivity with GCM. The ports to open are: 5228, 5229, and 5230. GCM typically only uses 5228, but it sometimes uses 5229 and 5230. GCM doesn’t provide specific IPs. It changes IPs frequently. We recommend against using ACLs but if you must use them, take a broad approach such as the method suggested in this support link.

 

Why do messages not arrive on my phone after it was offline?

Messages are automatically discarded if your phone is offline. If you want to change this behaviour you should use the TTL (time to live) field and set it to any value from 0 to 4 weeks (which is 2419200 seconds) 🙂

Is there a maximum limit on message length for AutoRemote messages?

As of version 3.0 there is not.

 

My Android device has stopped receiving messages!

Press the “Refresh AutoRemote” option in the app settings. If you want to know if everything went well, enable system logs before touching the option. In the logs you should then see that AutoRemote refreshed its GCM registration.

 

Can I restore AutoRemote with Titanium Backup when changing ROMs for example?

You can but it’s not recommended. I have never had any trouble with it myself, but I’ve had reports of users that have. If something doesn’t work after a restore, backup your URL, uninstall the app, reinstall it and restore your URL again.

I changed ROM/device but never backed up my personal URL. Can I restore it somehow?

Fortunately, you can do this:
  •  Navigate to your short url (goo.gl/xxxxx). Get this URL from another device you may have, or from your chrome extension, or from your browsing history on your browser, for example.
  •  Get your personal key as described here: http://joaoapps.com/autoremote/personal/
  •  Copy your personal key to a file on your dropbox in the folder Apps/AutoRemote/AndroidSettings and name the file whatever you like.
  • On your device, set your device name in the settings to whatever name you gave the file
  • Recover from dropbox.
Should work now 🙂

How do I change my PC’s volume with EventGhost and AutoRemote

send messages like “volume=:=20” and in EventGhost react to the AutoRemote.Message.volume event with a python script like this:

eg.plugins.System.SetMasterVolume(eg.event.payload.arcomm)

How do I send messages directly to the AutoRemote Wifi Service?

First make sure that the AutoRemote Wifi service is turned on in Tasker. You can do so with the “AutoRemote Wifi” Tasker action. Then call a URL from a browser or do a HTTP GET with a URL like the following:

http://192.168.12.101:1817/?message=hello
Where 192.168.12.101 is your Android device’s IP address in the local network

How does the “Send Later” feature work?

Immediate messages (ie. not “later” message) behave like this:
    •    if sent to AutoRemote Windows app or EG plugin
      • if app is open, it will be sent
      • if app is closed it will be lost
    • if sent to Chrome directly
      • if chrome is open, open immediately
      • if chrome is closed, open the next time you launch chrome
“Later” messages behave like this:
  •  if sent to AutoRemote Windows app or EG plugin, message will be sent the next time either of these apps refresh themselves on your phone.
    • For AutoRemote Windows app this happens when you:
      • open the app
      • login to windows
      • click the refresh button
    • For EG this happens when you execute the “Register EventGhost” action
    • if sent to Chrome directly nothing happens. Chrome is not supported. You can get it to work by pressing the “Register Chrome on Devices” button in the options, but that’s not really pratical.

 

I’ve bought AutoRemote through AutoApps. It still says “AutoRemoteLite”! Why is that?

The app will be still be fully unlocked and work as the full version but will retain “lite” in its name. This is an unfortunate side effect of a time where my apps had separate lite and full versions. The only way I could unlock AutoRemote from AutoApps is by unlocking the lite version. But I can’t dynamically change the name of an app, so unfortunately the name of the app has to still be AutoRemoteLite. This also happens with AutoBarcode.

 

I have 2 profiles with the same command filter, but only one of them works. Why?

You probably cloned the 2nd profile from the first. Unfortunately that doesn’t work with the AutoApps. Try creating the profile’s condition manually and it’ll start working.

 

If I click on a notification that is supposed to open a URL from the lock scren the URL doesn’t open. Why?

Unfortunately that’s a chrome bug/feature: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=455126. There’s nothing I can do, sorry!

 

AutoRemote can’t communicate with my Raspberry Pi. Why is that?

Maybe you’re getting an “Algorithm negotiation failed” error? If so, check this post

Basically, add a line in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file

KexAlgorithms diffie-hellman-group1-sha1,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1

 

I accidentally restored a backup of AutoRemote on a different device and now both my devices have the same personal URL. What can I do?

  • Uninstall the app from the device you restored the backup to (the one with that shouldn’t have the duplicate URL)
  • Remove app data from your google drive account for AutoRemote
    • Go to https://drive.google.com
    • Click on the setting icon on the top right
    • Click on Settings
    • Click on “Manage Apps”
    • Click the “Options” button near AutoRemote
    • Click “Delete Hidden App Data”
  • Re-install AutoRemote on the device
  • It should work correctly now.