AVR HDMI Switching and CEC Issue

[R0B75]

This could be a long post.... but its fried my brain a little so need someone else's opinion or viewpoint on what it might be.

My setup consisted of the following up to this weekend.

Denon AVR X2700H
LG CX Oled (TV connected to receiver by HDMI 2 for eARC)
Sky Q box
PlayStation 5
Nvidia Shield

All is connected directly to the receiver and all working fine. Receiver turns on or off when the TV turns on or off and inputs switch correctly, like when I start the PS5 it auto switches, or if I press the home button on the Sky remote etc etc. I got the odd issue where it wouldn't switch back to Sky when finishing using the PS5 or Shield until I put the Sky box into stand-by and back on again.

However, I bought an Xbox Series X and all hell has broken loose with my setup (ok, slightly dramatic...).

For most of Saturday I was using the Xbox and got the odd random black screen (twice), even though my Xbox is set to run at 4k60 I thought this must be the HDMI 2.1 issue that I had read about, or the HDMI CEC that the Series X has or had. I also noted that the TV/AVR would never auto switch to the Xbox (like the PS5 does) when it was turned on, even though the setting said it should. I always had to press the relevant input button on the Denon AVR remote. Again, I put this down to the supposed known issue, but a minor issue for me.

However, after finishing with the Xbox for the day I wanted to watch some TV and it wouldn't switch back to Sky the way I'd normally do it, pressing the home button on the Sky remote, or on the odd occasion pressing the stand-by button on the Sky remote and back on. I physically had to pick up the Denon AVR remote and press the correct input button....oh the hardship!

Later on I went to turn off the TV and AVR using just the Sky remote, as I had done for months without issue and it only the TV turned off, the receiver stayed on. Ok, this is getting annoying...So powered off all my devices at the wall and it started behaving again. Checked HDMI CEC stuff was all set ok, it was.

A little later and my TV randomly switched to Nvidia Shield without me being near any remote, and then found couldn't switch back to Sky without, yes you guessed it, pressing the relevant AVR input button. I wasn't using the Xbox at the time either.

I was thinking that the cause of these things was the Xbox, simply because it all worked fine (mostly) before this was added to the mix, so I set about changing some settings on Xbox. There are various HDMI CEC settings on the Series X and I tried various combinations of them (followed by a reboot each time), nothing made a difference. I also tried switching the Xbox to the Blu-Ray input on the receiver (from Game), but again, this didn't resolve anything.

Moving to Sunday and I'd still not resolved the issue, but played some more of The Ascent on the Xbox (not bad) before getting annoyed once again trying to switch the receiver back to Sky, it just wouldn't, at all! I was unable to get a picture or sound from the Sky box despite turning everything off and back on, even unplugging the Sky box and then switching everything off at the wall. In the end I had to do a factory reset on the Denon AVR so I could watch Sky again!

So, I then had to setup the AVR from scratch, but because I was now pretty much convinced all of this was being caused by Xbox, I left it unplugged from the receiver.

Once everything was setup again on the receiver, it all worked again seamlessly, inputs were switching snappily like they were before I had the Xbox, in fact arguably better and the TV and receiver turned off and on as they should. That was until I plugged the Xbox in again.... only this time, I had completely turned off HDMI CEC on the Xbox as I had a feeling that was causing the issue.

So after turning off the HDMI CEC on the Xbox I was able to switch back to Sky from Xbox by the usual button on the Sky remote. At this point I thought.....have I fixed it? No was the answer, because as soon as I tried to turn the TV and AVR off using the Sky remote, only the TV turned off again....

So, as you can imagine I was losing the will to live by now but decided to unplug the Xbox from the receiver again, even though the console was turned off anyway (and in power saving, so completely OFF), but it still wouldn't turn off the receiver if I turned off the TV. About 2 or 3 minutes later, the volume icon for the TV flashed up on the right of the screen very briefly despite me not pressing a volume button, which was weird as I'd only ever see that if I was using the TV itself for sound, but from that point on, the TV and receiver are turning off and on in unison.

Things I haven't done. Tried a different HDMI cable for the Xbox yet, only because I've not got another of the same type, but will be ordering one just in case.

Can anyone think of what else this could be, if not the HDMI cable, the Xbox being faulty, or some weird incompatibility between my devices? I'm pretty stumped right now.

 

[lucid]

I had similar problems with some Humax boxes. They don't implement HDMI Control properly.

Have a look at a HDMI CEC-less adaptor cables. Here's a Lindy adaptor, but I got some short M-to-F extentions for my solution.

 

[hornetstinger]

Disable CEC and I bet problem goes away

 

[R0B75]

Do you mean disable CEC on the Denon receiver? I haven't tried that, but that would be useful to see if that's the root cause, thanks. I have tried turning it off on both the Xbox and Shield. It works fine with the PS5.

After a lot of messing tonight I have determined its probably not a cable issue at least.

I'm thinking its maybe a limitation on how many devices the Denon can handle or rather, have plugged into its HDMI inputs at any one time, or an incompatibility between the Shield and Xbox. With only 3 devices connected, Sky, PS5 and Shield, it seems to work fine. If I disconnect the Shield completely from the AVR, the Xbox works fine and everything switches nicely. However, I have noticed that neither the Shield or the Xbox will ever switch to their assigned input automatically when turned on, despite being set to do so in their settings. The PS5 and Sky Q box do.

I haven't yet tried completely disconnecting the PS5 to see if the Shield and Xbox play nicely together, one for tomorrow, along with completely disabling CEC, but if they don't, I'm not sure where to go as there is possibly a conflict between them. But if they do, meaning the Denon is limited by the number of devices using HDMI, then I guess Denon will need to know, maybe I've got a faulty AVR?

 

[hornetstinger]

Disable CEC on everything.

 

[R0B75]

Today I disconnected the PS5 leaving the Sky Q box, Shield and Xbox connected to the AVR with CEC still turned on.

The AVR switches back to Sky from either the Shield or Xbox without too much of a fuss using the home button on the remote. The TV and AVR also turn on and off using the Sky remote, which is my main requirement.

Now, I know that CEC doesn't work well on the Series X, this is a known issue from what I gather, so I'm not expecting it to switch to that input when powering on the console but it does turn on the TV and AVR when powering the Xbox on. Happy enough with that. The PS5 does this better (when its connected), as it switches to the correct input too, but I can live with it.

CEC doesn't really work on the Shield, but then it never has despite trying various settings. I only really use it for watching Netflix, Prime or Disney+ as it support all the HDR modes I need it to and more sound options over my TV.

As I said, the TV and AVR turning on and off correctly is my main requirement, as well as being able to control the volume and with only 3 devices connected, it works. It doesn't appear to matter which 2 in addition to the Sky Q are connected, it works as I need it to. But adding in a 4th device screws this up, things don't switch inputs properly and the TV and AVR don't work in sync.

I could disable CEC and get an all in one remote to control everything, but in my mind the Denon AVR-X2700H should be able to handle 4 devices using CEC, my feeling is that this is a limitation or bug at best, or a fault at worst. I'm going to contact Denon and Richer Sounds to see what they advise.

 

[hornetstinger]

Disable CEC then use learning remote with macros.

 

[R0B75]

I could go down that route, but all that does is work around the issue. I may end up doing this but I feel the receiver is not doing what it's meant to be capable of, whether this is a fault or bug/limitation. I'll see what Denon say, then decide what to do.