Another way to tell if a remote is stuck or working at all is with an audible light probe if you have one. All the photo sensors I've tried that might be used in probes pickup the infrared from remotes pretty well. Just hold the sensor of the probe within an inch of the business end of the remote. Press a button and move things around till you hear little bursts of noise. You may even be able to learn how much noise the things make at what distance when the batteries are good and thus tell if they're weak.
tom
