Virgin V6 box and infra red extender problem

silvercar

I have a new set up that has my virgin V6 box in a cupboard.

I have an infra red HDMI extender unit like this

 baolongking HDMI IR Extender Kit, 30KHz-50KHz Remote Control Transmitter Receiver Set, Professional IR Repeater System for Cable Box, Blue-Ray, DVD, More https://amzn.eu/d/g4v819p

So there is an HDMI at the TV end, with a cable to the “eye” At the virgin V6 box, the HDMI from the TV goes into this little emitter unit and the emitter unit goes into the back of the Virgin Box with the emitter itself attached to the front of the virgin box. Pointing the virgin remote to the eye operates the V6 box in the cupboard. 

….Or so it did for an hour or so, then it required switching the virgin box off and on, then it stopped working entirely, next day it worked intermittently. As a test I removed the HDMI at the virgin box end and plugged the HDMI cable from the TV directly into the virgin box, everything worked perfectly, except of course the remote won’t work.

So the problem is that this little unit is stopping the virgin box from working the TV properly. Although it did work originally, now it doesn't work at all. Even having it plugged into the back of the unit, but without the lead to the emitter connected to it, still fails to work.

Is the HDMI thingy only there to provide power to the emitter? If so is there another way to provide the power? The wire from the emitter enters the HDMI thingy via a 3mm jack. 

any help gratefully received

silvercar

This is the gadget.