For people that are handy and have a soldering iron, IR remotes have a crystal in them and if it develops bad solder joints, the remote can output a signal still that an IR tester will pick up, but the remote still won't work.
The crystal is usually a small square plastic box with two leads on it soldered somewhere onto the board, usually yellow or blue colored, rarely other colors. In some remotes it's a small metal silver can, usually square still, but some are round. I don't know what style is in the MicroHD remote, I haven't had to take mine apart yet.
Another common place for bad solder joints is on the IR emitter and the battery tab connectors, touch them up while in there too. Clean the button pad contacts off with a pink eraser and also the matching circuit board contacts.
If the remote has had soda or something similar spilled into it, take it completely apart and wash all the parts in a sink with dish soap and a tooth brush, rinse them off good after, then lay them all out somewhere and let them dry out real good before reassembling it. Even if nothing has been spilled into it, clean the button pad contacts and matching board contacts and the case too, gunk tends to build up in there and the pads and contacts get dirty just from normal wear and tear. Sometimes the pad contacts will have just worn away to the point where the buttons won't work and then there's no option but to replace them, but most hold up pretty good.
A hair dryer on low will work to dry it if you're impatient, as long as it's not one that gets super hot! With soda and a lot of other drinks, you want to clean it out right away, soda and other stuff will corrode away the copper traces on the boards and leads of components. Sometimes it's still fixable, but much harder, if you let soda sit in it for a long time.
Most commonly, with IR remotes that don't work, it's the IR emitter, crystal or battery tab connector solder joints, or it's dirty and needs to be cleaned, or something has been spilled in it, or the circuit board gets snapped in half from someone sitting, stepping, etc, on the remote, or a combination of those problems.
Probably the hardest part of fixing remotes is getting the darn case opened without breaking all the little snap tabs along the edges!
Armidillo, do you have a close up picture of your MicroHD, so I could see the damage? I could most likely fix it for you. If the board isn't wiped out, it shouldn't be too bad to fix and solder a new connector onto it. When I had my shops, I used to replace tuner F connectors all the time, from people forgetting to unhook the wire before they moved the set! Is that how yours got damaged?
The trick to replacing those is to use a replacement F connector that the plastic on the inside of it won't melt when you solder it, the white colored ones usually work good. And take a small file and file down the edges of the connector and the hole in the tuner until you can see brass, then it solders much easier and quicker. Without doing that, the kinda clear colored F connectors always melt. I wouldn't charge you anything because it's a easy fix if the board traces and such aren't totally wiped out, but you'd have to ship it to me, of course, it'd be a long haul to drop it off!