Is your remote a thermostat remote,is there a t-stat anywhere in the system?

No, it doesn't have a thermostat at all. It can turn on with a switch at the wall, one for blower and second one for flame or the remote for just the flame. We've never had this issue before either.
Thanks for your response.

Radio interferrence? Pet stepping on the remote?

and your sure the remote is not a t-stat remote, correct?

Take the batteries out of the remote transmitter and see if it stops.

Hmmm. No pets here. The radio wasn't on at the time. No, no t-stat in the remote.
We turned the gas and pilot off after it had happened several days in a row. we re-lit it 2 nights ago. To the best of our knowledge it has not happened again. Could that have fixed the problem or should we call a technician, do you think?
Thanks for taking the time to help us problem solve!
Chris

I have had the exact same problem for two years, however I do not have a remote, only wall a switch. The service tech said I needed a new switch, didn't work. Then, he wanted to just start replacing parts, I said no thank you. I've made several calls and no one knows what to do, so if you find the answer, please let me know. As you will find out, this is a sporadic problem. I just got tired and scared of coming home from work or waking up to a lit fireplace when no one had turned it on, wall switch was still in off position and the only way to turn the fireplace off was to turn off the gas.

ghost. for sure. we had one in our last house. ask it to leave. tell them it's better on the other side and to go toward the light. GL.

Thank you SeattlePioneer. I think you nailed it. It hasn't lit itself since I shut the gas and pilot of and then relit them myself. I probably moved the toggle switch when I was down under there. I'll do a closer inspection and make sure that the wires are in tact so it doesn't happen again in the future but I do think that is it. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.

Any radio amateurs nearby? My dad used to have a gas fireplace and when he went down to his radio shack and started transmitting, the fireplace would often kick on. In this particular case, his radio gear was just below (downstairs) from the fireplace. We added some shielding and the problem went away. If it's not this, I'd start looking for ghosts.

Eric

So how did the problem get fixed?? My fireplace is doing this now, too

I have a Lenox direct vent insert with only a remote, no wall switch. It’s 7 years old and a year ago it began to shut itself off. Once it turned itself on after shutting itself down, but typically it just shuts itself off. The occasional shut down has now become a nightly event. The longer it’s on the more likely it will happen. Has this been solved by anyone?

radio interference could be from other than an actual radio. TV remote, garage door openers, lighting controls the list goes on....

mdx42... Having a "wall switch" means that you have a "thermo-pile" driven system/valve... not to be confused with a thermocouple system. How this works is: The manual ignition pilot engulfs a round piece of metal called a thermo-pile. The energy generated by this device is somewhere around .750-.250 millivolts (DC). This energy does two things: one, it charges the valve to allow the pilot to stay lit. In other words, it you blow it out...you would hear a "click" which means the gas supply to the pilot just stopped. It's a safety system. If the local gas company turns the gas off in your neighborhood to fix a leak, it would go off. But when they turn it back on...it would not release gas...until you manually light the pilot. Now, back to your problem. The second function of generating that low voltage (.250-.750) is to open an close the main valve...which releases gas to your main burner. If your burner drops out after a few minutes or so...but the pilot stays lit...it is "cycling". Let me try and explain. If you check the millivolts when "just" the pilot is lit...you may get .250 or better (anything below .100 it will not stay lit). But once you flip the switch, the millivolts (power) drops in half...because now its sharing it with the pilot and burner. If it's stable, and doesn't continue to slowly drop in voltage...the burner should stay on. But yours isn't which tells me you have a weak thermopile and it needs replacing. I've seen them last 20 plus years...if you leave your pilot on "all the time"...even the off season. But if you turn it off and on at the beginning and ending of the season...I have seen them only last 2-4 years. It is designed to "get hot and stay hot". The term cycling comes from this scenario: pilot is on, you turn the main burner on (switch), it lights...but the millivolts are slowly dropping and then... burner drops out. THEN, it starts building up millivolts again and, if the switch was never turned off, it climbs high enough to open valve and then the burner kicks back on (all by it self)....but the millivolts start dropping again and then kicks off again....and will do this until the switch is turned off or the thermopile is changed. I hope this helps explain whats going on. You don't have ghosts,,,,just a "sick" thermopile. God Bless

storey3....some remotes/receivers have a "learn" button that you can "re-learn" the frequency...some have several frequencies you can marry up to the remote. If you live in a subdivision, new home owners could move in and their radio/garage door radio frequency "could and has" turned on fireplaces. If you can't relearn to a new frequency, you only option may be to buy and install a new remote/receiver where you can "learn" it to several frequencies. Radio frequencies (not infrared) can penetrate walls/structure up to 100 ft. away...like a garage door remote. Good luck...I hope you can get your fireplace working correctly.

Our fireplace has a remote, and an electric igniter. It’s been working fine from when we bought the house 2 1/2 yrs ago. Recently when we start it, the igniter continues to fire for a minute or so after the gas has lite? Now, it’s turning itself on in the middle of the night?

I’m thinking the igniter continuing to fire after lite is a bad sensor that’s not telling the igniter the fire has lite until it’s been on for a while, but the turning on by itself seems unrelated? From what I read it could be a stray signal? Any other idea what could cause it to come on by itself?

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is my culprit. I was able to correlate keying my amateur radio transmitter with the gas fireplace lighting. Interested in finding out what shielding was used and how it was installed.