Long story short.
Lirc server isn't probably running.
You can try starting it being sudo and running /etc/init.d/lirc start
(^ I have no device and my memory...)

Long story long.
Lirc server is battery hog and QT team made new version of it in which daemon is run only when QTirreco is runnning. Now there seems to be new lirc version in repository that probably doesn't run continuously. Old (GTK) irreco assumes it's running and things don't work. I've waited information about this transition but no-one told me.

I put things together today and all should be well tomorrow.

EDIT 09:55 PM.
0.8.9 version in extras-devel should fix lirc issue.

EDIT 12:46 PM
New Lirc version requires restarting of device. Or so I've heard.

harriva