I just tried and can confirm that the bug is probably some of these penalizing factors being incorrectly applied to the IR mode when they should only apply to the TV mode.
Took a mission that was at 8am where I couldn't for the love of god lock the pod into a tank, modified the time to 12:00, and now I can lock everything without any issues.
Back to 8am, and again can't lock anything unless I'm practically touching it with the pod, hehe.
It makes sense for the TV mode, but most probably shouldn't be the case with the IR mode.