One of the more difficult things about IR LEDs is that you can’t see if they work or even the LED in question is an IR LED at all or just a white LED that doesn’t work.

I have seen many ways to counter this but the easiest way is to power up the possible IR LED and have a look it in your cell phone viewfinder. The cell phone will show a glow if it’s working. Make sure you have the proper resistor to make sure that what you see isn’t the last light from that particular LED.