I just moved into a new house. The remote turns the fan on and off, butmthemlight switch doesn't work. What do I do to get it to work, or do I need a new remote?

Are you talking about a wall switch? If so that switch must be ON to use the remote. If the fan is shut off by the remote you can not turn it back on with a switch unless someone had an electrician run a second line to the fan, very rare.