I can't select areas on the map with any of the remotes.

It doesn't matter how far zoomed in I am. I tried changing the drag map shortcut to not conflict but that's not it either.

I can only select areas in the normal game view, which means I have to physically go to the biters nests.

Factorio 0.17.79

Are you all the way zoomed in, eg, all the way to the level where a radar revealed area shows the normal, non-map view, and staying there for the duration of the click and drag? Zooming out at all at any point breaks all area selection tools, which is a limitation of the base game.