Overview
This article is intended to aid with troubleshooting player issues by explaining what the various onscreen messages mean, why a player might get stuck showing a particular message and the recommended resolution steps.
Table of On-screen messages
On-screen Message | Troubleshooting Notes |
Checking the date-time is correct | This is the first message you will always see when the Signagelive media player first starts.
When checking the date and time, the player will call out to the Signagelive Time Server and compare the current date and time configured on the device to the current date and time returned by the Signagelive Time Server for the configured timezone.
Even if this request fails for any reason such as internet connectivity or the Time Server being unavailable, the player should move past this message and continue to play content as long as the date and time configured on the player is greater than 2013-10-01.
If the player configured date and time is older than 2013-10-01 and the player is unable to update the date and time from the Signagelive Time Server, the player will show message 3.
If the check with the Signagelive Time Server is successful and the time is slightly out then the date and time will be adjusted accordingly and the user will temporarily see message 2, which may be followed by a device restart if required (device dependent).
There are a couple of historical cases to be aware of where this message has been visible on screen when it shouldn’t have been. We believe these issues are now resolved but we will discuss them here for reference:
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Resetting the date-time, your panel may automatically restart in a moment | If after checking the date and time, it is determined that the date and time configured on the media player is slightly out, then the date and time will be corrected, this message will be displayed and the device may reboot.
Once this process has been completed, normal media player operation should resume. |
The date-time is incorrect, please re-connect this panel to the internet to automatically re-sync the date-time | This message will be displayed only if:
In this case, it is recommended to: |
Unable to load saved configuration | You will only see this message when player configuration stored to disk gets corrupted. There is a remote possibility of this happening after some events such as unexpected power shortages. To rectify this you will need to ensure that the device has an internet connection. Once the internet connection is restored on the device it will redownload the configuration thus allowing the content to then be displayed on screen |
Confirming device support | In 2019 Signagelive updated its media player library so that before registering with Signagelive the media player first checks if it is being run on a supported model and firmware.
For new installs, this will be the next message you see on screen after ‘Checking date and time’ and configuring any player settings.
This is also the first time that the media player will attempt to connect to the Signagelive player API.
This is important because if any player gets stuck showing this message on screen, it strongly indicates that the player has been unable to connect to the Signagelive API.
In this case, troubleshooting should focus on confirming that there are no connectivity issues and the player can connect to the player API. |
A client update is required | If the device support check is completed successfully but the device is running on unsupported firmware, this is the message that will be displayed on-screen.
The support team should work with the customer to update the firmware on the device to a supported firmware. |
This device is not supported.
Manufacturer: [Device Manufacturer]
Model: [Device Model] | If the device support check is completed successfully the device is not a model that is listed as supported this is the message that will be displayed on-screen.
The support team should request the exact manufacturer and model details shown on-screen and determine if they believe the device should be supported. If they believe that it should be then this should be raised to development ASAP, who can review the request and where a device should be supported, add support immediately. |
Registering with Signagelive | This message is shown after the check that the device is supported has completed and indicates that the player is supported, has been able to successfully connect to the API and is now attempting to register as a new player.
There is one potential reason that a player may get stuck on this message and it is quite a rare case but it is discussed here for completeness. If a device is registered with Signagelive as a particular player type, deactivated and then an attempt is made to register it as a different player type then this can cause the player to hang with this message on-screen.
The cases where this has happened historically are normally only internal and have affected Tizen and macOS players when our initial development client had a different player type to our final released client.
Also note that before device support checking was added, this was the first request to the API so in the past it was common for players to remain on this message due to connectivity issues. However, with the addition of device support checking this is no longer the case. |
This player has been previously connected to Signagelive, please deactivate it to continue with re-activation. ID: [Device Hardware ID] | If a player attempts to register with Signagelive but is still activated against an existing licence, this is the message that is displayed.
This message will only ever show on-screen if a device has been reset to a fresh install state but it has previously been activated. If the device was not intentionally manually reset using our reset instructions and/or a factory reset of some kind, this message might indicate that a local device issue has occurred that has caused it to reset unexpectedly.
The support team should note the exact device hardware Id, determine which serial number it is associated with, deactivate it and reactivate it.
If the device reset unexpectedly rather than through manual intervention then this should be investigated further to understand why this might have occurred. |
Getting player configuration | This message is generally only shown during first activation after the player has registered and is getting its first configuration.
There are no known reasons that a player might hang on this message. |
Downloading content | This message is shown straight after the player has got its first configuration and is starting to download media for the first time - generally an activation code.
A player could hang on this screen if it is unable to download its initial activation code image. This could happen due to SSL connectivity issues, for example.
There may have also been cases in the past where this message showed on screen incorrectly when a screen was off due to screen control and a player downloaded new content during that period. This should have been fixed and is not currently an issue. |