Doing wayfinding and each map is an HTML5 page. This is a single HTML5 page for each location. There is rarely a change. I would like to force the Presentation to refresh every night/morning at 2AM. I realize the player should refresh when it sees new content or a change but that doesn't consistently happen (probably our vendor doing something odd with the HTML5).
Do I just add a Time/Clock event and have it "Transition to new state" back to the HTML5 event.
That what I would typically do, but recently I'm leaning toward rebooting the player.
Why not start fresh every morning...
It is now easy to do with a time/clock event, and an event command "Reboot" under Other.
I could do that but these guys already have the worst power reliability I have ever seen. I am afraid they might interpret the reboot as an "issue". Maybe I will code in a weekly reboot.
Thanks for the info.
The Time/Clock event seems to be the most logical approach.
We use a simple HTML ticker and do a time out event every hour to go to new state which is the same to force updates.
In case of a network time out it could be so that otherwise the player does not update the html ticker.
And what do you mean with “these guys already have the worst power reliability I have ever seen”?
In a lot of installations the overall electrical power is overnight shutdown.
The players perform very well under such conditions.
This customer loses power in sections of the campus frequently. You are correct, the BrightSign players seem to be impervious. Best player I have worked with. But the customer's network doesn't recover from the power outage very well, yet they always seem to suspect the player (or anything that is not their equipment) first!
If you could get the map as an image in an MRSS feed, that would have been perfect, because feeds are coached, and refreshed in the background. The result is that there is always something on the screen, even if in the event of a network timeout.
If you refresh the feed as often as you think would work best for the environment and the application.
Having the HTML5 content display after a power outage, and where the network didn't immediately recover, has been an issue. But our HTML5 stuff is all machine generated and dynamic. We investigated caching using Manifest files but our vendor couldn't implement the manifest file on their side due to the way the page is created...and editable by our customer.
So at this point the customer just has to be certain the network recovers when the player does otherwise the display is black.
Hi Allen,
Looking at the end of the chain is very simple.
We have build a CMS solution based on MRSS feeds with advanced monitoring possibilities.
We can “see” (get notified) when a player is not working properly.
In 99% of the situations its loss of network / electrical and in rare case a SD card was accidentally ‘removed’.
Also we are doing some data rendering stuff in which external XML data is renderd in a graphical image that is in a MRSS feed.
In this way we have the best of both.
In our deployments in public spaces we lost many SD cards at first. Now we always install the security cover with the security screw.
Thanks for the info.
You've already received great input from everyone.
HTML5 remote URLs aren't checked for changes, so it's up to the presentation or the page (via META Refresh or Javascript) to refresh as needed.
If you want to be more obvious when the issue is one of network connectivity (and you can get them to put a simple XML feed deliverable by the same server), you can display "alternate" content when the XML feed can't be accessed, the assumption being it can't be accessed due to network or server failure.
http://www.brightsignnetwork.com/download/bhiga/BlankWhenNoNetworkConnection.zip
On the subject of reboots...
Have either of you ever found that a reboot of a BrightSign player resolved an issue? I have not. We only have a bit over 2000 players deployed at the moment but I have yet to have one fail. I have seen network issues (by far the largest problem), stolen SD cards, power issues, and Presentations that cause the player to reboot or error out. But I have never had an actual failed player.
Our thousands of Windows embedded players all get reboots...or else...
I agree that the BrightSign players are robust, but in the particular case of HTML daily refresh, it made sense to me to reboot nightly, which seems like a good idea long term anyway.
With that said, presenting static information served from a remote server, is better be done via MRSS feed.
Hi Allen,
Only rebooting to force content updates in case of time out events and so.
And ‘normally’ if a players crashes or so its due to faults that where made in the presentations or bugs.
But regarding bugs you will find out directly and not overtime.
(with an exception that MRSS files where not correctly removed accordingly the preference).
And the nice with the players is it works or will not work until you solve the puzzle.
But if a player is ‘normal’ then normally we don’t encounter any issue.
And yes sometimes playback issues if content files were not correctly rendered according to specs.
But…as we speak we have 2 players with serious issues.
One is an older player. Could be corrupt.
And one is the newest XT243 with FW 6.2.63 / BA 4.6.0.14 which hangs in Limbo state and we cant resolve this.
It seems we encounter some more issues / bugs with the new BA version / firmware.
We are currently looking in to this and submit this support.