BrightSign HD223 – flashing red LED / black screen despite valid standalone presentation

Hello,

I am experiencing persistent red flashing LED + black screen on a BrightSign HD223, even with what appears to be a correct standalone SD setup. I would appreciate guidance on what I might be missing. I spent a couple of hours trying to debug this with ChatGPT guidance to no success. Here is the run down.

Hardware

Player: BrightSign HD223
Storage: microSD (tested, freshly formatted)
Displays tested:
- Standard TV via HDMI
- Portable Arzopa monitor (mini-HDMI)
Result is identical on all displays

Symptoms

Without SD card: HDMI signal detected (black screen, no error)
With SD card inserted:
- Red LED starts flashing immediately when HDMI is connected
- Screen remains black
Issue persists across displays and cables

What I have already done

1. Clean reset / safe video mode

Booted with only setup.brs on SD
Successfully reached BrightSign Device Setup
Video output confirmed working in setup mode

2. Created a minimal test presentation (BrightAuthor)

Single zone, 1920×1080
Single PNG image
Duration: 10 seconds
No transitions, no widgets, no scripts
Audio irrelevant / disabled

3. Published as Standalone (Player Storage)

Destination: SD card root
Schedule: Active all day, every day
Publish completed successfully (green confirmation)

SD card structure (root)

autoplugins.brs
autorun.brs
local-sync.json
test3.bpfx
pool/
feedPool/
feed_cache/
brightsign-dumps/

No setup.brs remains on the card.

local-sync.json (excerpt)

{
  "files": {
    "download": [
      { "name": "test3.bml" },
      { "name": "example_resized.png" },
      { "name": "autorun.brs" },
      { "name": "autoplugins.brs" },
      { "name": "autoschedule.json" }
    ]
  }
}

The image asset is present in pool/ and referenced correctly.

Result

After ejecting SD safely and booting:
- Red LED flashes continuously
- No video output
Same behavior on multiple displays
Same behavior after recreating the SD from scratch

What I’m trying to understand

Is there a known HD223-specific requirement (video mode, EDID, HDMI timing, firmware mismatch)?
Can autorun.brs itself fail silently and cause red LED flashing?
Is there a way to force a known-safe HDMI mode permanently (not just setup)?
Any known issues with standalone playback + image-only presentations?

At this point, setup mode works, but any published presentation causes immediate runtime failure.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Lee DYDOMITE Dydo December 22, 2025 14:08

Are you able to get a UART console going on it?

Daniel Roy December 22, 2025 15:57

Im sorry i dont understand the question.

Daniel Roy December 28, 2025 14:51

Sorry to chase team - can anyone please help? I tried with a new SD card, still no luck.

best

Dan

Daniel Roy December 28, 2025 16:42

OK! so I learned two things:

1) by default when creating a presentation, another player than mine (hd 223) was selected - so i was creating the prez for the wrong player
2) more importantly I hadnet setup the players yet. I followed instructions as displayed here for both standalone and LAN. In both cases I reach similar screens.

Questions from here
1) does connecting the HD 223 by ethernet to an internet router (itself not password protected) counts as a LAN?
2) the HD 223 doesnt have a USB port. How to connect to it a USB keyboard as requested, then?

Precision, I have 2 x HD 223 and 2 x CF cards, 128 go. I tried all permutations so am I missing something very obvious?

Any help is appreciated...

Thank you
Daniel