I’m using the Xibo Windows Player to display a video and an image. The content is looping, and every time the loop restarts, a black screen appears. At first, when starting the player, the black screen is barely noticeable since it lasts less than a second. But over time, it shows the black screen longer and longer, and eventually, I get an error: “Video Failed: Open not called after 10 seconds.” After that, it only shows the image.
Here’s what happens over time:
At first, when the loop restarts, the black screen lasts under a second
After 2 hours, it lasts around 2 seconds
After 5 hours, it increases to about 4 seconds
After 8 hours, I get an error “Video Failed: Open not called after 10 seconds,” and the screen stops showing the video. Only the image remains on the screen.
Xibo for Windows Player does not support gapless playback at the moment. It’s normal for the player to show a flash of black screen for some split seconds to ready the media in your layout and play it eventually in your display on a reasonable specification PC. If you are showing only a video or just an image in a layout, you could try to loop it to minimize the screen time of the black screen. To do so, in your CMS > Layout Editor, right-click the media and select ‘Option’, then on the General tab, tick the ‘Loop’ option.
Alternatively, since the black screen tends to show longer as the layout is played longer, you could send a commandSoftRestart maybe outside of your operating hours. This way, the Xibo for Windows Client will restart but not the PC where it is installed and will keep the watchdog running to ensure the player starts back up again.
I understand that a brief black screen between media items is expected behavior, and I have no issue with a short delay. However, the problem I’m facing is that the black screen duration increases over time.
I don’t think a soft restart is an ideal solution because it would need to be performed every couple of hours to prevent the extended black screen.
Nine minutes after I took the previous screenshot, I noticed that the video had stopped playing, and the screen was displaying only an image. (I am displaying a video and an image on the Xibo Windows player) The memory usage had increased to 547 MB, and I received the following error: 19.6.2025 8.28.53 Video MediaElement_MediaFailed: 124 Media Failed. E = HRESULT-poikkeus: 0xC00D11BA
If I send you a copy of my layout, do I also need to send the video that’s in it? I wouldn’t want to do that. The video was exported from PowerPoint and is around 14,000 KB. The layout contains only the video and my other layout contains an image.
Thanks for the information you shared. I’d like to check with you the below information to replicate the issue on my end.
How many minutes is the video itself?
What is the resolution (e.g., 1920 x 1080) of the image you used in the layout? You can find this information if you right-click the image in your PC and click on properties.
Just to confirm, when you created the layout, you put a playlist widget, went inside the playlist and added an image and a video, correct?
Just to confirm, the playlist in your layout only has 1 video and 1 image, correct?
I couldn’t replicate the issue on my end. Here are the results when I tested a video and an image on my XfW V4 R405 on a windows 11, running i5 13th Gen CPU, 16 GB ram laptop and on my desktop running windows 10, i7 3rd Gen CPU, 16 GB ram PC. Note that before I started any application, the memory usage on both my devices were just around more or less 20%. Both machines are fully updated in terms of Windows Updates.
Campaign.
I created 2 layouts, 1 with just an image with 1920 x 1080 resolution. Created a second layout with just a video, the video is encoded using HandBrake and selected the ‘Fast 30 1080p’ preset. I then created a campaign in CMS that included both the image and video layout and scheduled it on XfW V4 R405 on both my PC. I checked first that my task manager ram usage is at 20% which is the same even if I run the XfW player. The campaign showed as normal; it flashed a black screen for about a second and then showed the first image layout. It flashed a black screen for a quick 1 second to show the video layout next. It does this everytime the campaign starts in a loop. The memory usage for Xibo Player is playing around 90mb to 120mb and it never went past that. The layout has been playing for 4 hours now with the same behavior and memory usage as described.
Playlist.
I just created 1 layout with a playlist in it. Inside the playlist, I added the same test image and test video, then scheduled it on my XfW on my laptop. The usage is almost the same for 4 hours. When the layout plays, the only difference is that there is no black screen that flashes for a second once the layout starts in a loop, however, a black screen flashes for a quick 1 second when playing the second media in the layout, which is the video.
Regarding the error 0xC00D11BA, it seems this is related to an audio issue with your video file where the media player fails due to either the audio device not being accessible or being used by another process in your PC or simply a hardware failure, or the sound device is not functioning properly. Here is a reference from Microsoft regarding that error.
Here is a test you may perform on your end.
Make sure your PC has no pending Windows Update and fully updated.
Try to eliminate unwanted application processes in your task manager to achieve lower memory usage before starting the XfW player. A healthy idle RAM usage typically falls within the range of 20-50% of the total RAM capacity, depending on the amount of RAM installed and the specific operating system.
Make sure all the drivers in your PC are all up-to-date especially the sound driver.
Increase in black screen duration between loops in Xibo Windows Player is often caused by layout transitions or resource loading delays—optimize content and check media rendering settings.
I tried to replicate the issue with two Windows 10 Pro PCs, and they don’t have the issue.
Windows 10 PC specs:
• i3 8th gen and i5 7th gen, both with 8GB of RAM.
Windows 11 PC specs:
• Intel N97, 8GB RAM.
I took one of the SSDs from a Windows 10 PC and cloned my Windows 11 Pro system to it. I then put it into the Windows 11 PC, but that didn’t help.
Next, I’ll test by putting an SSD with Windows 10 into the Intel N97 PC to see if it’s a hardware issue. I’ll also test resetting Windows 11 to see if that helps.
I think it’s a good idea to reset your windows 11 as that would bring the machine back to a fresh state to isolate the memory usage issue. The fact that the issue is not happening on a different PC tells us that it’s highly possible the issue is with the original PC you were using when the issue occurred. I will wait for your update and appreciate any findings you can share for this issue.
I’m using two Intel N97 PCs with 8GB of RAM. The only difference between them is that one is running Windows 11 Pro and the other Windows 10 Pro. The one using Win11 has increasing black screen and the other one seems to work perfectly.
Could you please try to use ‘HandBrake’ and re-encode your video using the ‘Fast 1080p30’ preset and then use that re-encoded video for your layout? For the image, if you are using a PNG file, try converting it to JPG so that it’ll be smaller in size.
Try to use both the re-encoded video and JPG image in your Intel N97, 8GB RAM to see if there are any differences even after optimizing your media in your layout.
If the above fails, I think what I noticed with the 2 PC is the one which is the Intel N97, 8GB RAM is running a Celeron CPU which is far inferior in terms of performance and CPU power compared to your i5 7th Gen CPU, hence the issue only happens in N97 and not on the i5 CPU? here is a comparison between the 2 PC. It is highly possible the N97 is having a hard time keeping up its performance specially you are showing the layouts in longer periods of time and that the N97 isn’t built for that purpose and is only recommended for basic and simple tasks.
I’d love to hear from you if optimizing the medias in your layout somehow improves the black screen issue for the Xibo for Windows player app.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I did try HandBrake with the Fast 1080p30 preset, but it didn’t help. Also, the image is a JPG.
After running 2 PCs overnight (both using Intel N97), the one with Windows 11 gave an error: MediaElement_Loaded: 124 Open not called after 10 seconds, marking unsafe and Expiring. Now it’s only showing the image.
The other one with Windows 10 hasn’t thrown any errors and seems to be working fine.
Now that I’m writing this, the video started working again on the Win11, but there is a 10-second black screen.
Now it seems that the Win11 plays the video a few times until it throws the same error again and stops showing the video.
This time, the memory usage seems fine on the Xibo app. Both players are using around 200 MB.
It seems like Xibo only works on the Intel N97 if I’m using Windows 10.
We had a similar situation a few weeks ago.
Please check if you are using an Intel Graphics Adapter – the Windows WHQL drivers were causing the issue in our case.
We resolved it by updating the driver directly from the Intel Support page. Since then, the problem has not reappeared.
I noticed the same fix a couple of hours ago. I deleted the Intel UHD Graphics driver, and now my Win11 doesn’t have the black screen issue anymore. The PC has been on for around 4 hours.
On my second Win11 PC, I tried updating the driver from Intel’s page, but it didn’t help. The PC has been on for an hour, and the black screen has increased to almost 2 seconds.
What Intel Graphics driver version are you using? Mine is 32.0.101.5542.
I guess I could run Xibo without the driver, but without it, there’s a bit of screen tearing.
Yesterday I installed the newest driver, but for some reason, my PC is still using version 32.0.101.5542 instead of the latest one. I’ll try reinstalling the driver and hopefully that fixes it.
I also left my other computer running overnight without the Intel driver. The black screen duration is still under a second, and I haven’t gotten any errors. The issue was definitely caused by the driver.
yes, try reinstalling it once again!
During the installation process, there’s an option for a “clean installation” – make sure to check that box.
Also, go into the “Advanced Options” and make sure that at least the graphics driver checkbox is activated!
We had the same issue on a setup with over 50 clients that were cloned using an image – the error occurred there as well. (Intel NUC12WSK + NUC13ANK)
Happy to help with this – our team spent days figuring out and fixing this nightmare issue.
