I"m having trouble with clients not downloading updates from the CMS. I’ve gotten to the point where I re-installed the CMS along with a fresh database but not having much better luck. Here’s some info:
CMS is running 1.7.8
Clients are running latest APK. Just downloaded it a couple of days ago
The 3 clients are Minix Neo X8H Plus
My layouts contain a background image created in Photoshop and a single region that has one character (so that they are ‘valid’ layouts)
After I update a layout, the CMS will show that the corresponding display is out of date and will then indicate that it’s downloading files. After several minutes, it will show a status of up to date (checkmark) but the display doesn’t change. The client app does not show anything in the messages section in the status window. If I kill the app on the Minix and restart it, the content will update promptly. Below arre are screen shots of the status winow on one of the clients:.
Yeah, it seems ok, everything downloaded, registered, licensed etc.
According to your screenshots it is displaying layout id 7, I assume that’s the layout you want it to show, but it’s not actually showing it without restart?
What’s your collection interval? (Display settings page -> edit display profile assigned to your device)
Yes, layout ID 7 is the one I would want this particular device to download.
The collection interval is 5 minutes. The donwload start and end window is 00:00 for both. I remember reading a thread that there was a bug in a particular CMS version when 00:00 was used for both values for the window. I also tried entering a hard end time but another issue came up that sort of resembled a time-zone bug. Either way, I’ve tried all sorts of things for the window but not much really changed. Either way, I’m now running on the latest CMS and android cllient.
The one thing that just popped into my head is that I’m using a very long duration for the background image for the 3 layouts that I use. For now, I’ve chosen to have a jpg for my background with no text overlayed like I mentioned in my original post. I will try what you recommended, i.e. just a text region, to see if that helps things. But what should I do in a scenario where I jus want to show an image for the entire duration of layout? I’m using Xibo for cafe menu boards and I want a quick solution right now where I create the menus in photoshop (for precise line/character spacing). What is the right approach? This is what I do:
In layout Design, I select Options -> Background, add my image and give it a duration of 99999 (the default 10 seconds will cause a flicker)
Still in the Background Properties dialog, I select the image that was just updated, then click Save.
I then do see that the display that has this particular layout as default will show that it’s outdated, etc. It eventuallys shows downloading files, then it looks up-to-date but the display doesnot change. If i kill and restart the android app, it downloads right away.
Any recommndations about a ‘permanent’ background for a layout? I will try what you recommended in regard to removing the background, etc.
It seems to me that you’re doing it just fine, the problem probably is caused by:
So when you make some changes / schedule different layout etc, your device will show that it’s outdated, then download new files and be ready to display new/updated layout.
Although it will not actually display this updated layout until your current layout is still playing ie it needs to refresh/reload to show changes and with 99999s duration you might need to wait up to ~28h for that to happen or as you did restart your client manually.
In conclusion, you might want to lower that duration on your layout, especially with you often make changes to it.
I’ve been doing some additional testing. I recreated my layouts so that they use a new image added to the media library but kept the default duration of 10 seconds. I tried designing the layouts in two different ways - 1) the image is used as the background of the layout and 2) without a background image but with an image added to the timeline of a full width/height region (also with a default of 10 second duration). It seems like I’m having better results if I use an image in a full size region and not a background image. Is there a reason why this should be the case? Or should I test further just to make sure that this is in fact what’s happening?
For the time being I anticipate that I need to make changes to the displays a couple of times a day. So, when I need to change a display, I output my new image from Photoshop, find the corresponding image in the Xibo media library, then do Edit -> Choose File (to find update local file) -> turn on all 3 checkboxes below (Update this media, Delete the old…, Replace background…) --> click Save. Is this the proper procedure to update my media in my particular case?
Is there anything else that you recommend that I try in general? I will be making more complex layouts with multiple regions, etc soon but I do anticipate that I will continue to use images from Photoshop.
It shouldn’t matter if the image is set as a background or in full screen region - it would matter on Windows clients, but on Android it should be fine either way.
One thing that you may have a look at is the dpi of your images, Displaying Images
really high dpi can cause issues in some cases.
Regarding changing the image, yes you’re correct, that will replace the image in CMS library and on all layouts this previous image was assigned to.
General advice, other than keeping the durations in mind, not really, there might be some case specific recommendations/issues, but that’s more on a case by case basis.
Just checked my images and they are 72 dpi. I’ll keep monitoring how things go as I make changes. RIght now all my layouts use an image in a ful-size region. I will change them to use backgrounds and test again since you say it doesn’t matter. Thanks again for all your help.
