Linux Player - Technology Preview 1.8-beta1

Announcements Blog
1

Today we're making available our first beta release of the forthcoming Player for Linux.

This new version has the following changes over 1.8-alpha8:

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://blog.xibo.org.uk/linux-player-technology-preview-1-8-beta1/
2

I have the CMS up and running on a Mac Mini(!), and a test player is running fine on a Windows machine. I’m getting this message repeating in Terminal in (virtualized) Ubuntu with the new beta player (which was downloaded from the Ubuntu Software app):

“Viewpoint argument value “[[viewpointwidth]]” for key “width” is invalid, and has been ignored.”

and the default layout is being displayed.

3

I’m trying to view a shared page of Power BI, but it throws the error:

Sandbox access violation: Blocked a frame at “https://app.powerbi.com” from accessing a frame at “https://app.powerbi.com”. The frame requesting access is sandboxed and lacks the “allow-same-origin” flag.

And also

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=ey( displayed insecure content from blob:null/(…)

4

I installed the player and my first impressioin is great!
I notices that the Screenshot Collection Interval is 300 secs (5 min) in the player.
In the cms I configured this interval to 0 seconds to recieve the screenshot right away.

How can I change the Screenshot Collection Interval in the Linux Player?

5

Thanks for letting us know - this message is more of a warning than an error - we will smooth that out.

6

Are you using a webpage widget for that, set to open natively? Or are you using one of the other options?

7

Thanks for your feedback!

The screenshot feature isn’t implemented yet - it is on our list and will be tackled in a later release.

8

I used the webpage widget. But it also does not work with the embbedd. The result is the same, only page background.

9

Response intended for 1.8-beta1

10

@Mark_Reitzel - thanks for your feedback. Can you start the player from a terminal window and paste us the output while the splash screen is showing?

11

To be specific to get that to work you would need to use the WebPage Widget with your desired URL and set the options to “Open Natively”.

Embedding will not work due to powerbi’s frame origin policies.

Open Natively doesn’t use an frame and therefore wouldn’t trip that protection. (I am assuming here that you are allowed to embed powerbi in this way - I have no idea what their terms are).

13

osboxes@osboxes:~$ xibo-player
[11:38:58.617] [026686] [error]: [jquery.marquee.min.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.626] [026687] [error]: [flipclock.min.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.634] [026691] [error]: [13.ttf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.635] [026688] [error]: [jquery-cycle-2.1.6.min.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.635] [026690] [error]: [pdf.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.636] [026689] [error]: [compatibility.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.638] [026694] [error]: [xibo-text-render.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.638] [026695] [error]: [xibo-layout-scaler.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.638] [026693] [error]: [xibo-dataset-render.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.639] [026696] [error]: [moment.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.639] [026692] [error]: [11.otf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.640] [026697] [error]: [xibo-webpage-render.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.642] [026698] [error]: [jquery-1.11.1.min.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.644] [026699] [error]: [pdf.worker.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.648] [026701] [error]: [12.ttf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.648] [026700] [error]: [14.otf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.650] [026705] [error]: [18.xlf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.650] [026704] [error]: [1.xlf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.650] [026703] [error]: [xibo-image-render.js] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused
[11:38:58.650] [026702] [error]: [10.otf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused

14

Installed Linux Player 1.8-beta1 on CentOS 7. Layout had 2 ticker widget, a time widget, and a video widget. The text and time content looks great! The video content is an mp4 created from a Power Point presentation. Only the first slide is shown.

15

Update: The video appears to play if I explicitly set a duration.

16

Hi Bradley - would you mind sending us the video? https://transfer.xibo.org.uk and then PM me the link?

17

Hi Mark - those error messages indicate that the Player can’t download those files from the CMS (the CMS web server says connection refused). Do you have other Players connected to that CMS without issue?

Is your CMS a Docker install or something else?

18

Hi Dan

Yes, CMS is a docker install. The linux player registers with the CMS. My local library is my desktop, so I can see cachedfiles.xml, 56.html, 2.html and 1.html arrive on the desktop after the player registers.

Isn’t the player supposed to run, even it it can’t connect to the CMS?

I have the linux player running in a VM on a laptop with WIN 10 as the host OS. I have a windows player running on the host OS and it connects to the CMS, without any problems.

Mark

19

Ordinarily yes it would, but it does need to download a bunch of files from the CMS first - so on first run you’d expect the see the splash screen until those files can be downloaded.

Unfortunately it seems that a whole lot of those files can’t be downloaded for some reason.

Could you try logging into the CMS, going to Display Admin, editing the linux player record, selecting advanced and ensuring clear cache is ticked and save? At the same time, can you try going to Modules → Verify Module files (top right).

20

Dan,

I verified modules. I didn’t see ‘clear cache’ but enabled ‘Expire modified layout’.

I also…

  • Updated CMS to 2.0.2 from 2.0.1

  • Uninstalled and reinstalled linux player snap

  • Confirmed that a windows player in a WIN10 image (with firewall turned off) running in virtualbox (with bridged networks) works.

  • Enabled debug logging in CMS. Nothing stuck out to me as significant. Mostly repeated messages from the player…
    Channel = PLAYER
    Function= POST
    Level = ERROR
    Messasge = [10.otf] Download error: [HTTP] Connection refused

  • Inside the ubuntu VM on Virtualbox, I can see that the CMS port 9505 is opened by ZeroMQ ZMTP 2.0.

  • Don’t think this matters, but my docker instance maps port 1081 into port 80.

  • Captured ethernet packets between player and CMS. Couldn’t read them (encrypted) but it does show player initiating connection with CMS on both ports 1081 and 9505. Multiple packets sent from CMS to player on 1081, and only 1 packet sent on 9505.

Is ‘Connection Refused’ generated by player or CMS?
Should I be (or not be) root while running Linux player?

Mark

21

Hi,

I’m able to get the player to register at CMS, but all the files it downloads are like this:

301 Moved Permanently

Moved Permanenetly

The document has moved here.

Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu) Server at oursite.com Port 80

If I remove the schedule.xml file from /snap/xibo-player/17 -directory the player opens a splashscreen
runs for while and then crashes, after which it points to .xlf-file, which contains the same data as every other file in the
library (even images are text documents with the contents shown above).
The CMS was installed with docker and the version is 2.0.2. I tested the Linux Player with two different Ubuntu installations, and both of them
wrote all the files with the html error message.
Windows player works fine.