Hi,
We have a couple displays set up in different areas and each display has its own playlist.
I want to have a “command center” where the different displays all show up on the same monitor in a multiviewer grid. So not a single display running 4 playlists one after each other, but multiple displays on a single monitor running 1 playlist each. This way you can see all of them at the same time.
I think I’ve figured out most of the configurations to resize / reposition the screens to create the multiviewer effect, but I’m having a problem running more than one player at the same time on the computer.
Here is what I did…
Installed Xibo on the computer.
Copied the original “C:\Xibo Library” to create a new folder for each instance, so now I have:
C:\Xibo Library
C:\Xibo Library 2
C:\Xibo Library 3
C:\Xibo Library 4
Copied the original “C:\Program Files (x86)\Xibo Player” to create a new folder for each instance, so now I have:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Xibo Player
C:\Program Files (x86)\Xibo Player 2
C:\Program Files (x86)\Xibo Player 3
C:\Program Files (x86)\Xibo Player 4
Inside the Program Files (x86) folder I renamed these files for each player (I’m just showing player 4 below to save repetition…):
.\XiboClient.exe --> .\XiboClient4.exe
.\watchdog\x86\XiboCleintWatchdog.exe --> .\watchdog\x86\XiboCleintWatchdog4.exe
.\watchdog\x86\XiboCleintWatchdog.exe.config --> .\watchdog\x86\XiboCleintWatchdog4.exe.config
Within .\watchdog\x86\XiboCleintWatchdogX.exe.config I changed:
C:\Xibo Library 4
The Windows Start Menu shortcuts were updated to point the “target” & “start in” to point to the appropriate folder & file name.
When first launching (i.e. opening the short cut “Xibo Player 4 Options”) the Local Library path was updated and the last digit in the Display ID was changed to make it unique.
I have configured display setting profiles to put displays ¼ the screen size, then position them in each corner, and then assign a different profile to each Player. When I run them one at a time, they show up in the right places. So config wise I think it is all OK.
However, when ever I run more than one display at a time the second display crashes. The screen is initially shown and the first slide starts to load, but then it shuts down. Whichever one is initially running stays up, but any other ones don’t launch properly.
Looking in the log.xml files of the player that crashes I see:
2019-02-08 09:42:16EmbeddedServerEmbeddedServer - RunException running server: One or more errors occurred.
2019-02-08 09:42:16MainUnhandled Exception: A Task’s exception(s) were not observed either by Waiting on the Task or accessing its Exception property. As a result, the unobserved exception was rethrown by the finalizer thread.
It seems like the players are competing for a shared resource, but I can’t figure out which one. Did I miss something when setting up the multiple displays?
Not sure if it’s related, but the watchdog is only started automatically for Player 1. If I want to use the watchdog for Players 2-4 I need to launch the watchdog app explicitly. Once launched, the other watchdog applications work fine and tries to keep the appropriate Player alive, it is just that they don’t start automatically when launching the Player itself.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!