Play window is shifted

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1

Hi, I’m having a strange issue, on some clients (2 out of 8 in total) the player window is shifted randomly to the lower right side of the screen. Sometimes the player is already shifted when it starts, and usually it is gone with one or two reboots and then it come back after some time.

basically when it happens I’ll see a bit of the desktop behind the window on the left and upper sides, the whole content seems to be shifted down and right (it gets “hidden” outside of the screen).

CMS is in version 2.3.9 (docker)
Player is in version windows 2 R257.2-257
Player platform is Windows 10 Pro (up to date)

Can someone help me ?

I wish you all a nice day !

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2

Hi Gaetan_BRISSARD, welcome to the Xibo community!

Thank you for posting about this issue you have discovered on your R257 player. Could you confirm:

  • What steps are taken when the player is started? Does it start automatically or do you manually start the player?
  • What is the full version of Windows are you using? Please make sure to include the build number in your reply. If Windows is not up to date on your machine please can you install up dates and confirm if the issue persists?
  • Do you have a monitor connected to the PC when the player starts, and if yes is it switched on when the player first loads?
  • What player version were you running before you upgraded to R257? If you uninstall R257 and return to that version does the issue persist?

If there is any other information about your setup that could help me replicate your issue please do pass that on too.

Many Thanks.

3

Hi !

So the player starts automatically. The computer is set to boot at a defined time in the morning, then a Windows session is set to autologon and then the player starts when the session is opened. One interesting thing to note is that I’ve had the issue this morning on a player that is physically near to me and left it untouched on purpose. Now that I’m looking back at it, it seems to have returned to a true full screen.

The computer is running Windows 10 2009 (Build 19042.746)

Yes, a screen is always connected to the client. As it is powered off at night the screen usualy goes to power saving mode and wakes up when the computer starts. By the time the player starts the screen is already showing an image.

So I was running both CMS and client on version 1.8.3 not long ago, I’m in the middle of the migration process. The old client (1.8.3) on the new CMS was not giving any issue, it is since I’ve updated the agent (by uninstalling the old one and do a fresh install of the new one) that I’m experiencing this issue.

I can surely give you more info should you require it, but nothing significant is coming to my mind right now.

Thank you very much for the help

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4

Thank you for providing the answers to my questions and the extra information, this is very helpful. I will continue to test and see if I can replicate this.

In your original message you mentioned that this is only happening on some clients, (2 out of 8 in total). Could you check that all of the PCs are updated to the same version? If you notice any differences between the 6 PCs that do not have this issue and the 2 that do, including player settings and the scheduled layouts, this could also help to understand what is happening. If this was an issue with R257 I would expect that all 8 players would consistently have this issue but it’s very interesting that only a couple do.

I also noticed in your first message you said that the player window is shifted randomly to the lower right side of the screen. Sometimes the player is already shifted when it starts. Does this mean that the player can start without this issue but after a period of playback it can happen suddenly? If yes, after how long might you expect to see this behaviour?

When the issue occurs again, please click the i key on a connected keyboard to reveal the status logs for the player. If you could take a screenshot of all of the log entries on that page while the player is shifted, there may be an error or other event that will shed some more light on this issue.

Many Thanks.

5

Hi,

All clients are up to date (centrally managed) but only 3 of them are running R257 as I’m in the middle of my upgrade process (which I’ve paused due to this issue).

And you’re right, the issue can happen (or even resolve) in the middle of a playback.

I have something interesting about the layouts as the two faulty players are the only ones having a web page widget in their layout and being on R257 (and they play the same layout as well). The others usualy plays video but I have one other player displaying a web page (a local HTML file to be precise) but it is still running 1.8.3.

Here’s the screenshot of the “I” menu of one of the players on which I’ve had the issue this morning. I’ve also exported the log using the “save log” button but I can’t upload it here.

2021-04-30 09_19_13-Xibo
2021-04-30 09_19_13-Xibo1178×1019 60.3 KB

Thank you

6

And there it is, my third player running R257 now has the issue fresh of this morning. I thought it was due to the web pages displayed on the other two but this one is only playing video files. I think I’m going to downgrade just to see if it is still happening.

7

My rollback to 1.8.3 seems to be stable so I think I’m going to stick with it for now. I’ll try future versions when they become available.

8

Hi Gaetan_BRISSARD, please excuse my delayed reply.

I have still been unable to reproduce this, I wondered if you could try setting a size and position for your player to see if this helps with the issue? You can set the player size by following the below instructions:

  • Go to the Displays menu in your CMS.
  • Click the button at the end of the entry for your payer and choose Edit from the menu.
  • When the Edit Display window opens, go to the Profile Settings tab and set the top, left width and height settings for your player.
  • Save to confirm.

Once you have set the player size, please wait for the player to connect to your CMS and receive those new settings. Once they have been received, please restart the player. Can you confirm if the same issue occurs?

Many Thanks.

9

This is a follow up message about your issue. I can see another community member has said the issue was resolved for them after completely removing the Xibo player and all associated files from their PC and reinstalling it again. Could you give this a try if you find setting the player window does not resolve the issue?

Many Thanks.

10

Hi,

I’ve since rolled back to 1.8.3 because I needed to get going with the migration, so I don’t have a R252 client anymore.

The reinstall thing I did it many time per affected display and the issue kept coming back, this was before I even opened this thread. Knowing that someone else did get this issue most likely says that it is coming from this version of the player unfortunately …

I’ll try out your first proposition though, on a clean VM, just to see if I can reproduce and fix it through the settings. But I might still wait for a futur version and stick with 1.8.3 even if it’s old.

Thanks

11

Thank you for your reply Gaetan_BRISSARD and for confirming you will try setting the player window size to see if this resolves the issue.

When you reinstalled the player before, did you also remove all traces of Xibo, including the previous local library and any other remaining files?

I have also been discussing this issue with my colleague, who reminded me of an issue previously seen on Windows which would cause the player window to shrink based on the display settings stored in the Windows registry. Below is a link to the guide for that issue, which explains where to find those stored entries. In case this is somehow related to the issue, I would also recommend taking a look at this guide and following the steps. Please note that the settings in the guide refer to a full HD resolution, if you are not using 1920x1080 then you will need to adjust those values to match the resolution of your display.

Many Thanks.

12

HI Gaetan; It seems that severals people 've got this issue.
In my case, I replied to this topic Layout is not adjusted to the screen - #8 by DanBW
See you
Fred
" Hi , same issue randomly on windows players with classic hard drive no SSD (old intel NUC min pc 4Go RAM), I thought it was because of the charging latency of the xibo client (latest 2R257-2) on old device. Juste put on start up menu a ping command ping www.google.fr -n 10, to loose time ;-), this seems working since but …esoteric solution …
Hope will help"

13

This is a follow up message regarding this issue. I have informed the developers about this issue, they have also asked if a User experiencing this issue can set a Top, Left, Width and Height for the player and see if the issue persists? Below are instructions how to do that:

  • Go to the Displays menu in your CMS.
  • Click the button at the end of the entry for your player and choose Edit from the menu.
  • When the Edit Display window opens, go to the Profile Settings tab and set the top, left width and height settings for your player.
  • Save to confirm.

Once you have set the player size, please wait for the player to connect to your CMS and receive those new settings. Once they have been received, please restart the player.

Many Thanks.

14

I hope I am allowed to chime in because I have been battling this exact issue with the symptoms down to a T to what Gaetan is seeing. I too previously was running a pre-v2.0 Xibo CMS and the matching player NEVER had that issue. Since moving to 2.3.10, it happens at random but seemingly only on those clients that have a display connected via VGA. If the display is connected via HDMI, it has not happened as of yet. I have tried the various registry hacks posted in other posts here, but they do not help as the values there were correct from the beginning. The Windows version on the client side has not changed, I simply uninstalled the old player, removed all traces of it, then installed the new player, and initially, it all looked good. I have tested to make sure the display getting turned off by someone, or not being on when the player starts, or any other such permutation made no difference. Whether I connect the display or not changes nothing as far as the Windows resolution is concerned, it stays the same (so it is not the resolution scale-down issue some folks had trouble with) and I am unable to make it go awry. I have added values in the “Display Settings” “Location” tab that match the resolution of the display, to no avail. It works some days, then goes crazy, and after a few reboots, works again.

It is downright maddening, so anything you would like me to try, I will be more than glad to assist! I do not plan to downgrade as it took me an eternity to get the CMS working without docker (docker on Windows Server… ugh!).

Thank you.

15

Hi SwissJay. Thank you for sharing your experiences with this issue, this is helpful information.

Can you confirm the Windows version that you are using, including the current build number? Could you also confirm the player version you have installed? So far the player versions with this issue have been R25x players, I wondered if this is also the case with yours?

If you are indeed using an R25x release of the player, could you try the R203 player? You can download it from the link below:

R203 player download link

Your note on the fact that the issue does not seem to occur when you are using a HDMI connection but does when you use VGA is very interesting. Can the other users in this post confirm the connector type they are using when this issue is occurring?

I can completely understand that this is a frustrating issue, so far I have still been unable to replicate it on my test machine. The developers are also aware of this issue and this topic is referenced in the issue report, so if you discover any new details, please do post them here.

I also wondered if you have seen any errors or warnings in Event viewer at the time the issue is occurring? Any errors or messages that are always present around the time of the issue would be particularly helpful.

Many Thanks.

16

Have also seen the issue when using an Displayport (PC) to HDMI (TV) adapter.
CMS version 2.3.7, client 2R254

17

Thank you sp_etz, I appreciate you confirming you have seen this issue on inputs other than VGA. Can you confirm if you have tried the R20x players instead of the R25x series? If possible could you try installing R203 from the link in my previous message and see if the issue persists?

Many Thanks.

18

Hi DanBW, thanks for your reply.

Our Xibo player clients are currently on Windows 10 1909 (10.0.18363). The Xibo player is indeed v2.257.2. I will downgrade the existing player to R203 to see if it helps.

The observation about HDMI might be misleading in that the player hardware itself is pretty much different on every display. I have 6 displays total now that were added over the years:

  • One NUC connected via HDMI to an HDTV,
  • 1 laptop connected via HDMI to and HDTV,
  • 1 tablet connected via mini-HDMI to a monitor,
  • 1 mini-PC connected via VGA to an HDTV,
  • 2 desktops connected via VGA-over-Ethernet to 3 plasma HDTVs (one player’s output is mirrored to a second screen by an Extron device).

So far, the issue has only been observed on the mini-PC and the 2 desktops, all of which use VGA connections. Thus, I do not know if the digital connection on the other displays plays a role in avoiding some sort of EDID issues or not, which is why I brought it up. However, I am not even sure EDID info from the attached display plays a role at all because Windows is properly displaying and scaled, only the Xibo player is shifted from time to time. All the above computers are typically shut off at 10PM nightly and powered on at 7AM daily, but some nights, they are powered on from 11PM to 4AM for maintenance tasks. The attached displays are shutdown from 11pm until 7am, so some nights, the computer is on without the attached display being on, which plays into the next paragraph.

I am also unable to replicate the issue because some days, everything will look fantastic, and the next, it will be shifted and might take a couple reboots before going back to full screen. Afterwards, I could reboot multiple times and it display properly each time. I have tried starting the Xibo player with the attached display off, then turning it on; turning off the display with the player already running, waiting a bit, then turning the display back on; and completely unplugging the external display, powering the player, then plugging the display into the player after a few minutes, but none of it seems to trigger the issue. My thought was that perhaps the maintenance on some nights running the PC without the attached display being powered on might be causing this, but I cannot find evidence to that. Also, the old Xibo v1.x player ran on the exact same hardware and Windows 10 version without any issues.

As far as the event viewer goes, I cannot find anything in the Applications or the System log, just the usual stuff. Except for Windows 10 Education and the Xibo Player, the only other software installed on those players is the OEM-drivers and SCCM agent with Endpoint Protection (mandated by our system office), again same setup that the v1.x player ran fine on.

I will go ahead and downgrade the player on the 3 devices that the issue has been reported on and see if that helps. Please let me know if there is anything else you would like me to look at.

Thanks!

19

Thank you SwissJay, that’s a lot of really helpful information. Looking at your device list I can understand why you suspected that this could be related to using a VGA. The tests you describe to try to get the player window to shift are also what I have been trying, so far without success. I really appreciate you installing R203 on a machine with this issue so we can see if the issue is only occurring on R25x players. I will wait to hear how the test went.

I also wondered if the Windows edition and build are the same across all of your Windows machines? Just in case this is in fact an issue with specific Windows versions.

Many Thanks.

20

So far, so good on the R203 test. What specifically tipped you off to that release?

Also, yes, all our Xibo players are running on Windows 10 1909 x64.

Thanks!

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