Studio v 4.10.20 Ad packages start time

[AndrewL]

Hello,

I'm trying to make a resource ad package start on a future date but it keeps reverting back to todays date when I go to save it. I have verified that the ads that are supposed to be future dated are in fact playing on todays date which is wrong.

Additionally, the check for updates button on the studio is not updating my stations to the latest version of 4.10.x (all 12 stations impacted are running xp with air versions 3.4.0.2540). The stations need to be upgraded from 4.0.70 and greater to the 4.10.x in order for the ad packages to work.

Please advise.

Andrew

[criley]

Good Morning Andrew,

First, please look at the resources to make sure they are in the proper Ad package. You can do this two ways.
1) From Local Ads- click on the package that you believe your ads are running in and see if they appear in the content area. Then look to the right sidebar and make sure the dates are in deed correct while you have "Play only between dates" selected.

2) Click on the resource in the timeline and see the ad package it belongs to under the properties area within proof of play. Again, making sure that "Proof of Play' is checked. Now select Save/Upload from the menu.

You also want to make sure that the proper campaign is assigned to your player. I only suggest this as some may duplicate campaigns to "test" out the ad network and do not realize that they forgot to switch the campaigns in the player. So the original is what they are seeing and of course will see content playing that was scheduled for the future and proof of play is not set in that campaign.

As for updating, I believe you will need to update all of your players manually that were not updated to the latest release because they were either beta or pre-beta and to prevent those from updating to a beta and causing issues, the auto-update was turned off. Once you have updated all players to the latest (Stable) release, your players should be able to update via the update button.

I hope this helps.

[ANOOP]

Update the air to 3.5 .0  , you can update to the latest players from the station

[AndrewL]

Hey C,

It is all set up correctly. The problem is within the tab Local Ads and then the properties of the ad package it gives you the option to Always Play or Play only between dates.

When you select Play Only Between Dates you can choose the start and end date. When you change the start date it will revert back to todays date when you save... I believe it is a bug in the studio.

Hey Anoop,

Updating Air worked... does anyone know of a way to have AIR auto update and install? It will be impossible for me to manually install AIR each time it has a new version just so that my signage software can stay up to date.

Thanks,

Andrew

[admin]

Hey C,

It is all set up correctly. The problem is within the tab Local Ads and then the properties of the ad package it gives you the option to Always Play or Play only between dates.

When you select Play Only Between Dates you can choose the start and end date. When you change the start date it will revert back to todays date when you save... I believe it is a bug in the studio.

Hey Anoop,

Updating Air worked... does anyone know of a way to have AIR auto update and install? It will be impossible for me to manually install AIR each time it has a new version just so that my signage software can stay up to date.

Thanks,

Andrew

Try clearing the studio cache...

Close Studio

In XP
Delete C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\SignageStudio.XXX
(USER_NAME = logged on windows XP user)

In Windows 7 / Vista
Delete C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\SignageStudio.XXX
To get to this folder, Click on Start, and on the search field type %appdata% hit enter, and then delete the SignageStudio.xxxx folder.

See if it helps.

[criley]

That is good news as far as your update. For me Adobe Air asks me to update when I log onto Studio when there is an update available. Assuming you are asking about Studio.

I am not having the issue with the date reverting back. I have tried everything I can think of. Can you try adding one resource at a time to see if a resource is conflicting with the studio somehow? Most likely it would be a SWF. It is just a thought. Another thought might be to delete the cache of the Studio. (Try that first as it is not time-consuming)

[criley]

I see Admin got to the cache suggestion first. 

[ANOOP]

I think signage player prior to downloading the latest updates checks for the adobe air 3.5.0 and in case adobe air latest is not there it tries to update, but that was not happening not sure if it was because of the administrator rights not given for installing the adobe air.  I had seen this initially when the player 4.10 . was launched i am not sure if this still exists, only MS guys can give the clarity.

[AndrewL]

Clearing cache did not work ..

But what did work was I just changed it back to Always Play, saved it, then changed it back to Play Only Between Dates - very very odd

Criley - was talking about updating AIR on all of the players out in the field. It takes a long time to update each station one at a time remotely which is why I will need to figure out how to get AIR to auto install on my players (windows xp and 7 based players)

Thanks guys,

Andrew

[AndrewL]

Im not entirely positive on this as Im not a flash programmer but I think to auto update air it needs to be a part of the install file of the program... admin is this correct and if so is that something your developers can do?

[AndrewL]

Nevermind - I found out how to auto update AIR -

[AndrewL]

annnnnnd maybe not - I found Adobe Air Settings Manager which has an auto update option... but it is not an auto updater but more on the lines of an auto notify that there is a new version to download ugh..

I am going back to my original thing about including an auto install of AIR in the signage studio updater. If I had 100 players out there and had to manually update AIR that would just take too much time. There has to be a better way...

[criley]

I am not sure how many times you would have to update Air. You may be able to turn of notifications and only update when MediaSignage says that it is necessary. I guess that would depend if the new builds require the latest Air build or not. Are the players on the same computer network and in the same domain? If so, you could update via the windows server all at once.

[AndrewL]

I had to update air to 3.4 at the time for player version 4.0 to work and now air 3.5 for version 4.1 to work.

I am sure that future signage patches will require air updates as well.

The PCs are all stand alone players all in different locations not a part of any networks unfortunately.

just to clarify, the problem I am having is not being notified to update air, it is having to manually update air per station.

[ANOOP]

@Andrew : This is the reason why we all love LOGMEIN .... Information technology is all about UPDATES otherwise we will never survive