SignagePlayer doesn't work offline

[addy4488]

Hi

I continually fail to understand why, when SignagePlayer has a working internet connection, and that connection, drops, why SignagePlayer then poops itself and crashes, then simply bounces between the white loading box, and the desktop. Why can't it fail gracefully into offline mode and just reconnect when the internet connection comes back up?

We have 400+ stations, all of which are located in our branches, and all route traffic over our MPLS and out of the internet connection at the datacenter.
When our MPLS line went down yesterday, ALL stations simply broke and we received calls galore.

Have I missed something completely, is there a setting to be changed that allows this to seamlessly switch between the 2 modes?
All stations are Windows 7 (x64) with all latest updates, all running version 5.0.99

Any advice is appreciated

[topangan]

To add to this thread, my experience has been somewhat similar.  I have not had any problems with a hard wired internet connection.  If I am using wireless, that is when the issue pops up so my comments are strictly for wireless...

If there is no wireless internet connection available at all when the signage player starts up (if the campaign is already loaded), it plays to the campaign as expected.  If you are using a wireless internet connection (including any previous connections that have been saved) and the connection is poor or signal is weak or has some other trouble, the player struggles to start playing the campaign. 

As an example, yesterday I had a customer call me saying his player stopped working (MS200 player with win7 embed and latest version).  I went to the site and the screen was blank.  What I found out was they changed their router and gave the ssid and the password the same credentials as before so the signage player would not connect to the new wireless that it was connected to previously.  I would have expected the player to start playing the campaign in offline mode but the screen was blank.  I deleted the previous connection and then re-connected to the new router using the same ssid and password and wallah it started playing again.  I have experienced this type of behavior many times previously when the wireless signal or connection is poor.

Overall, I do like the application/service that Digital Signage provides and I am a satisfied user but the product is not perfect.  There is no perfect product...You just find workarounds.  However it would be great if the DS team could tackle this one as it has been happening for quite a long time (I been an enterprise user for 3 years).  Hopefully sharing this information will help towards a solution.

[admin]

thanks for the feedback, we do plan on going back to optimizing the wifi connection retry as soon as mediaTOUCH is out later this summer,
regards.

[mayte]

Adding to this post; we have 20 android screens installed on buses that connect to the internet over WiFi when bus drives thru reporting station (every 5 hours aprox); after a while when bus has long left the reporting station, and therefore no WiFi in range, screens goes black and displays message indicating that is trying to connect and is kept in that loop until screen is rebooted.

We have installed the watchdogandroid.apk (not SignageController.apk)

Should we switch to SignageController.apk controller ?, whats the difference?

Thanks

Mayte

[admin]

Yes, we will look into this after the MediaTOUCH release.

[mayte]

Will MediaTOUCH  release fix it if we are CLOUD based? When is that scheduled for? I would like to hire a developer to fix it? because in the meantime 90% of the time devices are black!

Overall I am very happy with DS but this issue makes product totally unusable to us unless we hire someone that manually enable/disable WiFi for updates.

Mayte

[admin]

Is the wifi access point on the station or on the bus itself?

Maybe an access point on the bus itself, so the player does not lose wifi access is better suited in your setup.  The access point then connects to the Stations wifi when they are within range.  In this case the players wifi is always online. Even a 3g usb dongle would work.

[mayte]

Yes, we though of that workaround and actually testing today with a MiFi. However means getting a MiFi and a cellular plan for each bus that adds to the overhead and really not necesary as we have WiFi on the bus station.

[admin]

just a small wireless repeater on the bus the connects to the main wifi on the station when it is in range would do.