Knowledge Base
Resolving Software Activation Failure
Summary:
This article describes steps to resolving software activation problems.
Details:
Successful Software Activation requires an Active Internet connection either on the computer that are attempting to activate Spyeworks (Internet activation), or via a web browser connection on another computer (Self Service).
If your Internet access is governed by a Proxy server that requires authentication the Spyeworks activation software components will detect the proxy and prompt you for a user name and password before attempting the activation of a license key.
Software Activation can fail due to one of the following reasons:
1. The license key is invalid - The license key that you have entered may have been entered incorrectly, re-enter the key and try again.
2. The license key has already been activated - The license key that you are using may have already been used to activate software on another computer.
3. The license key has expired - In the case of software evaluation, the license key will only be valid for the evaluation period starting from the time the software was activated.
4. The license key is not the correct key for the application you are activating - You may be attempting to activate a software application with a key for a different application. A Spyeworks Scheduler license key cannot be used to activate a Spyeworks. Ensure that you are using the correct key for the application.
5. Activation via 3G network - Some 3G network devices disable other network devices on your computer when you connect via 3G. Software activation uses information from your network card during the activation process and if your network devices are disabled, the activation process will only uses the 3G device information. If you subsequently remove the 3G device, the software will prompt for re-activation. To resolve this, enable your other network cards on the PC once your 3G connection is established.
If you continue to experience problems when attempting to activate the software, ensure that your Internet by connection is functioning by opening Google or any other well known web address in a browser window. If you can't open a website that you know is currently available, check the following:
1. Check that you do in fact have network connectivity, you should be able to ping a gateway, router or another device.
2. Ensure your DNS settings are correct. Can you ping www.google.com?
3. Check the connection settings for Internet Explorer, particularly the proxy configuration.
If any of the tests listed above do not work as expected then you must address incorrect configuration data before you can successfully activate.
How to display a RSS feed in a Digital Sign
Summary:
In addition to displaying news in a scrolling ticker asset, you can display a live RSS feed in a Digital Sign.
Details:
In the Digital Sign Creator, a text field can be linked to a text field in a XML file. Most RSS feeds store the data inside tags. To display the content of an RSS feed inside a digital sign, create two text fields. Link the first text field to the . Assign the refresh time as 'Viewer read time'. The digital sign will now step through each news item in the RSS file and display the content for a period that matches the average user read time.
Register a new player in the network manager
Summary:
This article describes the steps to inserting a new player into your Digital Signage Network Manager database.
Details:
Start the network manager application. The left hand side of the screen lists the location tree which is a hierarchical tree structure of the various sites you may have. You are free to manipulate this tree structure as you wish by adding or removing locations. If you already have a location created, skip to step 2, if not follow step 1.
Step 1. Create a new location
Right click in the left hand window pane in the network manager. Select Insert.... Enter the name of the new location.
Step 2. Select the location of your new player
Select the location by clicking on it in the location tree.
Step 3. Right click in the right hand portion of the network manager.
Select Insert...Device. In the Device Properties window, enter a name for the new player, this name should be unique.
Step 4. Click on the Networking tab.
Enter the hostname or IP address of the player in the Address field.
Click OK to store the new player. To test the connection to the player, right click on the player icon and select Poll Device for Status. You should see a status message at the bottom of the screen displaying the status and result of this operation. Once the operation has completed, double click on the Player icon to see a list of telemetric data that has been retrieved from the player device.
Troubleshooting
You may receive one of the following error messages, the possible cause is listed alongside each message.
Connection refused. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it
This error occurs when a remote player is not listening on the port number that you are attempting to connect to. For example, the default DS Agent port number is 9000. If you attempt a connection on any other port number you will recieve this error messages. Other causes are that you have the correct port number but the remote PC does not have an application running that is listening to this port number, for example the DS Agent has not been executed. Another cause could be that you have an incorrect IP address or host name for the player.
Connection timed out. A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond
This error usually occurs when the remote player PC has a firewall running, or there is problem with your network configuration and the IP address routing is not working - possibly due to an incorrect network address mask.
Can Spyeworks control a projector or plasma screen?
Details:
Yes. Through the use of plug-in DLL's, Spyeworks can control a wide range of A/V equipment.
Hide portions on a website using offsets
Details:
• When displaying an online website you may want to hide the top of the website or the left or right portion of the website layout. To do this using Spyeworks, open the Spyeworks Scheduler. Select File...Administration...Meta Data
• Click Add...
• Add a new meta tag called XOFFSET
• Click OK
• Repeat steps 2 to 4 and create a tag called YOFFSET
• Close the meta data dialog window
If you have not already done so, create a new HTML asset with your online website address.
Double click on the website asset. The meta data tag section is located at the bottom of the asset properties window. Look for the XOFFSET and YOFFSET tags. Double click on each tag and enter a pixel coordinate relative to the top left hand corner of the display.
When the asset is played out, the player will offset the layer content using the pixel coordinates you have specified, thereby hiding the portion of the website that you don't want to have displayed.
Interactive Flash content flickers on and off the screen
Summary:
Adobe Flash content authored with ActionScript may flash on and off the display for a brief period of time during playback
Details:
When you register an Adobe Flash file (.swf) to the Spyeworks Scheduler as an asset, Spyeworks will attempt to parse out the Flash header from the file, this header details the frame rate and frame count which is used to determine the duration of the Flash file.
When a Flash file contains Action Script to provide interactivity, the header will not contain valid frame count and frame rate values that can be used to calculate the duration of the content. In stands to reason that an interactive flash file has no defined duration. With this kind of content, the Player incorrectly terminates playback of the Flash content almost immediately after playback has started due to the incorrect header specification.
When the flash file is registered, the Spyeworks Scheduler will register the Flash file as an asset with a duration of 10 seconds. The frame count will usually be shown with a value of 1 or 2 frames. To ensure that playback is performed correctly:
• Ensure that you set the frame count to 1.
• Set the duration of the asset to the required duration for playback To play this content correctly, set the asset frame count to 1 and then manually define the duration of the asset using the timecode field.
Usability tip: Drag a playlist file directly into Spyeworks Scheduler
Summary:
Spyeworks playlist files can be imported into the Spyeworks Scheduler using drag and drop.
Details:
To import a playlist into the Spyeworks Scheduler using an existing .dml file, drag the playlist file directly into the center window pane in Spyeworks Scheduler. The Scheduler will import the playlist, layers and asset file definitions in the playlist. If the assets are already registered the Scheduler will update the playlist to use the registered assets and assets that are not registered will be created under a category called Imported.
What does 'Connection refused. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it' mean?
Details:
A network application such as the Digital Signage Network Management Agent (dsagent.exe) will listen for incoming connections on a specific port - in the case of the dsagent, this port number is by default 9000.
If a remote client application attempts to connect to the dsagent on a different port number, or if the dsagent is not running, the error message 'Connection refused. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it' is displayed.
Resolution: Ensure that the remote application is running and that it is listening on the same port number that you are attempting to connect to.
Troubleshooting: Distributing Playlists and Content to a Player
Details:
If you are unable to upload a playlist to a player, check the following configuration items on your Player device:
• Windows Firewall Setting
Ensure that your Windows Firewall is disabled, or add an exception for port 8448 TCP.
• DS Agent Running
Ensure that the DS Agent software is running. If not, you will receive the following error message when you attempt to upload: 'No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it'
• DS Agent Configuration
Open the DS Agent and click on the Configure button. Click on the File Transfer tab. Make sure that Allow incoming file transfers is checked. The default username is username and the default password is password; these authentication details are internal to Spyeworks and do not represent the current Windows user details. When changing the username and password ensure that change the record username and password in the device properties in the Network Manager as well.
• 3rd Party Firewall Software
If you are running firewall software such as McAfee or Norton Internet Security you may recieve the following error message when you upload a playlist to the player: 'Connection timed out. A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond'. To remedy this condition, add an exception for the DS Agent executable (dsagent.exe) and open ports 8448 and 9000, or disable the firewall software.
If you continue to experience difficulty uploading, check the Player device properties in the Digital Signage Network Manager:
• Verify that the IP address is correct
• Ensure that the 'This device can receive files' option is checked
• Unless you are using the FTP file transfer protocol, set the Protocol to DFT
• The default username is username, not the Windows user name
• The default password is password
What file transfer protocols does Spyeworks use?
Details:
Spyeworks has three file transfer protocols available for content distribution:
• FTP
• DFT (proprietary encrypted file transfer)
• UFTP (reliable multicast with FEC)
In addition to this a FTP pull client is also available for configurations that require content pull down.
A new playlist is delivered to a player but the player ignores the playlist
Details:
The Spyeworks Player will always play that latest playlist file (.dml) according to the modified file date and time. In addition to this, each playlist contains a start and end date & time, this allows for multiple playlists to be stored a on drive for future playback.
If your playlist is played out, check the following items:
• Check that the date and time on the PC is correct
• Check the start date and end of the playlist file in the Spyeworks Scheduler
• Ensure that the playlist file is stored in the content folder specified in the Spyeworks Player configuration file spyeworksplayer.ini
Use meta data fields to add information about each asset
Details:
To make asset searching easier when you have a large number of assets, use the meta data tags to add additional information to each asset record that will assist in asset searches at a later date.
Upgrade a player remotely using a service pack
Details:
This topic describes the procedure for upgrading a running instance of the Spyeworks Player over the network using a Player service pack file obtained from Spyeworks support website (see downloads section). You will need the Digital Signage Network Manager to complete this process.
• Execute the Digital Signage Network Manager
• Deploy the service pack .exe file to the PC using the File Transfer option (select File... Transfer...). When you deploy the file you may specify a folder on the remote PC as a target path.
• If you have specified a remote folder the service pack .exe will be executed from that folder, alternatively if did not specify a remote folder you can execute the .exe using the remote path c:\program files\common files\digitalcourier\in\
• To execute the .exe, select the device in the network manager, right click, select Action... Execute... and enter the full path of the executable on the remote PC e.g. c:\program files\common files\digitalcourier\in\dmpu44937.exe. The service pack .exe will close the player, upgrade it and then restart the player automatically. To confirm that the upgrade was successfull, poll the Player using the network manager and compare the Spyeworks Player version to the version number in the service pack .exe, e.g. as shown above the dmpu44937.exe would upgrade the player to version 4.4.9.37.
Unable to retrieve a screenshot from a remote player
Details:
If you are unable to retrieve a screenshot from the player, follow these steps to resolve the problem:
• Ensure that the address for the player is correct in the Network Manager
• Ensure that DS Agent (dsagent.exe) is running on the remote player - look for the DS Agent icon located next to the time at the bottom right of the screen.
• Ensure that the Windows Firewall is disabled on the remote player, or if it is enabled add a port exception for port number 9000 (TCP).
• Check that you have the right display number defined for this player in the Device Properties window in the network manager (Display tab).
You can drag a playlist into the asset registration pane and create an asset from a playlist
Details:
Playlists can be registered as assets. This means that you can create a layered playlist, add your assets and then register your playlist as an asset. By registering one or more playlists as assets, these playlists can be inserted into a fullscreen playlist to provide a variety of layouts in a loop list or scheduled basis.
You can drag an asset category directly into a playlist
Details:
To add all the assets in a category to a playlist, select the category and drag it into your loop list or scheduled time slot. All the assets in the category will be individually added to the playlist.
You can retrieve a live stream of screenshots from a remote player
Details:
To view a constant stream of screenshots from a specific device, right click on the device in the Network Manager and select More Screenshots.... In the screenshot dialog window, enable the Go Live checkbox and then click Request. A constant stream of screenshots will now be retrieved from the site until you uncheck Go Live.
How to close the Spyeworks Player when previewing a playlist
Summary:
The Spyeworks Player does not always respond to the Esc key, this article describes steps to controlling the Spyeworks Player.
Details:
By default the Spyeworks Player will stop playback and exit when you press Esc, however some of the Codecs used to play multimedia assets intercept the Esc key and prevent the player from closing. Another method of closing the player is to press Alt-F4 (hold down Alt and press F4).
Adding Assets to a playlists Scheduled items
Summary:
When it comes to scheduling assets for playback at specific times there are various options available to you.
Details:
By dragging one or more assets onto a time slot in the Scheduled section of a Spyeworks Playlist, the assets are scheduled to play at the start time specified by the time slot where the assets where dropped. By default the assets are scheduled to play everyday at the selected time. To schedule items for the current day only hold down the Ctrl key when dragging and dropping assets into the Scheduled list.
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