Player offline

The screen overview in the CMS marks a player as offline when no heartbeat has come in for more than a few minutes. Five reasons, in order of likelihood.

1. No power or the device is off

Always start here. Does someone switch the TV off after closing time? The player sends no heartbeat until it is back on. A short power cut during opening hours? Same thing.

Check: is the screen plugged in? Is the player’s light on?

2. Wifi connection lost

The second most common cause. The player needs internet to send heartbeats.

Check: is the wifi still active where the player hangs? Can you connect to the same network with a phone? Does the network work but the player is out of range? Was the wifi password changed? Was the device kicked off the network?

Fix: reconnect the player to the wifi through the settings on the device itself. On the gibeon.io player you can do that with the remote control and the wifi panel.

3. Captive portal (guest wifi, hotel network)

Some networks require a browser login per device. That is called a captive portal. The player cannot get through it.

Fix: choose a network without a portal page. Ask the IT department for a fixed SSID + password if one is available.

4. A firewall blocks connections

In company networks a strict firewall sometimes blocks heartbeat traffic. See wifi and firewall for the exact URLs and ports that need to be open.

5. The player hangs or has crashed

Rare, but possible. The player software stops without an error and sends no more heartbeats while the device itself is still on.

Fix: restart the player. See restart the player.

If everything looks fine

Went through steps 1-5 without success? Email [email protected] with the name of the screen and the time of the last heartbeat (visible on the screen detail page). We look in the logs.