Signage Pairing & Playout Issues

Where to Find It

Admin portal > Signage > Screens and playlists

Start with the screen record and playlist assignment, then compare it with the physical display.

This is the public playout display. Screen pairing and playlist configuration are managed separately in the admin portal.

Symptoms

• the wrong playlist is showing on a screen
• a screen is blank or stale
• a recent slide update has not appeared
• a replacement device is not behaving like the original screen
• a programme code is missing from a slide
• a room screen shows ema's built-in holding cards instead of your playlist

First Checks

Signage Triage

1. Confirm the screen record is the one you think it is.
2. Confirm the physical device is paired to that screen record.
3. Verify which playlist is targeted at that screen.
4. Check whether the change is in authoring, assignment, or playout propagation.

Inspect Diagnostics on the Display

Open the display with the diag=1 query option, press d, or hold the bottom-right corner for three seconds. Press d again or use Close diagnostics to dismiss the panel. Typing in an input does not trigger the keyboard shortcut. The panel floats over the current content without changing its layout.

Compare the screen's short identifier and name, project, playlist version and current item with the intended destination. Check the last successful fetch, live connection, cached snapshot age, app version, configured and viewport resolutions, device-minus-server clock offset, and last observed error. Unknown information is shown as Unknown; it is not evidence of a healthy connection or a successful cache write.

A disconnected live connection does not alone mean playback has stopped: a known cached snapshot may still be playing. An increasing cache age or a failed network request helps distinguish old content from a successful recent fetch. Report the displayed facts and the time of the problem to your support contact. Do not share the display URL, pairing code or access token; diagnostics do not display those credentials.

Common Causes

• incorrect pairing after hardware swap
• editing the wrong playlist
• expecting a static slide to behave like a data-driven one
• using one overloaded playlist for too many venues or modes
• a screen set to Cloud when it should be Onsite (or the other way round) — only Onsite room holding screens are sent to an on-site server
• a programme code that has not been assigned or was cleared: slides show nothing rather than inventing one, so assign it in Programme Numbering and check the slide with Project at time
• an empty room holding playlist, or one whose scheduled change has passed while the projector was out of contact with its server — the room operator sees Holding playlist empty or Holding playlist expired; add or update the playlist content (see Playlists)
• an uploaded video or image that never reached the on-site server (the operator sees Holding media missing), or a web page that is not https or is not allowed by the on-site server (Holding web address not allowed)

Confirm the physical label

After replacing hardware, label the device or browser session with the screen name. Most signage mistakes during events come from a good playlist being paired to the wrong physical display.