This article works from the symptom. Find yours in the table below, then work down the checks in that section. If the screen is showing a message, On-screen messages explained covers each one individually and is the faster route.
Find your symptom
| Symptom | First thing to do |
|---|---|
| The screen is completely black | Check the screen's power and input |
| A message instead of content | Look the message up in On-screen messages explained |
| The wrong content is playing | Follow the Content column link in Builder |
| A Builder change hasn't appeared | Wait five minutes, then press Reload display |
| The display shows as offline | Check the device's network |
| It's back on the provisioning screen | Reconnect it with its activation key |
| Video stutters or won't start | Check the file size, format and Don't transform |
| Video has no sound | Check the source file has an audio track |
| Two screens are out of step | Check Sync display is on for both |
| A location program isn't behaving | Check the location source and the poll interval |
| The app closed or crashed | Check the app version in Diagnostics |
First: gather three things
Collect these three answers before anything else. They narrow the problem down immediately, and they're the first thing support will ask for.
1. What does the screen actually say? A message, a black screen, and content that's wrong are three different problems.
2. What does Builder say? Find the display and look at its status badge and last-seen time. See Display status: what the badges mean.
3. What does the display's Diagnostics panel say? Open the settings overlay on the device and read the project name, activation key, region and app version. See Open the on-device settings overlay.
The Diagnostics panel answers "is this screen even the display record I'm looking at in Builder?"
The screen is completely black
Work down these five checks, starting at the screen itself and ending at the device's power settings.
Is the screen itself on and on the right input?
Is the device powered? A Fire TV Stick powered from the TV's USB port loses power whenever the TV does. Use the supplied adapter in a wall socket.
Did the device boot into the app? Some devices come back to their launcher after a power cut rather than into the app. On an Android TV box, look for a manufacturer auto-start app setting. On Windows and macOS, check auto-login and the startup item.
Is it a location program display, outside every zone? That's a blank screen by design, not a fault. See Location programs: zones and live maps.
Is it asleep? Check the device's display timeout, screensaver and power settings.
The display shows a message instead of content
Look the message up in On-screen messages explained, where every message is listed with its cause and fix.
The two most common:
- "This display is connected — waiting for content": the display isn't in a project yet. Set its Project in Builder.
- "Display has no running playlists": it's in a project but has nothing to play. That means no content assigned, an empty playlist or schedule, or a schedule whose blocks don't cover right now. Check the Content column first, then the display's timezone.
The wrong content is playing
Start from what Builder says is assigned, then confirm you're looking at the right display record.
Follow the Content column link in the project's Displays table. It goes straight to whatever is assigned, and the display is usually playing that faithfully.
Check the display record is the one you think it is. Read the activation key off the device's Diagnostics panel and compare it to the record in Builder.
If it's a schedule, check which block is currently active. Of all the blocks whose dates and times cover right now, the one with the lowest priority number wins. Check the timezone too.
If it's a location program, check which zone the display is in. Where zones overlap, the one highest in the list wins.
A change in Builder hasn't appeared on the screen
Give the display five minutes to pick the change up, then force it if you're in a hurry.
Give it five minutes. A playing display checks for changes every five minutes.
Force it. Open the settings overlay on the device and press Reload display.
Check the display is online. In Builder, look at the last-seen time. A display marked offline is running from its cached content and won't receive changes until its connection is restored.
Check you saved. This is easy to miss in the playlist editor, where Save and Save & Close are separate buttons.
See How updates reach your displays.
The display shows as offline in Builder
A display is marked offline after two hours with no contact, so this genuinely means it hasn't been in touch.
Is the screen still playing? If so, the device is running from its cache and only the network is broken.
Check the device's network. Wi-Fi signal behind a wall-mounted panel is a frequent culprit. Check the signal strength on the device after it's mounted, not before.
Check DNS and any filtering proxy. The display needs outbound HTTPS to your region's API host and its media CDN. Allowing *.stqry.com covers it. See Regions and activation keys.
A display that's been idle for over a day only checks in hourly, so an unassigned display last seen 45 minutes ago may be perfectly healthy.
The display has gone back to the provisioning screen
Reconnect it using the display record's activation key. The display record itself, and everything on it, is untouched. See Connect a display to your account.
Something reset it, and there are two ways that happens:
- Somebody held OK / Select for five seconds on the remote and entered the PIN.
- Somebody used Change activation key in the settings overlay.
If this happens repeatedly on a screen the public can reach, consider whether the remote needs to be out of reach.
Video plays badly, stuttering or won't start
Check the file first, then the device, then whether the first load has actually finished.
Check the file size and format. MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio is the safest choice everywhere.
Check whether Don't transform is on. If it is, the display is playing the original file rather than the standard 480p delivery version. That's better quality, but a large master on modest hardware can stutter. Turn it off and let it transcode.
Check the device's capability. An older Fire TV Stick can struggle with continuous high-bitrate 4K video. Try a lower-bitrate export, or move to a Fire TV Cube or an Android TV box.
Check the first load has finished. Everything is cached before anything plays, so a very large file on a slow connection means a long wait rather than a fault.
Video has no sound
Check the source file, then the screen, then the browser if you're running in one.
Check the video has an audio track. Play the source file on your computer.
Check the screen's own volume.
In a browser, some browsers block autoplay with sound. Allow autoplay for the site in the browser's site settings. See Run Signage in a web browser.
There's no mute control and no per-item volume in Signage, so sound comes from the video's own track.
Two screens are out of step
Check that both screens have Sync display on and are playing the same thing, then reload them.
Check Sync display is on for both, not only one. There's a Sync column in the project's Displays table.
Check both are playing the same content.
Check both have the same timezone, if they're running a schedule.
Reload both so each re-measures its time offset.
Panels of different makes have different processing latency, so two screens can be perfectly synchronized and still look a few frames apart. For a genuine video wall, use identical panels.
See Synchronized playback across multiple displays.
A location program isn't behaving
Match your symptom to one of these six, which cover position fixes, triggers and manual cues.
Nothing plays at all, with a satellite icon. There's no position fix. Check the location source mode, the server URL, and the network. See Set a display's location source.
Triggers don't fire. This is usually the poll interval versus the trigger radius. Work out how far the vehicle travels between position updates and compare it to the radius. A 50 m trigger at 60 km/h polling every 10 seconds will be skipped. See Location programs: triggers.
A trigger fires on the wrong leg of the route. Add a fence bearing to make it directional.
A trigger fires once and never again. Check the cooldown. It's measured from when the display is continuously outside the fence.
Triggers are ignored while something plays. That's the default. The program setting When a trigger interrupts defaults to Skip the trigger. Change it to Replace or Queue.
Manual cues don't reach the players. Check each player's Cue source poll interval is shorter than the controller's cue duration, or players will miss cues entirely. See Location programs: manual cues and controller mode.
The app closed or crashed
Check the app version first, since an update fixes most of these.
Check the app version in the Diagnostics panel, and update it from the device's app store.
On older Windows versions, the app used to start and close within a second on machines missing certain runtimes. The current Store version is self-contained and doesn't have this problem, so update it. See Set up Windows.
On a Fire TV, check the screensaver isn't sending the device to its home screen.
Contacting support
Send us these seven things and we can usually answer straight away:
- The display's name and activation key, from Builder or the device's Diagnostics panel
- The region
- The app version and the platform
- What the screen says, or a photo of it
- What Builder's status badge says, and the last-seen time
- What you expected instead
- When it started
A photo of the screen is worth a lot, and so is the Diagnostics panel.
Next steps
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