Almost every problem with a new screen is one of a handful of things. Find the one that matches what you are seeing.
The screen shows nothing at all
On a Screenly Player, the small indicator lights tell you whether the problem is power, storage, or network, which saves guessing.
- Check the display is set to the right input. An HDMI socket showing nothing looks exactly like a device that has failed to start.
- Give it longer. The first start-up does more work than later ones, and on a Raspberry Pi it can take a few minutes.
- Check the cable at both ends, and that the device has power.
- Check the device can reach the internet. It cannot show a pairing code without one.
- On a Raspberry Pi, re-seat the SD card and check the image copied across completely. A half-written card is a common cause.
Re-copying the SD card wipes the device, including any content it had downloaded and its connection to your workspace. You will need to connect it again with a new pairing code, and the old screen will stay in your list until you remove it.
The pairing code will not work
A code is good for 30 days, and Pairing codes has the characters a code never contains, which is the first thing to check when one is refused. Two more things to check:
- You are in the right workspace. You can belong to several, and a screen joins whichever one you are currently looking at.
- You have a license free. If you have used them all, the code is refused for that reason instead, and the dashboard tells you so.
The screen connected but never comes online
The screen shows up in your list but never reports back. This is nearly always the internet connection.
Things to check, in order:
- Is it actually on the network? Wi-Fi credentials are the most common culprit.
- Is it on a guest network with a sign-in page, the kind that shows a “click here to accept” page in a browser? A screen cannot click through one of those, so put it on a network that does not use one.
- Is the network restricted? Many offices only allow approved traffic out. This is the most common cause in larger organizations, and it is a quick fix for whoever runs your network.
If you need to hand this to your IT team, everything they need is in IT requirements. The short version: screens only make outgoing connections, and nothing needs to be opened up.
If you are the one fixing the network, IT requirements has the hostnames and ports to allow and the two less obvious causes: a captive portal that lets a device join but never reach the internet, and a clock so wrong the device cannot complete a TLS handshake.
The screen is online but shows nothing new
The screen looks healthy but your content has not appeared.
First, check whether it says out of sync. If it does, it is still downloading, and video takes longer than images. Wait and watch for it to change.
If it says in sync but is showing the wrong thing, the playlist is not reaching it. Nine times out of ten this is a label that does not match:
- Open the playlist and look at the labels on its Screens tab.
- Open the screen and look at its labels.
- Check that at least one label appears in both, spelled exactly the same way. “Warehouse” and “warehouse” are not the same label.
Also check the playlist’s schedule. A playlist set to weekday office hours will not play on a Sunday, and that looks exactly like a broken assignment.
If another playlist is set to priority and its schedule is currently running, it takes over the screen and hides everything else. That is what priority is for, and it is easy to forget you turned it on.
The content looks wrong on screen
Black bars down the sides or across the top
Your content is a different shape from the display. Either re-export it to match, or change the screen’s scaling setting.
Sideways or upside down
Set the screen’s orientation to match how the display is actually mounted.
Blurry
The content is a lower resolution than the display. For 4K you need both a device capable of it and a Business plan or higher. ScreenlyOS or Screenly Anywhere lists which devices reach 4K.
Edges cut off
The display is zooming in slightly, a setting usually called picture size, screen fit, or overscan. This is on the display itself, so check there before changing anything in Screenly.
Still stuck
Contact support. You can collect the device’s logs from the dashboard without visiting it, and sending those along usually turns a long back-and-forth into a single reply.