Set Up a Web or FTP Server for Web Folder Publishing

Web Folder Setup (formerly known as Simple File Networking) allows you to publish content to a BrightSign player from an internal or external HTTP/web server. This server is the dedicated storage location for your presentation files, which the player then downloads via HTTP and plays.

To play a different presentation on each player, make sure that they each refer to a unique URL.

MIME Type Definitions

To ensure that your players can download presentation schedules successfully, make sure that your web server has the following MIME type definitions declared.

These definitions should be added, because they are usually not predefined:

These MIME types are usually already defined, but should be added if they are not:

Caveats

• Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and other similar cloud services can not be used for Web Folder publishing due to current authentication implementations.

• Setting up an HTTP server can be complex, especially in production environments, and BrightSign does not provide support for this. You may need to seek professional assistance or consider managed hosting services that handle server set up and maintenance.

Troubleshooting

When a BrightSign player connects to your web server:

1. It checks for a current-sync.json file (if you are running BrightAuthor:connected) or a current-sync.xml file (if you are running BrightAuthor) and downloads it.

2. It downloads all files listed in the current-sync.json/current-sync.xml file that are not already on local storage, including schedule, playlists, and media files.

3. It plays presentations according to the downloaded schedule.

If your display is blank or the unit hasn’t switched to the latest scheduled presentation, check the following:

1. The microSD card must remain in the player for storage, unless you are using an alternate storage device such as a USB thumb drive or SSD.

2. When publishing your first presentation or any updated presentations, you must select Web Folder after selecting the Publish tab. Verify that Web Folder is selected and that your web folder URL matches the URL you used when setting up the player.

3. Test the web folder URL from your web browser. If your computer is also the web server, test the link from another computer. Assuming your server is http://www.mysite.com/downloads/, test the following (you can get the pool folder URL from the current-sync.json or current-sync.xml file):

   • http://www.mysite.com/downloads/current-sync.json or current-sync.xml

   • http://www.mysite.com/downloads/autorun.brs (to confirm that your MIME types are set up correctly)

   • http://www.mysite.com/downloads//pool/sha1-6963EC2B20954C48716E9CEF96FC11F53DA3BBAA (to confirm that your MIME types are set up correctly)

   Your web browser should be able to open/download the files from your web server using HTTP or HTTPS URLs. Check that you have enabled the MIME types if these files are not accessible.

4. If you are using BrightAuthor classic:

   • Go to Tools > Setup Unit, and confirm that Simple File Networking (the BrightAuthor name for Web Folder) was enabled for the Setup files you created

   • In the same location, check that the URL for the web folder is correct and that it includes the correct port number for the web server, if applicable.

   • If you haven't already done so, publish the Setup files to an SD card and insert the SD card into the player.

   • Including a trailing slash in your URL may cause downloads to fail because BrightAuthor automatically adds a slash to URLs. Some web servers don’t process URLs with a double slash. For example, if you originally entered http://www.myfiles.com/downloads/ as the URL for web folder, try http://www.myfiles.com/downloads instead.

   • If you are using FTP to transfer the published files to your web server, verify that your FTP software is set to transfer using binary mode, and not auto or ASCII mode. Files may fail to download from your server if they are transferred using ASCII mode.

5. If the player encounters errors when downloading files, it will not restart and play the new content but the errors will not be displayed on the screen. You may encounter errors if you moved or renamed files in the web folder after you published the presentation, or if the files you uploaded were changed by the transfer process. To view an error log, you can connect the player to your computer using a serial cable or, if you checked Enable diagnostic logging during player set up, retrieve the log file from the SD card.

6. If your project is scheduled to play all day every day, your project will play even if the player has no valid time set or if the time or time zone is incorrect. But, if you are using day parting (i.e. playing different presentations depending on the time or day), then nothing will play if the time isn’t valid.

   • Verify that the player has the correct time and that it can connect to the network. You can do this by creating a simple project that displays the time (via a Clock zone) and an RSS feed. If the player can connect to both the network and the Internet, you will see the RSS feed, and if you can reach the time server, you will see the time.

   • If UDP port 123 is blocked on the network, the player won't be able to set the time over the Internet.

7. If the player fails to resolve the name of the web server, then it will fail to download the current-sync.json/current-sync.xml file. If your server URL is something like http://myserver/brightsign/downloads, then you may need to add the domain to the server name for updates to function properly: http://myserver.universityshop.net/brightsign/downloads

Next Steps

Once your HTTP server is ready, see Web Folder Setup to set up your player or Publishing Quickstart | Publishing to a Web Folder Player to publish content.