BSN, BSNEE & BSN.cloud Troubleshooting FAQs

USERNAME

Your BSN.cloud and BrightSign Network username is your email address. If you are using plus-addressing to create a different email address that goes to the same inbox, be aware that each username is different to the system. Check your email for messages from BSN.cloud (the sender will be noreply-brightsign@brightsign.biz) and check the To: field for the correct username.

PASSWORD (BSN.cloud)

1. In BrightAuthor:connected or bsn.cloud, click Connect to BSN.cloud on the upper right

2. In the Sign In window, select Forgot Password.

3. Enter your email address and Submit. An email should arrive shortly from noreply-brightsign@brightsign.biz with a link to reset your password, so be sure to add that email address to your whitelist or contact list to ensure it does not go into spam/junk/quarantine.

PASSWORD (BrightSign Network)

As long as you have your username and network (account) name, you can use Forgot Password to get a new password. If you are a user on multiple networks, any of those network names will do - your password is the same for all BrightSign Network networks. The email will come from noreply-brightsign@brightsignnetwork.com so be sure to add it to your whitelist or contact list to ensure it does not go into spam/junk/quarantine. Do not include the trailing period from the new password, and make sure there are no leading or trailing spaces.

If you cannot access the email address associated with the account and you do not have any other administrators on the account that can set up a new user login, see this article.

If you move a player from one group to another in the BSN Web UI and either or both groups do not have a presentation scheduled, the move will fail to apply. The player will look like it moved, then shortly thereafter will pop back up in the original group. Make sure presentations are scheduled on both the source and destination groups before trying to move the player.

If the player status indicator is red and the player won't stay in the group you moved it to, but the player is connecting normally, then the player may be having trouble downloading the current-sync.xml file (i.e. the BSN sync spec) for the new group. To fix this:

1. If the unit is automatically going to the “Unassigned” group, temporarily publish a project to the “Unassigned” group. Once the player successfully downloads this project, you can move it to the proper group.

2. Verify there’s a project published to the group you are trying to move the player into.

3. Try sending a Recovery command to the player in BrightAuthor:

   1. Go to the Tools > Advanced menu.

   2. Select the Control tab.

   3. Paste or type in the serial number of the player. This number can be found by navigating to Manage > Status, right-clicking the player, and selecting Info--the serial number is listed in the Unit ID field or by looking on the bottom of the player.

   4. In the Action drop down menu, select Recovery - don't reformat.

   5. Select Add Action.

This error occurs when the player cannot reach the BrightSign Network servers during the setup process. The initial setup process instructs the player to download a setup file (also known as a "recovery" file) from the BSN servers. If the player cannot download this setup file, it will flash the Err and Pwr LEDs and reboot after a few moments. This process will repeat until the player can establish a connection to the BSN servers and download the setup file.

To troubleshoot this problem, you will need to resolve the connectivity issue between the player and the BSN servers. These are common connectivity issues:

No Internet access

You can perform Network Diagnostic tests to determine if the player has general Internet connectivity. There are two ways to perform these tests:

• Create the setup files again in BrightAuthor or the WebUI and enable Network Diagnostics: Click the Advanced Network Setup button, navigate to the Diagnostics tab, and check Enable network diagnostics. Make sure to check the Test Internet Connection box, as well as the Test Ethernet and/or Test Wireless boxes, as well.

• If you enabled the Diagnostic Web Server as part of the initial setup process, you can use it to perform Network Diagnostics. Navigate to the Diagnostics tab and click Run under Network Diagnostics.

The DNS servers cannot resolve the BSN servers

The BrightSign Network servers are located on an Amazon S3 instance. If your provider cannot resolve these addresses, try configuring your network to use the Google Public DNS by setting the DNS addresses to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Proxy or firewall issue

A network proxy or firewall may be blocking calls to the BrightSign Network servers on Amazon S3. See this list of ports and IP addresses that should be allowed.

SSL or HTTPS issue

The initial setup step requires a secure call to the BSN servers. This call will fail if there's a certificate issue on the network or if a proxy server on the network is rejecting secure calls.

The player cannot reach the default time server

The player uses a BSN-based time server to set its time and date. Even if you set a different Time Server during the player setup process, the player must use the default time server the first time it checks in with BSN. This issue is caused by a firewall blocking HTTP time (HTP) calls or, if the player has been configured to use NTP, calls on UDP port 123.

This error is caused by one of the following:

• The target network does not have a “Trial” or “Content”-Level subscription (see the “How can I buy subscriptions for BSN.cloud or BSN.com?” FAQ to purchase subscriptions). To see the player subscription status either:

  • Check the Subscription Information in the Dashboard page of BrightAuthor:connected

  • Go to the Manage > Status window in BrightAuthor

  • Go to the Groups page in the BrightSign Network WebUI and click the properties of the player.

• The player serial number is not registered

• The network name does not exist

• The player has a suspended subscription or does not have subscription and there are no available subscriptions in its current network

• The player cannot communicate with the AWS servers that host the BSN or BSN.cloud. A proxy server, firewall, or some other kind of network filter can intercept outbound traffic, blocking a BrightSign player:

  • See this page for a list of ports and URLs that need to be open for BSN.cloud.

  • See this page for a list of URLs and ports that need to be open for BSN.

  • In BrightAuthor or BrightAuthor:connected, you can test connectivity in the Diagnostic Web Server (DWS):

    1. Open the DWS and select the Diagnostics tab.

    2. Click the Run button under Network Diagnostics to run a network test and verify that the player can connect to the internet.

This problem may be caused by one of the following:

1. You are using an unsupported web browser. We recommend using Google Chrome with BSN Web UI.

2. You may lack permissions for content upload. Verify which role your user belongs to.

3. Your browser must have access to api.brightsignnetwork.com on port 443. Make sure this address and port aren't blocked by your firewall.

If you were able to log in to BSN previously, this could be a temporary outage. Otherwise try the following:

1. Verify your Account, Login Name (email address), and Password. If you're copying and pasting, make sure there's no trailing space after the account or email address.

2. Your firewall software may be preventing BrightAuthor from accessing BSN servers. See this page for a list of URLs and ports that need to be open for BSN.

3. Add an RSS feed to a BrightAuthor project (File > Presentation Properties > Data Feeds) and click Validate to confirm if BrightAuthor can reach the internet.

4. If Internet Explorer has proxy server settings enabled, then BrightAuthor will use those settings as well. This can also prevent BrightAuthor from reaching the Internet.

If the BrightAuthor connection status indicator is red, but the Last Connection time (located in the Manage > Status tab in BrightAuthor or the Current Usage tab in BSN) remains current, then there could be a temporary hiccup, a problem with file downloads, or nothing scheduled to play.

1. Verify that there’s a presentation scheduled to play in the player’s group. Check this in the far-right column of the Manage > Status tab in BrightAuthor or in the Groups tab in BSN.

2. If your connection frequency is set to less than 5 minutes via a custom script or plugin, and the player is in the middle of a long download, it won't update the connection status properly. The status will appear red periodically until the download is complete. 

3. Check the player error log:

   1. To find the log in BrightAuthor, locate the player in the Manage > Status tab, right-click it, and select Info.

   2. To find the log in BSN, locate the player in the Groups tab, click properties beneath the player, and select the Advanced tab. 

   3. In the error log section at the bottom of the window, check for any error messages. If the player is unable to download the sync spec* for the presentation, unable to write a file due to a flash error, or unable to download a specific file, there will be an error message listed in the log field.

4. Test the player to see if it works with another presentation by creating a simple project, possibly with just one media file, and publish it to the affected group. This will confirm whether the failure to download a presentation is limited to just the one project. If this fixes the problem, you can then switch back to the previously scheduled project. You may need to delete and re-upload one or more presentation files on BSN if the problem returns when you switch back to the original presentation.

5. If the error log mentioned above has an older connection time than the last connected date/time, but there’s no other error, this usually indicates that the player was able to call in, but couldn’t download the latest sync spec. If there are multiple units in the group, you can temporarily move one unit to a new group to test if this is the problem.

*The sync spec is an .xml file that lists all files required to play presentations currently scheduled for the group. The player compares this list to the files that are currently on local storage, and then downloads any missing files from the BSN servers.

Before you can download the logs from your BSN network, you must enable the Logging options and specify when the logs should be uploaded from the player's SD card to the cloud. Logging options are enabled during the Unit Setup process (in either BrightAuthor or the BSN WebUI).

Alternatively, if a BrightSign player is connected to your network, you can enable logging by going to Manage > Status, right-clicking the player, selecting Edit, and checking the corresponding boxes for Logging.

Forcing Log Uploads

In addition to the automatic log uploads, you can manually send a command to each unit on your network to upload the logs. To do this:

1. Sign into your network using BrightAuthor (Tools > Sign in to BrightSign Network)

2. Go to Tools > Advanced > Unit Control

3. Enter the unit serial number and select the Upload logs action. The player will upload logs the next time it connects to the BrightSign Network. 

You can also force log uploads in the WebUI:

1. Go to the Groups tab.

2. Open a group

3. Select properties beneath the desired player

4. Select the Advanced tab

5. Check Reboot Unit.

Contacting the Device Handler

BrightSign players upload the logs to the device handler at the following URL:
https://services.brightsignnetwork.com/bs/uploadlogs.ashx 

The Device Handler returns an HTTP 405 status if opened in a browser.