The Screen Only Shows the easyCMS Logo

A screen showing the easyCMS logo and nothing else is not broken. The player is running. It has simply found nothing it is allowed to play, so it has fallen back to the logo.

That makes this a content or scheduling problem, not a hardware one. It is nearly always one of five things.

The logo means the player is running and has nothing to play. It is a content problem, not a hardware one.

First, narrow it down

Two checks tell you which of the five it is.

1. Open Displays and find the screen.
2. Look at Logged in. A cross means the screen is not reaching easyCMS at all, so go to Display shows as offline instead.
3. Look at Authorised. If it is not authorised, that is your answer, see cause 1 below.
4. If both look fine, the problem is your layout or your schedule, so work through causes 2 to 5.

The five causes, most likely first

1. The screen was never claimed

A player that registered but was never claimed holds no licence, downloads nothing and shows only the logo. On a screen that has never played anything, this is by far the most likely cause.

Claim it at Add a display, using the same internet connection as the screen. If it is not listed there, see A New Display Is Not Showing Up or Says It Is Awaiting Approval.

2. The layout was never published

This is the one that catches almost everyone. A layout you build stays a draft until you publish it, and a draft never plays.

1. Open Design > Layouts.
2. Find your layout and check its status.
3. If it says draft, open it and publish it.

3. Nothing is scheduled, and no default layout is set

A published layout still plays nowhere until something points it at a screen.

1. Open the Schedule.
2. Click Add Event.
3. Set the event type to Layout, pick your layout, tick the screen, and leave the timing on Always for a first test.

4. The schedule does not cover right now

The event exists but is not active. It ended yesterday, it starts on Monday, or it is set to hours you are not currently in.

Check the schedule in the agenda view for that display rather than the calendar grid, which is easy to misread. See Scheduled content is not playing.

5. The content has not finished downloading

A layout only plays once every image, video and font it uses has reached the screen. Until then the player skips it, and with nothing else to show you get the logo.

Check the download status on the Displays page. A cloud or a cross means it is still collecting.

Stop it happening again

Tip Give every screen a default layout. That is what it falls back to whenever nothing is scheduled, so your customers see your content instead of our logo.

It takes a minute per screen and removes this problem permanently.

How long to wait first

Allow one check-in plus the time it takes to download, so a few minutes rather than seconds. A screen that has been showing the logo for ten minutes after you scheduled something is worth investigating. A screen that has been showing it for thirty seconds is not.

Not the same as a black screen

The logo means the player is healthy and has nothing to play. A genuinely black or frozen screen is a different problem, covered in Black screens, freezes and player crashes.

Still on the logo

Send us the display name, tell us what you expected to see, and say which of the five checks above you have already done. That last part saves a round of questions.

Related articles: Your First Layout, Scheduling Your First Content, A New Display Is Not Showing Up or Says It Is Awaiting Approval, Scheduled Content Is Not Playing