Collect Now Does Nothing and Changes Take Minutes
Instant updates fail while normal ones work: the blocked push channel, the outbound port your firewall needs, and how to confirm it from the player status window.
Changes reach the screen, but only after some minutes, and anything meant to happen now (Collect Now, a remote command, a screenshot) does nothing: one network channel is blocked, and the fix is on your network.
Check in Studio first
In My screens, the screen shows Online and changes do arrive, just late. On its Details page, Take a new picture never answers straight away: “Some players only send one at their next check-in; look again in a few minutes.” Some players always work that way, so confirm on the screen itself (fix 1).
In the advanced editor, Collect Now in the row menu of Displays shows no effect, while the screen’s last accessed time is recent.
If the screen shows Offline, this guide does not apply: see Display Shows as Offline.
Why it happens
easyCMS reaches a screen two ways, both outbound from the player to app.myeasycms.com:
| Channel | What it does | How it travels |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in | Every few minutes the player asks what has changed and downloads it. Decides online or offline. | Outbound TCP 443 |
| Push messaging | Lets easyCMS reach the player between check-ins: Collect Now, commands, screenshots. | A secure WebSocket on 443, or TCP 9505 on players that cannot |
A firewall that allows web browsing allows 443, but drops 9505 without comment, and a proxy that re-signs HTTPS breaks the WebSocket. Nothing needs opening inbound: no port forwarding, no static IP, no VPN.
Good to know This is an inconvenience, not an outage. Content, schedules and media still arrive on the player’s collection interval (five minutes by default), timed events still start on time, and no screen goes dark.
Fixes, quickest first
1. Read the XMR line on the screen
Open the status window (i on a keyboard for Android or Windows; on LG webOS the yellow button, then Status; see Reading the Player Status Window) and photograph the XMR line.
| XMR says | Meaning |
|---|---|
| An address, ending Waiting for messages | Working |
| Disconnected, waiting to reconnect, last activity: and a time | Blocked: go to fix 2 |
| Not configured or Disabled | Switched off on our side: tell us |
2. Send this to your IT team, word for word
Please exempt
app.myeasycms.comfrom HTTPS inspection. The digital signage players hold a persistent secure WebSocket to that host over the outbound TCP 443 you already permit, and an inspecting proxy breaks it.Please also allow outbound TCP 9505 from those players to the same host, which some of them use for that channel instead. No inbound access is required.
The full checklist is Network Requirements and Firewall Rules.
3. Restart the player app
If XMR says connected and pushes still do nothing, restart the player app. It clears this more often than it should.
4. Ask for a shorter collection interval
If the channel cannot be allowed and five minutes is too slow, ask us: the interval is set on the display settings profile, on our side. Every player then talks to the CMS more often.
Content that never arrives, even after the interval, is a different fault: see Display Is Online but Content Never Changes.
Still stuck? Send a support request
Send a support request with the screen’s name and a photo of the status window.
Related articles: Network Requirements and Firewall Rules, Display Shows as Offline, Reading the Player Status Window, Display Is Online but Content Never Changes