Scheduled Content Is Not Playing
Your event exists but the screen shows something else. The five conditions every event must meet, what priority and display order actually do, and the fix for each.
The schedule shows your content, but the screen plays something else.
Check in Studio first
My screens says what each screen is showing. The Schedule page lists each screen’s Always designs (they take turns) and Scheduled ones (they take over in their time), and marks what is On now. Classic easyCMS schedules show there read-only, “paused while Studio designs play” when a Studio design was sent with Always and Instead of what plays.
What usually goes wrong
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| A classic layout stopped when a Studio design arrived | Classic schedules paused | 1 |
| Nothing new plays at all | Layout still a draft, or screen not added | 2 |
| Plays on some screens, not this one | Event does not target this screen or its group | 3 |
| Plays at the wrong hour | Timezone, or a daypart exception | 4 |
| Another layout always wins | An old high-priority event | 5 |
| Right content, wrong order | Display Order | 6 |
| Stopped repeating | Until date in the past | 7 |
| Scheduled but skipped | Layout invalid on the player | 8 |
A skipped layout shows no error, just the default layout or the splash screen.
Fixes, quickest first
- Let the classic schedule play again. Stop the Studio designs on that screen (Stop its designs on My screens, or Stop on the Schedule page), or play the Studio design again with Take turns.
- Publish, and add the screen. An edited layout stays a draft, which never leaves the CMS, until you publish it. A player never connected through Add a screen or Add a display downloads nothing.
- Check the target. The event must name this display, or a display group it really belongs to; membership changes quietly.
- Check the clock. Each event has Run at CMS Time: on, it fires at the same instant everywhere (a national campaign); off, it follows each display’s own timezone (opening hours, lunch menus). A daypart (Dayparting, Add Daypart) can carry Exceptions, different times on chosen days; editing it changes every future event using it. See Timezones, Dayparting and Schedule Accuracy.
- Check priority. A higher number wins, 0 is lowest, but only against the same Event Type: layouts, campaigns, images, videos and playlists count as one. Overlays, interrupts and commands are separate types. The usual trap is an always-on event given high priority months ago: check the Schedule in Agenda View for that display.
- Set Display Order. When concurrent events have equal priority, Display Order sorts them lowest first. Left blank, they play in the order added, so a new event often comes last.
- Fix the recurrence. Under Repeats, an Until date in the past stops the event without warning. Set it after the end of the last playback you want: an Until landing mid-event cuts it short.
- Read Schedule Status on the player. A layout plays only when valid, published and fully downloaded, with no file on the player’s Faultlist. In the status window, a layout listed as scheduled but not valid is rejected. See Reading the Player Status Window. An orange exclamation mark on a layout with a webpage is normal.
Tip Allow one collection interval plus the download; a long item on screen must also finish first. To test the whole chain, play one simple design on that screen with Always. If it plays, the fault is in your event; if not, see Display Is Online but Content Never Changes.
Still stuck? Send a support request
Send a support request with the screen’s name and the event or design that should be playing.
Related articles: Scheduling Content, Putting Your Design on a Screen, Timezones, Dayparting and Schedule Accuracy