Broadcasting configurations tend to be complex. To operate panels with a vsmWebpanel, as a minimum, you will need the following working components:

  • At least one vsmStudio server/host with all connected gear (required to control the running on a MS Windows server).
  • The vsmWebpanel back end service installed and running as a MS-Windows service (on the same machine as one of the vsmStudio hosts or elsewhere).
  • The vsmWebpanel front end application running in the browser (on the operational device).

To make the setup work in a local network, you will need to know the IP addresses and ports of all the gear, and prevent firewalls from blocking the essential communication. Most problems occur due to a malfunction of network connections. This can be due to blocked port addresses or missing routes. The following examples describe the symptoms and their likely cause.

Browser cannot connect to localhost://8040

  • Cause: The browser cannot find the vsmWebPanel back end.
  • Check: Is the vsmWebPanel back end installed and running on the computer where you started the browser?
  • Solve: Access a PC where the back end is running, or install it on your system or restart it if has stopped (see the Installation and Starting vsmWebPanel chapters). In some cases an error in the back end can cause the service to crash. In this instance you can check or restart the vsmWebPanel service, using the Windows service manager.

Browser loads an empty page

  • Cause: The “browser” may be incompatible (i.e. it does not meet modern web-standards). For example, Internet Explorer NN is not a web browser, but a version of malware which can cause a security risk. Or, after a new vsmWebPanel installation, there are incompatible cookies.
  • Check: Take care to use a browser that conforms to modern web-standards (as described earlier), especially at least ECMAScript 5 (JavaScript from 2009).
  • Solve: Download and use a current Firefox or Chrome browser which conforms to HTML/CSS standards. If you suspect incompatible cookies, then please use your browsers "delete" function to remove the cookies.

Browser shows Panel, but contains only a red "network error" message

  • Cause: The browser can connect to the front end application, but cannot access its “panel service” on the back end.
  • Solve: If the back end service has crashed, then you will need to restart it using the Windows service manager.

Browser shows Panel, but contains only a green "connected" message

  • Cause: The front end is communication with its back end, but the back end cannot find any vsmStudio host or panel.
  • Check: Did you enter a running vsmStudio host IP / address, and has it loaded a configuration with the correct panel ID?
  • Solve: Restart vsmStudio with the right configuration, and check the panel on the host. If this is working, then vsmWebPanel should synchronize with the panel editor. Otherwise, check its connections and listen to the vsmStudio communication (using Commtrace or Wireshark).

Some Panel items look strange

  • Cause: This may be a bug. Or, your panel contains unsupported page items (which will be rendered as simple rectangles).
  • Solve: Remove unsupported items or send us a proposal for the next software release. Only text and picture page items are supported. Thus, some button styles are not be completely supported in the current release (e.g. sliders).

Illegible Fonts

  • Cause: Web browsers support different fonts to the Windows desktop, and so entering too much text into a small button or page item can result in text that is illegible or blurred. Web browsers are designed to render text quickly by using simple font smoothing algorithms. So no font should be smaller than 8pt (vsmWebpanel tries to fit any text into the available button surface). vsmWebPanel can downsize to 6pt, but that can result in text that is impossible to read.
  • Solve: Do not put more text into a button or text page item than the browser can handle well.
  • Hint: Professional graphics tools, such as Photoshop, have better smoothing algorithms, so it is best to create very dense text boxes as images and send these to the web panel. This will also result in a performance gain.

Slow Panel Editing

  • Cause: The vsmStudio Panel Editor is not optimized for updating changes to a web browser page. All updates are passed using a relatively slow protocol JSON-REST. This means that vsmWebPanel needs a lot of calculations to build up an isometric “scene-graph” that can be rendered (with a WebGL render engine). There may be much potential to speed up this process, but this would need optimizations at all stages of the rendering pipe.
  • Solve: Do not expect to use an existing vsmPanel panel with vsmWebpanel without some modification. To achieve the best behaviour, you will need to optimize your panels for the web.