Permanent Installations

Permanent installations — museum exhibits, lobby displays, digital signage, visitor attractions — run unattended for hours, days, or years. This guide covers the Exaplay 3 features designed specifically for this use case.

Walkthrough

☰ menu → Walkthroughs → Getting started → An installation that runs by itself sets up a foyer loop that comes back every morning with nobody there: a playlist that never ends, the show starting on boot, and the kiosk settings around it.

Key Principles for Installations

1. Unattended operation — the system must run without a human operator present.
2. Automatic recovery — crashes must heal without manual intervention.
3. Scheduled content — content changes must happen automatically at defined times.
4. Remote monitoring — operators must be able to check status remotely.
5. Minimal maintenance — the setup should be stable and require infrequent visits.

Recommended Setup

A reliable installation is just one Windows PC running Exaplay with Auto-Heal and the Watchdog restart enabled, connected to the network by Ethernet (not Wi-Fi). Any browser on the same network can open the interface at http://<installation-ip>:8123/ to check playback, performance and network traffic remotely (see Remote Monitoring).

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Setup Guide

Step 1 — Create the Content Loop

1. Create a Timeline composition, select it and switch on Loop in its Inspector, so the timeline starts over when it reaches the end.
2. Arrange the clips end-to-end to fill the loop. A clip that is shorter than its slot can be stretched past its media length: it repeats to fill (see Timeline).
3. If the installation has multiple content pieces that rotate, add them sequentially on Track 1. To crossfade between them, overlap them and give both clips Fade type: Crossfade with a Length in the Inspector — the overlap only decides when the two ramps run; the fade itself comes from the fade type (see Fades & Transitions).

Step 2 — Configure the Scheduler

Set up opening and closing times so the display is active only during visitor hours:

1. Open the Scheduler tab of the Control view (/control; the tab is called Schedule in Easy Mode).
2. First put the Main composition's Play and Stop on the Custom Controls tab: Add from scene offers Play, Pause and Stop for every composition. The Scheduler's Custom Control action fires those — there is no dedicated "play project" or "fade to black" action.
3. Add a morning item: action Custom Control → Play of Main, at 08:00; switch Repeat on and set Repeat interval to Daily.
4. Add an evening item: action Custom Control → Stop of Main, at 20:00, daily. A stopped composition leaves its screen black.
5. (Optional) A nightly reboot: ☰ menu → Auto-Heal & Watchdog → Scheduled Reboot with its Reboot Time (default 03:00) reboots the PC every night. A Scheduler item with action System → Restart system does the same at a time of your choice. Either way the PC reboots, so Step 5 below must bring Exaplay back.

See Scheduler for full details.

Step 3 — Enable Auto-Heal

1. Open ☰ menu → Auto-Heal & Watchdog.
2. Check that Auto-Heal is ON (it is on by default).
3. The defaults suit an installation:
   • Save Interval: 2 s
   • Health Interval: 5 s
   • Max State Age: 3600 s (1 hour)
4. In the same dialog, switch Watchdog Restart ON. It is off by default, and without it a crashed engine is not restarted.
5. Restart Wait: 5 s (default).

See Auto-Heal & Watchdog for full details.

Step 4 — Configure Windows for Unattended Operation

These Windows settings prevent common failure modes:

Setting	Where	Recommended value
Auto login	Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options	Enable for the show user
Sleep / Screen timeout	Settings → Power & Sleep	Never (for PC and display)
Windows Update	Group Policy or Settings	Active hours 00:00–23:59 (defer restarts)
Screen saver	Settings → Personalization	Off
UAC prompts	Group Policy	Disable or auto-approve for admin
Firewall	Windows Defender Firewall	Allow Exaplay ports 8123 (TCP) and 45454/45455 (UDP)

Step 5 — Start the Show When Windows Starts

The installer puts Exaplay 3 Service into the Windows Startup folder of the user who installed Exaplay. At logon the service starts Exaplay by itself when Autoplay at Startup is on — you do not need a shortcut or a scheduled task of your own.

1. Open the show, then ☰ menu → Settings → Startup.
2. Switch Autoplay at Startup ON.
3. Startup project: click Use current project.
4. Composition: pick the composition to play (Main), or Start all timelines / cuelists. Cue can stay on Start from zero.
5. Delay after Player Start: give the outputs time to come up, e.g. 30 s.

After a reboot and the automatic login, Exaplay opens the startup project, switches Show Mode on and plays the chosen composition. Log on as the user who installed Exaplay, since the service's startup entry is in that user's Startup folder.

Start Exaplay with (same tab, independent of Autoplay) sets the screen this machine's interface opens on: Stage (the default), Produce & Play on a chosen composition, or Control on one of its areas. With User Panels you can pick a panel and open it as the user panel itself, or in the Panel Designer. For a kiosk that should show only a panel, choose Control → User Panels, the panel, and As user panel. The choice belongs to this machine, not to the show.

The way back to the interface from such a kiosk:

• Tray icon → Launch Exaplay UI (ignore start view) (on the Exaplay icon and on the Exaplay Service icon) opens the interface in the default browser, on the Stage, without the start view.
• Ctrl+Shift+E on the panel does the same, when a keyboard is attached.
• From any other PC: http://<installation-ip>:8123/?startview=off.

These are not a way around the PIN lock (Settings → Interface): with it on, the interface still asks for the PIN.

Why not a -playcomp shortcut?

The settings above do the whole job, and the service starts Exaplay for you. A -playcomp shortcut in the Startup folder as well would launch a second copy, which finds Exaplay already running and shows an "already running" message on the wall. -playcomp (it takes the composition's ID) is for starting Exaplay by hand or from your own launcher; it plays and switches Show Mode on even with Autoplay at Startup off. -autoheal-restore is for the Watchdog's crash restarts. See Command-Line Flags.

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Remote Monitoring

From any browser on the same network (or over a VPN):

What to open

• http://<installation-ip>:8123/ — the full interface. The Performance Diagnostics icon in the header shows FPS, CPU, RAM and VRAM (see Performance Diagnostics).
• Control → Monitor (or http://<installation-ip>:8123/?view=monitor) — the listeners the engine holds and the network traffic it receives and answers (see Monitor).
• http://<installation-ip>:8123/control — the Control view: composition status and transport, and the Scheduler with each item's state (pending, executed).

Checking the Engine Log

Logs are at Documents\Exaplay3\logs\ on the installation PC. Access via Windows Remote Desktop or a shared network folder.

Auto-Heal State File

The last known playback state is at Documents\Exaplay3\logs\autoheal\autoheal_state.json. Inspect it to confirm the system was playing at the expected time.

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Planned Maintenance Schedule

Interval	Task
Weekly	Review engine logs for repeated errors
Monthly	Check disk free space (Documents\Exaplay3\ and media drives)
Quarterly	Clean dust from PC vents and displays
Per update	Test new Exaplay versions in a staging environment before deploying to the installation

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Troubleshooting Unattended Failures

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Output black, PC responsive	Engine crashed and did not restart	Check that Watchdog Restart is on (Step 3) and that Exaplay 3 Service is running (Task Manager, via Remote Desktop)
Output shows wrong content	Scheduler fired unexpectedly	Check the item in the Scheduler tab, and the engine log for lines starting Scheduler:
PC rebooted mid-show	Windows Update applied a restart	Configure Windows Update deferred restarts; verify startup task fires correctly
Content frozen on one frame	Engine hang — with Watchdog Restart on, the Watchdog restarts the engine	Check engine log for GL errors; update GPU driver
Network monitoring unreachable	IP address changed (DHCP)	Assign a static IP to the installation PC