[Solved] Video Content Not Playing

General Discussions
1

Just compiled a screensaver for both Windows and macOS but ran into an issue with video playback. I have a MP4 added and works fine on the Mac version but on the machines I’m testing running Windows 10 the screen is just blank. You can preview the screensaver and the video plays but when the machine goes to sleep the screen remains blank.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

2

Assuming that you are using the most recent version (5.0.4) - this problem is often caused by the Windows 7 machine being out-of-date.

iScreensaver 5 uses the IE (Internet Explorer) engine for displaying videos, so the first thing to check is that IE11 is installed and that all Windows 7 updates have been applied properly.

Please check that first, and we can give some more debugging tips if it’s not working.

3

Have version 5.04.1135 installed. Testing on a Windows 8 and Windows 10 machine and they both have IE 11 installed.

4

Oh I’m sorry, for some reason I misread that as “Windows 7”.

Here are some debugging ideas:

  1. There are two ways to Preview the screensaver:

1A. When running the Installer app, there is a “Preview” button which runs the screensaver immediately (without installing). Does that work?

1B. After installing the screensaver, the Screen Saver Control Panel has a “Preview” button which launches the screensaver. Does this work?

  1. Enable the on-screen-controls (HUD): In the Screen Saver control panel, click Settings and under Screensaver Interaction make sure “Use cursors and on-screen controls” is checked. Then OK the window and click the Preview button to launch the screensaver. Move the mouse a little - do you see the HUD?

  2. Email us with a way to download your screensaver and we can test it on our systems and look for error messages.

5

Thanks, I’ll check off items on the list and also follow up by email further.

6

Per discussions with the author offline, it looks like two different things were happening:

  1. The “Allow User Interaction” checkbox was turned on, which should be used only for interactive SWF/Flash content. Otherwise the user gets locked into the screensaver.

  2. The encoding on the video file may not be optimal. See https://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/video_encoding/video_encoding.shtml for more info about how this can impact performance.

7

Thanks for the help iScreensaver!