The Diagnostic Web Server (DWS) is a built-in web service on all BrightSign players. It provides valuable info and functions, including:

The above is only a partial list. The DWS' full capabilities are covered below.

Note that traditionally, local access of the DWS has been referred to as the Local DWS or LDWS, and remote access of the DWS has been referred to as the Remote DWS or RDWS. These terms may be used throughout the documentation.

For info on accessing the DWS locally, see DWS: Local Access. For info on accessing the DWS remotely, see DWS: Remote Access.

The DWS is organized by a horizontal row of tabs, each one with a different set of functions. Descriptions for each tab are detailed in the expandable sections below.

This tab provides general information about the player and its current status.

The current time as it is configured on the player. When the DWS is accessed locally, you can select the time icon (clock icon) to configure the time on the player:

The user-supplied name of the player.

An optional user-supplied description for the player.

The model number of the player.

The serial number of the player.

The current version of the primary boot loader.

The current OS version installed on the player.

The current video output resolution. You can change the video resolution in the Video tab.

The amount of time the player has been powered on and working correctly.

Displays the power source (e.g., AC or PoE).

The status of the PoE interface (applicable to PoE capable models only).

The "default state" for local access of the DWS can either be enabled or disabled. Here, a player's “default state” refers to when the player 1) is brand-new from the factory or 2) when it has been factory reset.

Importantly, this setting is only representative of the player’s default state; it is not necessarily representative of the player’s current state. A player may have local access to the DWS enabled (e.g., through a Setup File or a custom script) even though the player’s default state is for local DWS access to be disabled.

This setting does not affect remote access of the DWS. Remote access of the DWS is always enabled if the player is registered on BrightSign Cloud.

The Info Tab will include this field if the player has one or more extensions installed.

This tab provides a log of system processes and events on the player. The output is similar to the info generated through a serial connection.

This tab allows general control of the system processes of the player.

Set a new password for DWS authentication on the local network.

Reboot the player.

Reboot the player and save a crash-report file to the "brightsign-dumps" folder. BrightSign support may request the crash report when helping you troubleshoot the player.

Perform a Factory Reset of the player. This resets the player to its factory defaults, erasing all persistent registry settings for networking, security, and other applications. In some cases, a player should be reprovisioned instead of factory reset - see Reprovision vs. Factory Reset.

Set a Recovery URL which is used by the player to perform content recovery in the event of an autorun-related failure.

SSH host keys establish trust between the player and SSH clients so that they can communicate with each other. Resetting the host keys may be desired when:

This function resets the SSH host key and reboots the player. The next time you connect to the player via SSH, you will be asked to re-trust the new key.

This function generates a new set of default security certificates (specifically, TLS certificates that enable HTTPS access) and reboots the player.

When HTTPS is enabled for local DWS access, and a specific server certificate is not specified (more info here), default self-signed certificates will be created. When browsing to a player using default security certificates, users will need to accept browser security warnings and accept the certificate (more info here).

As covered in the BrightSign Primer section, setting up a player for use involves applying a SetupSetup to the player, and applying a Setup File to a player using BrightSign Cloud is known as provisioning.

Applying a new Setup File to a player which already has a Setup File requires a process known as reprovisioning. It is important to understand that from BrightSign Author's Provision screen, a new Setup File can be applied to a player, a process which associates the player with the new Setup File. Importantly, however, the new Setup File will not actually take effect on the player until the player is explicitly reprovisioned (more details here) which is the function of this section of the DWS. The Reprovision Player function performs the following:

In addition to BrightSign Author or Control, a new Setup File can also be applied using the POST and PUT API operations (see Version 3.0 B-Deploy Endpoints and Version 2.0 B-Deploy Endpoints). As with applying a Setup File to a player using BrightSign Author, the player must be reprovisioned for the Setup File to actually take effect.

This tab provides information related to the storage device attached to the player. The title of the tab will reflect the interface that the storage device is using to connect to the player. For example, the SD tab will be displayed if a microSD card is attached to the player.



Encrypting the storage device may result in the player losing its association with Bright Sign Cloud. You should therefore select Automatically reprovision with BSN.Cloud to ensure that the player is able to successfully re-associate with BrightSign Cloud after the encryption process.

Upload files to the player’s storage device (e.g., microSD card). Files are uploaded to the currently selected directory. To upload files, click the Browse button to select one or more files, then click Upload Files. The maximum allowable size for files uploaded remotely is 10 MB. Aside from storage device capacity limits, there are no file size limitations for files uploaded locally.

This enables the download of the contents on the storage device (e.g., microSD card).

Provides a listing of all files on the storage device. Depending on the type of file, there will be several options:

This tab provides various network and system tools that are helpful for diagnosing problems and getting information about a player.

View extensive info about network interface settings such as interface names, IP address, DNS servers, etc.

Run network diagnostics to check all Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Modem, and Internet connections. This process may take some time to complete, especially when certain tests fail.

Test the specified DNS address to check whether name resolution is working.

Ping a device with the specified IP address or DNS name.

Perform a standard traceroute diagnostic on the specified IP/DNS address. Check the Resolve IP Addresses box to resolve the specified DNS name.

This feature lets you enable the JavaScript console if you have also selected Enable JavaScript console in BrightSign Author (Presentation > State Properties > Options). To disable the JavaScript console, uncheck the checkbox. The console should only be enabled for presentations that are not in production, since it can cause memory and security issues.

If you are not using BrightSign Author, the JavaScript console can be enabled through APIs via roHtmlWidget or htmlwidget.



Force the player to reboot and disable the autorun script when the player restarts. This allows the player to display the OS version and IP address on screen (if the player is connected to a local network). If the player has a serial port, you will be able to access the BrightSign Shell over a null-modem serial cable.

This takes you to the Format Storage page, which allows you to format storage devices attached to the player.

Enables SSH on the player which lets you access the BrightSign application console when the serial port (the default I/O for the application console) is inaccessible. For security reasons, enabling SSH in a production environment is not recommended.

SSH access is available in most OS versions and can be enabled by using a custom script or by writing the registry key registry write networking ssh 22. Enabling SSH via the DWS, however, is only available in BrightSignOS 9.0.110 or 8.5.46 and above.

This tab allows you to view Screenshots of what the player is displaying.

Click the New Screenshot button to take a screenshot. Once the screenshot has been taken, you can click the thumbnail to view a full-size image of the screenshot.

As of BrightSignOS 8.5.31, screenshots are captured at resolution with a maximum size of HD. Select Return the screenshot at its original resolution (do not downscale to HD) to get the screenshot at a higher resolution.

This tab provides several diagnostic tools related to the player's video settings.

Whether each player's HDMI® connection (indicated as HDMI-1, HDMI-2, etc.) is “Active” or “Inactive”.

This is the video resolution currently being output on the HDMI connection. If the player has multiple HDMI connections, each HDMI connection will be numbered (e.g., HDMI-1, HDMI-2, etc.). If the player is set to a 4K video mode, this field will also indicate whether the 10-bit color space and/or HDR (high dynamic range) is currently being output.

Disables HDMI output, the syncs for VGA output, and/or the DAC output for component video for each HDMI connection (indicated as HDMI-1, HDMI-2, etc.). The absence of a signal will cause some monitors to go into standby mode.

Displays the EDID data returned from one or more monitors attached to the player’s HDMI ports (indicated as HDMI-1, HDMI-2, etc.). This info can be copied and pasted into a text editor.

Changes the display mode / resolution of the player on all video outputs (HDMI®, VGA, and Component). The player will reboot and automatically disable the current autorun script (similar to the Disable Autorun button in the Diagnostics tab). It the autorun script is not disabled, the autorun script will reset the video mode of the player.

This tab includes the options below.

Select one of the Update Options described below, and then select Update to download that version to your player, which will then reboot:

By default, the DWS will display tabs for all active external storage devices (e.g., SD, SSD, USB). In addition, you can also temporarily view and access the player's internal storage. Enter the desired internal storage location (e.g., flash, tmp) and select View. A tab for the specified internal storage will be created. This tab is temporary and will only be displayed for the current DWS session; subsequent DWS sessions will not automatically show this tab.

Note that if you enter a storage device that is already listed, you will get an error. In the example above, entering SD will result in an error because the SD tab is already being displayed.

Select the level of detail you prefer in the BrightSignOS logs and then select Set to apply that setting. The highest logging level will be included when lower logging levels are selected (for example, if you select info, error and warn loggings will be included as well).

These are the logging levels:

Allows you to decide if your presentation settings should be overwritten or not. For more info on Property Lock, see here.

This tab allows you to view and edit the player's registry.