Support Request: SiteKiosk keeps crashing when trying to start screensaver

Description

Hi all,

We have an issue at one of our customers. They use SiteKiosk 9.6.4409 on Windows 10 1909 64-Bit. They are installed in a library and are used by the patrons to look up books and media in the catalog of the library. These machines can also be used as public workstations (without SiteKiosk). We use our own software to determine if the machine needs to be in "workstation" mode or in "kiosk/catalog" mode (With SiteKiosk). If the machine is in kiosk mode, our software will start SiteKiosk "manually" and point it to it's config (like starting it via commandline).

When the machines are idle for 60 seconds, they need to start our custom screensaver AND also refresh the SiteKiosk instance so the next user doesn't see the previous users searches. However the following happens:

Our software starts SiteKiosk and when it is done starting, it shows the startpage as expected. However after 60 seconds, when the screensaver needs to start, SiteKiosk fails to start the screensaver and just refreshes. This happens a couple of times until SiteKiosk seems to give up on something and starts with it's Emergency Config stating that SiteKiosk didn't start correctly x amount of times in x amount of time.

When we disable the screensaver in SiteKiosk and enable it in Windows everything seems to work fine but now SiteKiosk doesn't refresh automatically anymore. Which is something that the client is expecting.

We have also tried to put our screensaver in both System32 and SysWOW64 and manually point SiteKiosk to those in the config file but this also did not resolve our issue.


	<screensaver enabled="false">
		<application>C:\Windows\System32\itd.sCr</application>
		<app-mode>0</app-mode>
		<idletime>60</idletime>
		<interval>30</interval>
		<random>false</random>
		<fullscreen>false</fullscreen>
		<hide-mouse>true</hide-mouse>
		<capture-mouse>true</capture-mouse>
		<return-homepage>true</return-homepage>
		<clear-cache>true</clear-cache>
		<check-direct-input>true</check-direct-input>
		<disable-if-credit>true</disable-if-credit>
		<delete-cookies>true</delete-cookies>
		<reset-counter>100</reset-counter>
		<welcome>false</welcome>
		<welcome-page></welcome-page>
		<url duration="140">http://www.provisio.com/link/WindowsIdle</url>;
		<adv-time>4</adv-time>
		<adv-text>Powered by www.SITEKIOSK.com</adv-text>
		<delete-certificates>false</delete-certificates>
		<showscreensaverwarning>false</showscreensaverwarning>
		<welcomeprotocol></welcomeprotocol>
		<welcomeurl></welcomeurl>
	</screensaver>


Has anyone seen this before or is there something we can do to fix this? Many thanks in advance!

Providing logs could prove to be a little difficult seeing as the machines are all equiped with Faronics DeepFreeze in order to keep them clean.

Answer: (1)

Re: SiteKiosk keeps crashing when trying to start screensaver 3/2/2020 11:50 AM
Hello,

Generally SiteKiosk 9.6 is out of support but here some common hints:
Usually you can also select your own Windows screen savers installed in the Windows directory "...\Windows\system32" (on Windows x64 "...\Windows\SysWOW64") in the SiteKiosk configuration, but we cannot guarantee that all self-made Windows screen savers will work.
In this case it seems that the third party screen saver “itd.sCr” does not work together with SiteKiosk and causes SiteKiosk to restart again and again.

As the screen saver function is necessary for the cleaning effect after an idle time, I would recommend using one of the standard screen savers in SiteKiosk (e.g. “Open SiteKiosk Start Page” or “SiteKiosk Player”).

Regards,
Michael Olbrich

In general, please also note the following FAQ in connection with a general login problem of the SiteKiosk user caused by Windows Updates:
https://www.provisio.com/en-GB/CustomerSupportCenter/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=25283
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