The Xandabox is resilient to hardware and system failures. But, as with all devices, there is a slight chance that the Player may fail.

In case of a software failure, you might be able to recover your Playbox through “reflashing” it with the latest Xandadeck software. Reflashing will erase all of contents inside the Playbox (re-writing the whole SD card from scratch). Your settings will be retained, so your Playbox should re-apply all settings in the system, re-download all content required and resume playback without you doing anything.

If you are an advanced user, keep in mind that the only thing retained from the existing contents is the “SETTINGS.txt” file containing all settings. Any manual changes you have made into to the image through the command line will be lost (e.g. manually changing passwords, changing config.txt manually, adding other software, etc).

Resetting Settings before Recovery

The recovery procedure retains your Player’s settings. If you wish to remove settings, you can also follow this guide before following the Recovery procedure.

Preparing a USB flash drive

To perform this procedure, you will be needing a USB flash drive. Here are the requirements and some info on this:

• It would be best to use a FAT32-formatted flash drive (most USB flash drives are by default formatted as FAT32). ext2/3/4 also works, and NTFS might also work.
• The Xandabox does not change anything on the flash drive, so you can leave any other files you have on the stick.
• Download the latest Xandabox Image zip file (about 700MB in size).
• DO NOT RENAME OR EXTRACT THE ZIP FILE! Copy it (as it is) into the base folder of the USB flash drive.

IMPORTANT: Some flash drives may not work properly. During start-up, the USB flash drive might not start quickly enough, so it might not be functional within the first seconds of the startup procedure, so Xandadeck cannot detect it. This case is detailed below. If that is the case with your flash drive, try a flash drive of different make/model and find one that works

Reflashing your Player

After you have prepared a USB flash drive, follow these instructions to recover your Playbox:

1. Plug the USB flash drive into the Playbox.
2. Power up (or reboot) the Playbox.
3. Upon start-up, and before showing the Xandadeck logo, the Playbox always displays a message that says “Searching for USB drives…” while searching for the flash drive.
4. If the Playbox finds the flash drive, it should display a message saying “USB drive detected”.
5. If the Playbox does not show the “USB drive detected” message, then you will need to use a different USB flash drive because the Playbox cannot detect the flash drive you used.
6. If you have correctly prepared the USB flash drive as described above, the verification and writing procedure should start. If you get any error message, check that you have properly prepared the USB flash drive.
7. At this point, DO NOT POWER OFF YOUR PLAYBOX! Also, do not remove the USB flash drive! Allow the procedure at least 30′ to complete.
8. When the procedure has been completed, you will be prompted to remove the USB drive. Once you remove it, the Playbox will automatically reboot.
9. After reboot, the Playbox will re-apply all retained settings in the system.
10. The software might also need to be updated online, so make sure you do not remove power from the Playbox to ensure everything goes smoothly.
11. Please allow enough time to make all the required initialization procedures. Allow at least 15-20 minutes before worrying if nothing shows up on screen.

After the procedure is completed, you Player should recover, connect to the Internet, and start downloading content. Eventually, it will start playback.

Security Notice

For the advanced IT security-aware readers:

Xandabox Image files are digitally signed. The ZIP files contain information that verify that the specific SD card image was issued by Xandadeck. You cannot perform this procedure with an arbitrary image file, so an attacker cannot inject their own code into the system just by plugging in a USB drive and rebooting.

A website may require authentication to access a specific URL. Usually, authentication is implemented using two different ways:

• HTTP Basic Authentication
• Form-based Authentication, using sessions (cookies)

HTTP Basic Authentication

If the authentication is based on HTTP Basic Authentication, then you can provide the username and password within the URL on the Web Page in Xandadeck, like:

Try out the following test link in Xandadeck to verify it:

Form-based Authentication

If the authentication is based on login forms and sessions/cookies, then you will be able to use our scripting engine to login and navigate to the page you need. Here is the documentation on our web scripting engine.

You have three options:

• We have our very own Xandabox. Xandabox you order are shipped ready-to-use, with everything pre-configured. See the Xandabox articles for more details.
• We support the Raspberry Pi, a very low cost but quite capable mini-computer which you can buy yourself from vendors worldwide, no matter where you are located. Check out the guide for setting up a Pi yourself.
• ONLY for special projects with thousands of screens we can also support using regular PCs. Note that the PC must be fully utilized for Xandadeck and must run Ubuntu LTS. No Windows support yet, sorry. Reach out for more info.

(Note 1: Actually, our Xandabox is based on the Raspberry Pi and a bunch of additional components, but at a discounted price compared to a DIY solution. So, why bother? Just get your FREE Xandabox with an annual plan.)

(Note 2: Non-PC hardware running Ubuntu LTS 14.04 might also work.)

Xandadeck 2019 New Plans

Xandadeck’s new Pro and Enterprise pricing plans launch on February 1, 2019, and only our new Pro and Enterprise plans will include Playback Reports in their feature list.

Check out our new pricing plans, listed below. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Upgrade to our new plans now!

Legacy Plans For All Our Loyal Xandadeckers

But what does it all mean for old plans? You’re going Legacy! Yup, we’re turning all our current Pro and Enterprise pricing plans into Legacy Plans for all our old subscribers. Which means you all get to keep the same plan you’re on now, at the same price, automatically. Need more screens too? No problem! Up your screen count at the old prices any time you want!

And we’re sweetening the deal even more. From now until January 31, 2019, you can go ahead and upgrade to any Plan at our old prices. So hurry up and take advantage of our old pricing plans while you can!

On the other hand, please bear in mind that if you stay in the Legacy plan you will not be able to use the upcoming features. You can choose to upgrade from a Legacy plan to our New plans any time you want. It’s your call!

The features that you will be able to use in the Legacy plans are mentioned below.

First of all, we will be sad to see you go.

To cancel your subscription, you can go to the subscription panel and set the number of monitors to 1, deactivating all other monitors from your Xandadeck account.

If you want us to completely remove your account and media from our servers, drop us a line and we will do so.

We want to make sure that charge failures do not mess upwith your deployment. Monitors are usually in public view, so we want to be careful and discreet

If a charge fails, an automated email will be sent to your designated email address notifying you of the problem and urging you to take action. We will keep sending these emails every day. If the charge cannot be completed within 5 days, we will automatically display a flashing red image (without any text) for 2 minutes every 2 hours to alert you of the issue.

If the charge cannot be completed within 2 weeks, we will automatically downgrade your account to a free account. All monitors will be deactivated, and only 1 monitor will be left active (the first one added).

At any point, you can prevent this by logging into https://app.Xandadeck.com and updating your billing details.

You have to delete the monitors that you no longer require. Players of deleted monitors will be de-registered and the monitors will constantly display a relevant message, waiting for registration.

If you downgrade without deleting the extra monitors you no longer require, then Xandadeck will automatically deactivate the last monitors you added in order to match your subscription limit. You can then go back and delete the monitors you actually no longer require, and inactive monitors will automatically come back online.

Charges are fully automated, so you will be billed (or credited) the difference of your plan, so do not worry about losing service credit.

Xandadeck is priced solely based on the maximum number of registered monitors you can have under your Xandadeck account.

You can freely set this limit, so it can be any number between 1 and 99. Xandadeck will automatically calculate the monthly fee, which is billed monthly. A single monitor account is free, no credit card required. Accounts with 2 or more monitors (up to 100) are billed monthly, for $7.99 per monitor each month. So, if you had 10 monitors in your account, you would be billed $79.90 each month.

For more than 101 monitors, you can contact our sales team for a quote based on your needs. We can support thousands of monitors without a glitch!

You can add as many monitors as you want, up your subscription limit.

If you have reached the limit of active monitors for your subscription, then you will not be able to add any new monitors. Just upgrade your subscription with the new number of monitors you want to operate. Any price difference caused by upgrading or downgrading will be automatically calculated to make sure you don’t pay more than you should.

New monitors will appear as inactive (“Initialized”) in your account until the player gets connected for the first time and registers successfully. You can manage inactive monitors just like registered ones, they just have not been paired with an actual player.

Keep in mind that upgrading to an annual plan means you get FREE Xandabox for all your additional monitors as well! Hurraaay!!

Yes, you can! Just select our Annual Plan!

And remember: Annual Plans come with to a FREE Xandabox for each monitor in your subscription! Check out all of your options at our Pricing section.