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Topic: RadioSparx - Website Player, R-Box Pearl, RS-PLAY, and Playback Issues
Article ID: KB3993
Last Reviewed: Nov 03, 2018



Activating the R-Box Pearl Software on Windows
Quick Start Instructions


To get your R-Box Pearl software up and playing music quickly on Microsoft Windows, follow these steps below.


Prerequisites


The following are the prerequisites for this article:
 

  • Active RadioSparx Account - You must have an active account at the RadioSparx website to play music on the R-Box Pearl software.  Your account must be activated either as Free Trial account (which happens by default when you first sign-up), or with a paid subscription. You can sign-up on the website homepage here: https://www.radiosparx.com, or talk to a sales associate for assistance.


Install and Run the Software

To run the R-Box software on Windows, do the following: 

  • Install or Upgrade Java - Your Windows-based PC or server must have Java installed in order to run the R-Box software.  Please follow the instructions at this website to download and install the latest version of Java on your PC: https://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
  • Create R-Box Pearl Root FolderCreate the root folder where the R-Box software will reside, for example: C:\RboxPearl\  
  • Download the R-Box Software - If you have not already download the R-Box Pearl software, you can download latest version from here: R-Box Peal Download and then store the zip file in the root folder you created in the previous step.  Unzip the file it to extract the file contents inside.
  • Run Jarfix - From the root folder, run the jarfix.exe file by double-clicking it.  This will check to see if Java is installed on the computer.  If not, it will direct you to the Oracle website where you can launch the Java installer.  If you .  After Java installsThis will resolve a potential misconfiguration that exists with many Windows systems that prevent a .jar application file from being run via a double-click.
  • Launch R-Box Pearl Software - Double-click the rbox.jar file to run the application.  The application should launch and display a screen wherein you can configure the authentication Device ID and Security Token parameters.


Configure Player Settings

You must configure the player settings for the software to be able to connect to your RadioSparx account, automatically sign in, and commence playing the music.  For the  R-Box Pearl software, to access the Settings Menu, do the following:

  • Right-click on the R-Box icon in your system tray (lower-right corner of your screen) and then select the Settings option.


Then surf to the RadioSparx website (https://www.radiosparx.com), click on the Account option at the top right, then go into the Player Settings option. Or, if you're setting this up for a user under a multi-user account, go into Account, then Users, and then into Player Settings for the affected user.  Then perform these steps:

  • Step 1 -  Player Type - Change the Player Type field to "R-Box Pearl (Hardware or Software)".  Don't forget to save this setting after performing the two steps below.
  • Step 2 -  Device ID - Enter the Device ID from the Player Settings screen into the corresponding field in the R-Box Pearl settings screen.
  • Step 3 -  Security Token - Enter the Security Token from the Player Settings screen into the corresponding field in the R-Box Pearl settings screen.

  • Step 4 - Important:  Make sure to save the changes here!



Update Software

At any time after installing the software, you can update your software to the latest version.  To do so, go into the R-Box Pearl's Settings Menu screen again and click on the Update option.  This will cause the latest software to download and upgrade itself to the latest available version of the software.  Generally, you won't need to do this since the software will automatically update itself as new versions are released.


Test Playback

After the software updates, click on the PLAY button from the main screen of the R-Box software and the Pop Vocal station should commence playing immediately in streaming mode.



Schedule Your Music

Configure the desired music to play via the Custom Schedule feature.  By default, the R-Box Pearl plays in streaming mode, but by accessing the "Advanced Settings" section of your Custom Schedule settings screen, you can change the operational mode to use Store-and-Forward (Caching mode) instead.  

Note: In the upcoming new version of the RadioSparx website, the Streaming versus Caching control has been moved from the Custom Schedule Settings screen to the Player Settings screen.

 

Automatic Play

The R-Box Pearl software is engineered to be a non-stop music player, so when you reboot the device, if you have configured the application to auto-start, it will automatically begin playing after the reboot.  It tries to always play music as much as possible to require minimal human intervention.   The key to making the application auto-play after a reboot is to do the following:

In the R-Box application's root folder where the R-Box software is located, right-click on the rbox.jar file and create a shortcut to it.  The right-click on the new shortcut and select "copy" to copy the shortcut to your clipboard.  Then, depending on whether you want R-Box to play for only the currently signed-in user, or for any user that ever signs-in to the PC, right-click on the Windows start button, then in the menu that pops up click on RUN, then pasted in either of the following:

  • shell:common startup     (for the entire PC)
  • shell:startup    (for the currently signed-in user)
  • When the folder appears on the screen, right-click in the white space somewhere inside that folder and from the popup menu select paste to paste the R-Box shortcut into the folder.  Then after a reboot, all the apps in that folder will automatically launch, and thus R-Box Pearl will also launch and commence playback.

    To make it stop playing at nighttime, simply configure a "Stop Event" for your Custom Schedule to take effect at a particular time of night, and when that time arrives and the last song finishes, the R-Box will go into sleep mode and begin a countdown of the hours and minutes until the next configured music event for the following morning arrives, and then it will automatically resume playback.


    Player Monitoring

     By default, in both streaming and store-and-forward modes, the R-Box periodically sends a signal to the web server to inform that it is active and playing.  The required upstream traffic for this is negligible and provides the capability for you to monitor all of your R-Box players via the monitoring system of RadioSparx.  

    In store-and-forward mode, if your Internet service happens to go down for some time period, the R-Box will not be able to connect to the server to report its status, and hence a "down player" alert may occur on the monitoring system.  However, since in store-and-forward mode the R-Box plays music from the files that are stored locally on the R-Box, there will be no music interruption and nobody in the store / restaurant / service location will even realize the Internet is down.  For a business environment, this is ideal, hence it is highly recommended that you utilize the store-and-forward mode at all times.


    Custom Ads

    For clients utilizing our PRO Plan, if desired you can also upload and configure Custom Ads -- they work fine in both streaming and caching modes.  
     

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