Hi, I’m trying to create a simple solution for my local library to run a Google slideshow on a display. Nixos seems like a great fit as it will be very hands off for the staff - they update the slideshow and the url stays the same.
Currently I have a cage service that handles this but I’ve gotten complaints about it going to a grey screen sometimes and having to restart it. So my main question is is there a better way to do this? Full page webpage with no interaction needed at all.
Thanks!
Anthony
I never had issues with cage (but it was in 2022), is the grey screen related to the program running in cage or the display itself?
Edit: I misread your comment, it’s not the display. I’ve seen this shade of grey on my test display at home before firefox loads.
I used your guide actually to make it, running firefox in cage. Thank you for that btw! I’m thinking it may have been disconnected from wifi (no ethernet at the display, bleh) and that’s where it got stuck.
Hearing that you never had issues bolsters my confidence in the set up, thank you! There must be an issue with the connection. I’ve added to the service file to restart cage every 30 mins. Kind of brute force but hopefully will work.
So if it’s firefox, you may want to try using another web browser or fix the displayed page. If you can’t, maybe there is something that could be achieved with a service triggering cage service restart if a network issue was detected 
I’ve been managing a few kiosks in Paris city and it was a pain to handle the fleet remotely on poor hardware with poor connectivity 
a method to have access to the remote display can be useful for debugging purpose, and most of the time the best fix is to handle the network connectivity within the web app… 
Thanks for the advice. I’ve added a reboot every day and the cage service will restart every 30 mins. Hopefully that cures any problems. The restart on network outage seems like a good idea so I’ll add that to my back burner for now.
I might think about replacing the browser but with what I am not sure. Would Chromium work in this situation? Might work better with google slideshows anyway… I do like Firefox though and I’d like to keep it as free as possible.