What Happens When a Display Loses Its Internet Connection
A LobbyFlight board keeps showing its last good flights through an outage, marks them as possibly delayed, and keeps its last board through network drops and app restarts from a short-lived local copy. Here is what guests see and where you see it in the portal.
What Happens When a Display Loses Its Internet Connection
Networks in hotels drop out now and then, and a lobby screen should cope with that calmly. A LobbyFlight board keeps showing the last flights it received, tells guests plainly that the information may be delayed, and comes back to live data by itself as soon as the connection returns. This article explains what a guest sees during an outage, what happens if the screen restarts while the network is still down, how fresh the data is when everything works, and where the portal shows you that a screen has dropped off.
What the screen shows during an outage
Nothing disappears. The board keeps the flight list it last loaded successfully and keeps your logo, colours and layout on screen. The clock in the header keeps running, because it needs no network.
Two quiet signs tell guests that the information is not current.
While the board has data, a failed refresh never replaces the list with an error. Only a board that has no flights at all shows the red Connection Error panel with a Try Again button. The board never invents data: statuses, gates and times stay exactly as they were at the last update until fresh data arrives.
When the screen restarts while offline
A TV that reboots or loses power during an outage would normally come back to an empty page. To avoid that, the board keeps a small copy of its last good state in the browser on the display device.
If the screen restarts offline within those limits, it opens with your design and the last flight list, marked with Data may be delayed and the time of the last update. A flight list older than 30 minutes is not used, because times that old would mislead a guest; the board then opens with your design and the Connection Error panel instead of flights. If there are no stored settings either, the screen shows the notice "Flight board temporarily unavailable. Retrying automatically."
The 30-minute limit applies only to this stored copy after a restart. A board that simply keeps running through an outage keeps its list on screen, marked as possibly delayed, until the connection returns.
Where the copy is kept
The copy lives in the browser's local storage on the display device itself, separately for each screen. There is nothing to switch on and nothing to maintain; every successful update replaces it. If the browser does not allow local storage, for example in a private window or when the storage is full, there is simply no copy, and the board works exactly as before without it. The previews in the portal never write to this copy, so looking at a board in the editor cannot change what a lobby screen falls back to. The copy is only rewritten when the settings actually change (or about once an hour), and it is deleted as soon as the portal answers that the display was switched off or deleted or that the trial has ended, so a screen never comes back with a board it should no longer show. There is no offline installation (service worker): the device still has to be able to open the board page itself, for example from its browser cache or in a kiosk app that keeps it open. The copy therefore covers network drops and app restarts, not a cold start without any network.
How fresh the data is when the network is fine
Flight data is refreshed at an interval that depends on your plan.
There is no cache setting in the portal; the plan is the only lever. See Understanding Your Subscription to compare the tiers. Weather follows its own cycle of about half an hour. The display settings are re-read about every 20 seconds, which is why changes you save in the portal reach the screen almost at once.
Our servers add one more safety net. If our flight data provider cannot be reached, the server falls back to the last successful flight list it kept, for up to 24 hours, so a provider hiccup does not empty your board. This helps only while your screen itself is online.
Where you see that a display has gone offline
Every display sends a heartbeat to LobbyFlight every five minutes. A display counts as offline once more than 12 minutes have passed without one. That is two missed beats plus a little slack, so a brief stutter does not raise a false alarm.
You see the result in two places. Under Displays in the portal, each screen shows its status and when it was last seen. On the dashboard, offline screens are counted, and each one raises the warning *Display "name" appears offline*. A screen that keeps showing its last data during an outage still counts as offline, because it cannot send its heartbeat; the portal tells you the truth even when the lobby looks normal.
A screen you switched off yourself in the portal is shown as switched off rather than offline, and a screen that has been created but never opened is shown as never opened.
Getting a display back
Usually you do nothing. As soon as the browser notices the connection is back, the board asks for fresh settings and flights, the orange badge disappears, and the delay note goes away with the first successful update. At the latest this happens at the next regular refresh.
If a screen still looks stuck once the network is back, use Reload screen next to it in the Displays list. The screen picks this up on its next settings check and reloads within about 20 seconds. On a touch screen, Try Again on the error panel also fetches the flights again. Reloading the page by hand on the device works too; it keeps the stored copy, so the board comes back with its last state rather than empty.
If one display stays offline while other devices on the same network are fine, the cause is almost always the network path. Network Requirements and Firewall Configuration lists what has to be reachable.
Troubleshooting
The board shows "Data may be delayed" although the internet works. The last flight refresh failed or the data is older than two refresh cycles. On Basic, a refresh happens only once an hour, so one failed refresh leaves the note up for a while. The note disappears with the next successful update.
After a power cut the screen shows "Connection Error" instead of flights. The stored flight list was older than 30 minutes, or the device had never stored one. The board fetches fresh flights as soon as it is online again.
The screen restarted offline and shows the unavailable notice. No stored settings younger than 24 hours were available, for example because the browser runs in private mode, its data was cleared, or the display had been switched off or deleted in the portal. Once the connection is back, the board loads normally and starts keeping its copy.
The portal says offline, but the lobby screen looks fine. The board is showing its last data while it cannot reach LobbyFlight. Check the network at the device; the status returns to normal with the next heartbeat after the connection is back.
Next steps
Support
If something here does not match what you see, write to info@lobbyflight.com. Support is available Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00 CET.