Show an emergency message at a location

By the end, one command puts a prepared scene on every display at a location until a time you set, and a second command ends it early. Use it for a closure, a water damage, or an evacuation notice, when there is no time to click through the portal.

How it works#

An override sits above every program and ends at the time you set. It applies to one display at a time, so the script reads the displays of the location page by page and sets the override on each one. The program of each display stays as it is and takes over again when the override ends.

If all displays at the location play the same program, a one-off program entry reaches all of them in one call, see Schedule a campaign from your own system. The override is the faster way in an emergency because it needs no knowledge of the programs.

Steps#

1. Prepare the scene in the portal and publish it, for example a red page with "Closed today" and a phone number. Open it: the address ends with its ID scn_…. Prepare it before you need it.

2. Find the location ID with GET /v1/locations:

   GET/v1/locationsCopy

   curl -sS "$SZENERA_API/v1/locations" \  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SZENERA_API_KEY" \  | jq -r '.locations[] | "\(.id)  \(.name)  \(.playerCount) displays"'

3. Save the script. It takes the location, the scene, and the end time, and prints the response code for each display:

   PUT/v1/playersCopy

   #!/usr/bin/env bash# emergency.sh <loc_…> <scn_…> <end, such as 2026-10-26T18:00:00+01:00>set -euo pipefaillocation="$1" scene="$2" until="$3"auth="Authorization: Bearer $SZENERA_API_KEY"body=$(jq -nc --arg scene "$scene" --arg until "$until" \  '{content: {kind: "scene", sceneId: $scene}, until: $until}') cursor=""while :; do  page=$(curl -sS -G "$SZENERA_API/v1/players" -H "$auth" \    --data-urlencode "locationId=$location" --data-urlencode "limit=100" \    ${cursor:+--data-urlencode "cursor=$cursor"})  for id in $(jq -r '.items[].id' <<<"$page"); do    curl -sS -o /dev/null -w "$id %{http_code}\n" -X PUT \      "$SZENERA_API/v1/players/$id/override" \      -H "$auth" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "$body"  done  cursor=$(jq -r '.nextCursor // empty' <<<"$page")  [ -z "$cursor" ] && breakdone

4. Run it. The end time carries its offset, so it means the same moment everywhere:

   TerminalCopy

   ./emergency.sh loc_01KFB7QPW0LOCATION00000001 scn_01KJPX8NH0SZENE00000000009 2026-10-26T18:00:00+01:00

   Copy

   ply_01KFB7QPW0PLAYER0000000001 200ply_01KFB7QPW0PLAYER0000000002 200

5. End it early with the same loop and DELETE instead of PUT, without a body. Each display falls back to its program at once:

   DELETE/v1/players/ply_01KFB7QPW0PLAYER0000000001/overrideCopy

   curl -sS -X DELETE "$SZENERA_API/v1/players/ply_01KFB7QPW0PLAYER0000000001/override" \  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SZENERA_API_KEY"

A single display also works from the command line: szenera player set-override <ply_…> --content=scene:<scn_…> --until=… and szenera player clear-override <ply_…>.

Check the result#

• Every line of the output ends in 200.
• GET /v1/players/{id}/program shows the override under override, with until and the scene.
• In the portal, the displays of the location show the override until the end time.

If something goes wrong#

Related#

• Commands for your organization
• Paging: limit, cursor, items, nextCursor
• Throttling and rate-limit headers