Using the Carousel Clone Tool – Carousel 7 Support Center

Overview

The Clone Tool is a program that allows the exporting, importing, migration and duplication of Carousel channels including all media, templates, and bulletins. It can also be used as a way to archive a channel and all its contents by saving the exported channel package to external storage. The Clone Tool is located on the Carousel server in the TRMS/Tools directory and works with a Carousel Channel file type (.csl). This tool is only available for on-premise Carousel servers.

Where to start

Log into your Carousel Server's desktop and navigate to the tools directory (normally C:/TRMS/Tools) and click the shortcut for Carousel Clone Tool.

The program will update media permissions if needed and then connect to the Carousel database. If you receive errors please check the Common Issues/Questions section. The tool will open and provide a option to import, export or configure tool settings.

Common Issues/Questions

"I cannot import my Carousel 6 channel to my Carousel 7 server"

There is a fundamental difference between Carousel 6 and 7 channels, .csl files exported from one cannot be imported to the other.

"Updating media permissions takes forever/never finishes"

If the media permissions task never finishes (takes longer than 15 minutes) try running "as administrator" and try again.

If the media permissions task takes a long time, but does finish eventually, click the configuration menu (the three dots "...") and uncheck "Set Permissions on Media at Launch"

"I imported a channel but it's not listed in my channel list"

If the channel and zones already existed on the system, it's likely that the channel was simply mapped to the existing zones. See the Duplicating Channels section for best practices.

It is also possible that the account being used to log into the Carousel UI does not have the rights to see the newly imported channel. Log in as an administrator account and ensure the channel and zones where imported, then assign the appropriate permissions for the account where the channel is not showing.

Carousel Database version is not supported

Sometimes when running the Clone Tool the error, "Your Carousel Database Version 'unknown' is not supported, try running the Carousel.sql database script" will be provided:

The Clone Tool is trying to connect to the Carousel50 database from the SQL server, but is either unable to open the database or does not have the rights to do so. Most of the time this happens when the user account running the tool does not have rights themselves to the Carousel50 database; Close the tool and "run as" an account that does (the local administrator or original account that installed Carousel should have the rights). Another possible cause is that Microsoft SQL Server is not running, ensure that the "SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER)" service is running and try again. A bit of technical info here, the Clone Tool looks at the connectionStrings.config file (normally located in C:/TRMS/Configuration) to set where it looks for the SQL database - specifically the "CarouselConnectionString" data source.

Exporting Channels

Click the Export option on the Clone Tool and you will be greeted with a menu showing all channels on the server. Just single-click the channel, or channels, you wish to export and press ok, and select a location to save the file.

Once the export is finished you will have a .csl file which will include the following attributes of the channel(s):

Name of the channel
Channel layout, resolution, any subscriptions
All zones in the layout with all configuration settings
Full Screen alert zones and crawls that the channel is subscribed to
All templates from all zones
All media from all zones
All bulletins (including upcoming and expired) from all zones

The following attribute will not be included as they are configured outside of the channel settings

External authentications (Twitter, Exchange and MDM authentications)

If there are any private templates owned by a specific user in an exported zone, those will be still exported but only admin accounts will be able to see them when imported again.

Importing Channels

Click the Import option on the Clone Tool and select the .csl package that includes the channel you want to import. You will be able to rename the channel and tags using the import menu. For most new channels nothing will need to be changed, click the import option and wait until the process finishes. Note: in some instances a CMD window will be covering the import process bar, you can move that window but do not close it.

Once the import is finished, you will be able to see it in the Carousel UI after logging in again. If you had an active login session open, log out and log back in if you don't see the channel. If you still do not see the new channel check the Common Issues/Questions section.

Duplicating Channels

First, follow the Exporting Channels section to get a .csl file of the channel(s) you want to duplicate. Then click the Import button on the Clone Tool, select the .csl file and press ok.

When you try to import a channel that already exists on a server, all duplicate zones map to the original. We will need to do some work to fully duplicate a channel. See the example below where we are going to import one of two channels, from the same .csl file, that already exist:

First click on the channel and give it a new name, by default it will be named the original and the date imported. We will uncheck "Import this channel" for Single Landscape and change My First Channel to My Second Channel. This will be reflected on the left like so:

When duplicating channels and giving them new names, try to use something specific to help with organization. Importing and naming all new channels "My First Channel", "My Second Channel", "My Third Channel" will be harder to remember over time. Try using descriptive names like "North Building Lobbies", "High School Cafeteria" or "Break Room" - remember that different players can display the same channel so having ten break rooms at different locations can share one "Break Room" channel.

At this point each zone is still being mapped to the original, we will need to select each zone on the left and change the Map to Existing Zone option to "+ Import as a new zone" and give it a new name:

When all the zones are renamed, they should all be blue and no longer have the "Mapped to" declaration next to them on the left,

The last thing to do is change the Tags so that we can sort out these zones in the Carousel UI to make content updates easier. Do not "Add" a zone tag if you want to change existing shared tag, instead click any of instances of that tag, in our example "My First Channel 2017", and rename it. All other instances of that tag will automatically be renamed as well:

At this point the new channel is ready to be imported, click the import option in the lower right corner and wait until the process finishes. Note: in some instances a CMD window will be covering the import progress bar, you can move that window but do not close it.

Migrating Channels to a Different Server

First, follow the Exporting Channels section to get a .csl file of the channel(s) you want to export. Take the .csl file and move it to the other Carousel server you want to import it into. You can either run the Clone Tool from the tools folder (typically C:/TRMS/Tools) or just double-click the file. You can optionally change the channel name and tags if needed and then click the import option and wait until the process finishes. Note: in some instances a CMD window will be covering the import process bar, you can move that window but do not close it.

Some channels made in specific versions of carousel cannot be imported to other versions. For example a channel package from a Carousel 6 server cannot be imported into a Carousel 7 server.

Other Errors

Error importing channel: An error occurred while updating the entries.

When importing a channel the process fails and provides this error:

This error is provided when the account running the clone.exe process does not have permission to make changes on the SQL database. For setups with a local instance of SQL simply running the Clone Tool "as administrator" avoids this issue. For systems that use an external SQL server connection, select "run as" and use either a domain account or service account that has SQL rights. If you are unsure what service account has the correct rights and don't have access to the external SQL server to check, open services.msc and the account that is set to run the Carousel service, that account should work but you'll still need to know the password.

Cannot import channel: file already exists