Screen capture is not capturing documents anymore

[dweb]

I have been using discord screencapture with Affinity software as a virtual whiteboard for the past year and a half. Usually I would capture the Window and share it. As of last week Affinity has not been able to capture the canvas when screensharing the window, instead displaying an empty document. (see image below). Mouse movements are captured, but the canvas is not. Note that the canvas is shown when capturing the entire display rather than just the window. 

I have attempted to use OBS to capture the window to test whether it is an issue with discord specifically or Affinity. The issue persists, suggesting it is an issue with the software, or with Windows. The image below dispalys the window that should be captured, and a window of OBS to show what is captured.

Issue Dotpoints

• Windows 10
• originally observed on older version (2.4.x)
• Observed on latest version (2.5.3)
• first observed 12/August/2024
• issue persistent across publisher, photo, and designer
• At least one other person reproduced issue on reddit. 

[Ron P.]

@dweb, Welcome to the forums,

This is not an issue specific to Affinity apps. I've never tried using Discord, but have been using OBS for sometime now. I'm not sure if it's more a Windows or OBS problem causing this.

In OBS, if I use the Window Capture, I get the same or variations. Sometimes the cursor, other times dialogs, menus are not captured. I avoid using the Window Capture, and just use Display Capture. I don't have the problems with OBS using that.

Affinity is not capable of capturing anything, it's the software used to capture the screen.

 

[dweb]

The only reason I think its an Affinity problem is that I've been able to capture the window successfully for years across versions of Affinity, screencap software, and computers. Its just recently that there has been an issue so my thought is that Affinity may have changed the way it renders, OR Windows itself has made a change. 

[Callum]

Hi Dweb,

As far as I'm aware this issue with OBS has always been the case and as Ron P suggested Affinity isn't the only app with this issue. Using Display Capture should work around this in the meantime.

As far as the apps canvas not showing via Discord screen share I wasn't aware of this but it is likely caused by the same issue as OBS. The canvas is rendered separately from the rest of the app essentially on its own layer and certain screen recording software will only record under this layer leaving you with just the UI and no visible canvas.

I have just had a play with OBS to see if anything has changed in this regard since I last tested this some years ago and it seems that in my Window Capture Properties menu if I set the Capture Method to Windows 10 the canvas is shown correctly so perhaps this will also work for you.

Thanks
C

 

[Ron P.]

This is what I was referring to in OBS. Using the Window Capture Source it doesn't allow for capturing the Menus, or other Layers. I think this is a problem with OBS. Display Capture Source captures all layers, in other words what you're seeing on your screen.

[dweb]

Thankyou @Callum and @Ron P.. We've arrived at a fix! Changing the setting mentioned above setting got OBS working and I can stream that as a virtual camera through discord. Really appreciate your time  It seems discord may have perhaps changed their capture method.