black screen for TV in web-browser after upgrading. downgraded but still black screen.

S

silph

New Member
- I have an older laptop. I had an old version of OBS installed on it (I think it was 25.0.8). I successfully used Display Capture mode to capture http://ici.tou.tv shows (a French Canadian website that is like Netflix, that plays movies and TV in the web browser). In order to make Display Capture work, I had to go to Windows's "Graphics Settings", choose "Classic App", choose the obs64.exe file, and set its options to "Power Savings".
- But today, I upgraded OBS through its "Help > Check For Updates" feature. It upgraded OBS to some 26.x.x version. After doing so, Display Capture would show black instead of the television show playing in Google Chrome; it was able to capture the subtitles on the tv show, and all other web browsing tabs (ie if I browsed my email on Google Chrome), but would show black instead of the TV show.
- I then removed the OBS entry from Windows's "Graphics Settings", uninstalled OBS, re-installed OBS 25.0.8, set OBS to "Power Savings" under Graphics Settings again, and then restarted my computer. Then I tried recording tou.tv with OBS again, and I'm still having the exact same problem with OBS showing black instead of the TV screen, despite me downgrading back to OBS 25.0.8.

My laptop is at about half a decade old. It is running Windows 10.0.18363 Build 18363, has an i7-45100U cpu, and an AMD Radeon R9 M275 graphics card.

How can I restore functionality so that I can record my TV show with Display Setting, just as it was working before I tried upgrading OBS?

my Last Log File is here: https://obsproject.com/logs/_ZR40kNkPwpVHHQA
 
update: i tried recording tou.tv with a different older laptop, and it worked successfully. it's using OBS 26.0.2. (i stopped using this laptop a few months ago, partially because its battery could no longer hold a charge, and partially because i spilled liquid onto its trackpad which caused the trackpad to not work properly).

the Last Log file for this other laptop is here: https://obsproject.com/logs/C2_EFReHoYIf-kSE
 
For both laptops that I used, yes, I'm using Chrome. (I have been using Chrome for many months, with success in capturing tou.tv using Display Capture)
 
i should add a detail: the black (instead of the tv show's video) shows up in the preview window in OBS (e.g. when i hold Alt+Tab on Windows 10 and see OBS and Chrome in miniture):

- for the laptop that is able to capture the tv show (or the current laptop when it used be able to), the tv show displays properly in the preview window.
- for this current laptop, where obs is no longer able to capture the tv show, the tv show video shows up as black in the preview window (and on the recorded output file), even though everything else is captured properly and also shows up on the preview window properly, (including the tabs on chrome, the subtitles of the TV show, the play/pause/playback-time-bar controls of the tv show, any non-TV-video part of the tou.tv website) .

if I use Window Capture instead of Display Capture for both laptops; the same thing is true: the preview window shows the tv-video on the laptop that is able to capture tou.tv, and on the laptop that can't capture tou.tv, the preview window shows black instead of the tv-video (but does show everything else, like the playback controls and subtitles).
 
update: i've "sort of" resolved this issue, though i still don't know what caused it.

i did a google search for [obs chrome video black], and found this https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/black-screen-when-capturing-chrome-window.46617/ thread from 2016, which advised me to turn off Hardware Acceleration in Chrome. after doing so, i could capture tou.tv (although it plays more choppily than i remember before).

admittedly, i didn't watch tou.tv for about a month, so maybe Chrome updated itself since then, and the pre-updated version had Hardware Acceleration off? i'm not sure.

now i'm curious if OBS can even capture Hardware Accelerated video, but for now at least i can capture tou.tv, though i wish it didn't playback so choppily.

----

update:
- the other laptop (with the broken trackpad) that i stopped using for a number of months, it is using chrome version 86.0.4240.111, and DOES have "Use Hardware Acceleration when available" enabled.
- my current laptop that i'm having problems with is chrome version Version 87.0.4280.88 (Official Build) (64-bit) . it is able to capture tou.tv with "Use Hardware Acceleration when available" disabled, but not when it is enabled.

so I don't know why the other laptop (with the broken trackpad) with chrome version 86 is able to use obs to capture tou.tv, even though Hardware Acceleration is enabled?
 
Last edited:
Hello!
Im having the same problem. After the update, I get the audio, but there is no video showing?
I'm a teacher and show movies during my lunchtime, using prime or netflix for my students, but nothing but a black screen shows, but the audio comes through...?
If anyone can help, that would be great!
 
the only thing that worked for me is to disable Hardware Acceleration in Google Chrome (or to try another web browser). (Disabling Hardware Accleration in Chrome: Settings > Advanced > System). Maybe watching prime or netflix through a web browser with Hardware Acceleration disabled could help?
 
silph said:
the only thing that worked for me is to disable Hardware Acceleration in Google Chrome (or to try another web browser). (Disabling Hardware Accleration in Chrome: Settings > Advanced > System). Maybe watching prime or netflix through a web browser with Hardware Acceleration disabled could help?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I actually found that link and I did that! Thank you and all! It does work and my studetns will be happy now because we can watch movies during lunch time! I do wonder when that changed in the update, but all good! It works now :)
 
Disabling hardware acceleration also did the job for me. But this is not the best fix! will there be an OBS version that will fix this issue? Or if not what was the last version of OBS working with hardware acceleration. I don't mind downgrading to that version after all!
 
You're posting on a year-old thread, and the issues that cause black screens in chrome have changed.
 
Harold said:
You're posting on a year-old thread, and the issues that cause black screens in chrome have changed.
Click to expand...
I know that this thread is old, but the topic explains the exact problem I am having and the fix (Disabling hardware acceleration) suggested here is the only way I was able to get OBS record a stream playing in MS Edge. I have been searching the forum and did not find any newer solution! If you know the answer it would be kind to explain or give a link to a newer thread instead of relying without giving any useful information. I also did what was suggested in the sticky (https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/laptop-black-screen-when-capturing-read-here-first.5965/) but this didn't fix my problem either. OBS is recording everything fine except stream in edge. It even records fine the webpage in edge before I click on PLAY on the video link!
 
Yeah you folks are fighting changes in the technologies that render to the screen.
I don't know the details but there has to be an agreement of where and how the app/video player,
renders the video and where OBS pulls the data from. Clearly there can be a disconnect between the player and the capture. And these
details can change at any time from version to version and break that agreement.
Its not a bug in OBS, just the choice of screen capture method OBS uses vs the particular apps choice of how to render.
It goes back to drivers, and apps use of technology to render ie: directx or other methods, and software layers like that. The apps are probably cheating and using some that is fast but
not so compatible, difficult or impossible to capture, or just out of agreement with apps
like OBS trying to bring that data back.
Like in the last post, edge is doing some new and funky IMHO.
 
Thanks a lot dmemphis, It's now more clear for me and at least I understood that the problem was specific to Edge. I was able to capture streams with firefox with no problem! Seems like there is a DRM protection issue here and edge doing something on purpose to prevent users from being able to record! So it's not an OBS problem as I thought! In a way I can understand some companies trying to protect their copyright content. But at the same time it's a blow for people who simply want to capture a non copyright content (like me I always capture 2 minutes of a show on public TV where they present new books) to share on whatsapp with 2 friends and my wife!
 
In my experience what you are describing is not DRM, but I could be wrong. Usually DRMs only try to prevent a 1:1 100% accurate copy in my experience. And the screen captures are
generally not exact.
Just the same, it is a bummer that there is rendering/grabbing incompatibility at all.
DRM: I still get bit by it when I use HDMI to SDI converters on DVD players :) Every darn time!
("Oh, this converter is broken... hours later... Doh no of course... its DRM!" And then I remember
to convert from analog component to SDI instead)
 
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