Question / Help Hotkeys for recording don't work

[Poltronas]

Hey guys,

So recently I was trying to record a gameplay using OBS but for some reason, my hotkeys wouldn't work. I tried to record a short video (like 10 sec, just to test) by pressing the keys I assigned to start and end the capture. After I minimized the game and went to my recordings folder, there wasn't anything there.

Since I set up the capture area as my full pc screen, I then tried recording my desktop, and once again nothing happened. The OBS icon on my system tray didn't show the screen was being recorded after I pressed the "start recording" hotkey either.

Then I needed to minimize and maximize my game and manually press the button every time I wanted to start/stop the video.

Do you guys have any clue of what may be the problem and how I can solve it?

Thanks! :-)

 

[koala]

Hotkeys being ignored happens if the currently active app is running as admin while OBS is running not as admin. It's not relevant what you're recording, it's the app where the input focus currently is. If this app is running as admin, hotkeys are blocked for any app not running as admin. To change this, run OBS as admin as well.
Additionally, if you use a 3rd party tool to generate hotkeys, for example a mouse companion app to assign hotkeys to mouse keys, this app needs to run as admin, if it should send hotkeys to any app running as admin.
Rule of thumb: either run everything as admin, or nothing as admin. Recommended and the correct way is to run nothing as admin.

 

[Poltronas]

Thanks :-)

I generally don't run any apps as admin. But I don't know if my Windows runs any background process that craps out everything though...

So just by starting OBS as an admin, even if there's another hidden admin process, it means that all the priority will be OBS', right?

 

[koala]

There is probably no hidden admin app that might sabotage your hotkeys. If there were one, you would get the elevation prompt when this app starts. Usually when you log on to the system. If you just get to the desktop without any elevation prompt after login, it will be fine. Even if there were still one, it has to be the app in focus, and this isn't the case if you're actively working within a different app.

You might try running OBS as admin, but if this isn't solving your issue, revert and stop running it as admin. One should not get used to run ordinary apps as admin, because this is wrong from a technical point of view.

 

[xtrax]

This might be old but I don't think anyone realized that this is another solution:
File > Settings > Advanced > Scroll all the way down and find "Hotkeys" > Set it to "Never Disable Hotkeys"

 

[Franco26]

Hi guys, I am new to OBS so maybe you can help. I have set up my hotkeys to start and stop recording but they don't work unless my OBS dashboard is open on my screen. Is there a way to use the hotkeys so that I can start recording my screen without having to pull up the dashboard first?

 

[Franco26]

Hotkeys being ignored happens if the currently active app is running as admin while OBS is running not as admin. It's not relevant what you're recording, it's the app where the input focus currently is. If this app is running as admin, hotkeys are blocked for any app not running as admin. To change this, run OBS as admin as well.
Additionally, if you use a 3rd party tool to generate hotkeys, for example a mouse companion app to assign hotkeys to mouse keys, this app needs to run as admin, if it should send hotkeys to any app running as admin.
Rule of thumb: either run everything as admin, or nothing as admin. Recommended and the correct way is to run nothing as admin.

Hi, Does this work the same way if I'm running OBS on a Mac?

 

[Blackink]

This is what I do to make my hot keys work while OBS is minimized. (Now granted, I did install OBS to "Run as Administrator" when I did my first install but that didn't stop the problem).
Right click the OBS icon (or Shortcut) and select >Properties, then select >Advanced... on the Shortcut tab.
A new window opens labeled "Advanced Properties" then you'll see the open to checkmark the "Run as administrator".
Once that is selected, I run my hot keys for OBS while OBS is minimized.

Hope this helps!