OBS won't update Window Capture unless the window is active/visible.

[AlexHaitz]

This has been happening for a while now, and seems to be getting worse over time.

Spotify will just be a static image unless I have the window open.
Discord will just be a grey screen.

Hovering over the program in the taskbar and making the little preview popup will cause the capture to start working in OBS again.

I've tried looking for threads of other people having this problem with little to no success.

Does anyone know what's causing this? I'm out of ideas to diagnose the issue.

 

[Suslik V]

Nowadays it is rare that application renders its UI while running in background. OBS cannot capture what wasn't drawn.

 

[AlexHaitz]

Nowadays it is rare that application renders its UI while running in background. OBS cannot capture what wasn't drawn.

Even if the window is not minimized? Discord used to get captured even if there was a maximized window over it, same with Spotify. But now both need to be in front.

Is this more of a Windows thing, or are these programs changing their UIs in ways that OBS can't render?
I guess if this is everyone's experience now, it's more of a feature than a bug.

 

[Suslik V]

When you writing a program you take care of how much resources it will consume. So, behavior may depend on version of the program, version of the OS, version of the OBS.

Even OBS itself has switch to disable preview - output will work and pictures saved to file but nothing will be drawn on the screen. Games and browser based programs surely can pause rendering when minimized. OBS grabs images that drawn by programs before these images combined with other pictures on your desktop (technique depends on selected capture method: Display, Window, Game etc).

To get help in resolving the capture errors, you likely need to:

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

obsproject.com

and likely you need to write a step by step how to reproduce the issue (what on top, what you see, what is running, what result is etc). When you provide the steps - there is chance that someone be able to confirm that this is a new feature or it's a bug.

 

[AlexHaitz]

Here's a log after I opened OBS, had a Window Capture for Spotify going, and would put a maximized window in front of it which would cause Spotify to seemingly stop rendering. Minimizing Spotify causes it to disappear from the scene, whereas putting another maximized window in front of it just causes the capture to freeze.

Beginning to wonder if this is purely a Windows or NVIDIA thing.

https://obsproject.com/logs/2U1Fwb2mN6AXv20B