Using OBS for long-time "glitch" hunting in a KVM environment?

[Walter Schulz]

Hello!

At work we have a problem with a particular workplace and a glitching monitor (going dark spontanously and for a short time). Because said incidents happen very rarely support staff was not able to see any glitching at all and we are completely in the dark about possible causes.

Now my idea:
We put this workplace into maintainance mode (= nobody working on it but support staff). Monitor input (HDMI) will get plugged into HDMI capture device (USB). Device gets plugged to another PC where OBS is running and recording. Recording PC running OBS will use Windows 10.
After some time (2 days max) we check recording for glitches. Should be easy to detect them, right?
This will give us the exact timing for those glitches and we (better: KVM manufacturer's support) will be able to check KVM's components log files for these dates..And which one causes the glitches. If logs show nothing: Some error between last KVM component and monitor.

Now my questions:
1) Is OBS able to do long time recordings?
2) Recommended recording settings? We don't need high image quality. We just need to detect glitches.
3) Anything I'm not aware of making this all futile?

Thank you for your time to read this and your thoughts about it. My knowledge about OBS is rather limited.

 

[koala]

Should work. If you're recording the hdmi output, you should be able to see/record what the user really sees on the monitor, hopefully including any dark parts. If you were just recording with display capture directly on the PC, these parts may not be visible in the video as dark.
1) OBS is able to record as long as you want, as long as disk space lasts
2) use simple output mode, "high quality, medium file size". On a mostly static desktop with regular office work, this will consume very little disk space, and almost no disk space at all if nobody does anything - provided there is no animated screen saver present but only ones with static images.
3) use mkv as output format. It's resistant against unexpected aborts. If you require mp4 for your later inspection, convert to mp4 afterwards with Settings->Advanced->Recording->Automatically remux to mp4 or manually with File->Remux recordings.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

And just to cover the obvious, was the monitor and HDMI cable replaced with known good items?

And does the support team or Facilities have access to a power analyzer (check AC output to computers, KVM, and monitor) and make sure no AC glitch causing issue. I recall years ago an issue troubling a customer and during some down time, one of our senior network engineers hauled out a suitcase sized AC monitoring/troubleshooting device (no I don't recall the details, but it did have an oscilloscope and ticker tape output). Sure enough, the AC circuit itself had issues (due to specific equipment and load involved)... granted an unusual, but in your case maybe something to check if/when the obvious and likely all ruled out....

 

[koala]

Depending on the computer knowledge of the user, and depending on what "KVM environment" means (can be the usage of some virtual machines, or the usage of a KVM switch to access multiple PCs with one keyboard+monitor+mouse, which can be a hardware device or software), that dark display glitch can be everything between a real short display dropout and a quick reboot of the PC or virtual machine.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Yup, was thinking the same
Also, possible OS power settings, and display (or KVM switch) reacting to Sleep setting on 1 OS, even if that isn't the displayed screen (depending on connecting technology).. maybe, I'm reaching, but yea, lots of possibilities