simple screen recorder doesn't work (SOLVED)

[gychang]

Am impressed by Tahrpup32 6.0.5, working well on my Dell Inspiron 1300 with Celeron CPU, with 2G RAM, SSR starts fine and I see the red dot icon, BUT cannot save the file and stop the SSR. Right clicking on the icon or even clicking on save the recording does nothing. I have to xkill the SSR.

Anyone have a solution?

[wiak]

Am impressed by Tahrpup32 6.0.5, working well on my Dell Inspiron 1300 with Celeron CPU, with 2G RAM, SSR starts fine and I see the red dot icon, BUT cannot save the file and stop the SSR. Right clicking on the icon or even clicking on save the recording does nothing. I have to xkill the SSR.

Anyone have a solution?

I don't have a solution re: SSR. I have experimented with it in the past, but I've never myself liked its interface.

Tonight, coincidentally, I have been experimenting with two other screen recording apps: vokoscreen-ng (as well as older vokoscreen that uses ffmpeg) and kazam (I used a PPA to get absolute latest 1.5.3 available since it has include webcam feature). Whilst I don't know if the latest kazam would work with tahrpup, an older version certainly should (they have older versions back to Natty, Maverick I believe). It uses Python so may depend on how good your python install in TahrPup is though. Since I haven't yet tried Tahrpup, though I have a plan to, I can't yet say how easy or otherwise kazam would be to install, but I certainly recommend it - nice simple interface and minimises to tray on my Zorin system. Vokostream-ng also good, but very latest was a big install (uses GStreamer and Qt, not ffmpeg); older versions ok though, but again would depend what dependencies it needs. I decided to go with kazam 1.5.3 since it is working well for me thus far.

https://launchpad.net/kazam

Note, if you can, get kazam 1.5.3 version (worth a try in tahrpup, but otherwise find older one) for the webcam and youtube live broadcast extra capability. You need the special PPA given in the following links for that one:
https://itsfoss.com/kazam-screen-recorder/
https://codeforgeek.com/how-to-record-s ... ith-kazam/

[mikeslr]

xvidcap remains my favorite screen recorder as it's easy to just record a region of one's desktop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XVidCap#/ ... vidcap.png. Just drag the borders. Mike Walsh has provided portable versions for both 32 and 64 bits and explained how to configure it to record sound. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 884#p38884

[mikewalsh]

@gychang :-

Me, personally, if I had to choose it would probably be recordMyDesktop:-

https://enselic.github.io/recordmydesktop/

The officially-available version has for years been v0.3.8.1.....released in 2009! However, it's so stable in use - it's written in Python and C+ - and so simple & easy-to-use, people still use it to this day. Including me.

The maintainer, Martin Nordholts, who freely admits on the website that despite being responsible for the project he's been "otherwise engaged" for well over a decade (!), has actually updated it in recent months to v0.4.0. It is, however, source code only.....you need to compile it yourself.

You don't get a choice of codecs/formats. It uses the OGG container, with Theora for video & Vorbis for audio.....and that's your lot. But these ARE universally recognised formats - YouTube is quite happy to accept OGG - so it's not the problem you might imagine it to be. And their use satisfies the open-source crowd.

I'd recommend it to anyone. Needs a couple of tweaks in the Settings for best performance in Puppy, but those are simple enough to do. It's available in all older 'buntu-based Pups, though for some reason it's been dropped from the repos in recent years. Vokoscreen seems to be grabbing maximum "market share" for this category!.

---------------------------------

There's also @wiak 's own WeX screen-capture app.....which was made portable some time ago, and I then 're-packaged' into my standard portable format more recently:-

viewtopic.php?t=4199

This gives you the ability to add a webcam 'feed' in one corner of the screen.....which is a nice touch.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

@gychang :-

The fix for the original issue could just possibly be down to a Tahr-only peculiarity. Nowt to do with SimpleScreenRecorder, more to do with the underlying tools that it uses.

Instead of ffmpeg, Tahrpup uses something called avconv. This is a kind of 'fake' version of ffmpeg, and was forked off from ffmpeg a couple of years prior to Tahr's release due to a major clash of personalities within the FFMPEG Project. For some reason, someone at Canonical decided - with Tahr's release - to replace ffmpeg with avconv instead.....which was a daft decision:-

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/947 ... and-avconv

Read the first reply.....and the link from it, further down.

---------------------------------------

The simple 'fix' involves nothing more than a deletion and a sym-link.

Go into /usr/bin.
Locate avconv. Delete it.
Now locate ffmpeg. Right-click->Link...
....and in the wee box, rename 'ffmpeg' to 'avconv'. Then hit 'Symlink' to finish.

What this does is to create a sym-link to ffmpeg, named avconv. Tahr's system will think it's using avconv - when it's called-for - but will in fact be using the 'proper' ffmpeg instead.

I'm not saying this is the definitive fix for your issue, but it needs doing anyway.

Mike.

[wiak]

As I say, I don't know if last version of kazam would work on Tahr (though I suspect it might if carefully assembled for the purpose), but attached is screenshot of it's main window, with configuration opened. As you should see, it covers making a screencast of fullscreen, or of a selected window, or of a cursor-selected area (with cursor draw round area of interest), and can include webcam video in the screen capture. Wex can do all of that too, but pause works fine with kazam (but not with wex, except for audio recording only). Also kazam can live stream direct to Youtube channel... It can use several sources for audio, just by selecting them via check box (admittedly, I have it working on system with pulseaudio installed).

Like wex, the most important detail, for me, is that kazam uses H264 or VP8 for its video capture codec, which is considerably better quality and size of recording_file than older programs like xvidcap, which as far as I remember use DIVX codec, so can't match H264 for small recording size or quality. Having said that, I quite like the interface of xvidcap too. Latest Vokoscreen gives you even more control of quality and audio streams and so on, but current download for that is large, whereas kazam is probably no bigger download than xvidcap, perhaps even smaller (depending on dependencies already on your system I suppose...). On my system, everything is GTK+3 so xvidcap is a pain to install unless using mikewalsh's portable app version (since that includes GTK+2 libs required for xvidcap); that portable app does work well though.

Kazam gets out of the way altogether once capturing starts - you control it (pause/stop) via tiny panel icon.

Despite some cons of using my program 'wex' as an alternative, it does provide good quality screencast (and optional auto-animated-gif making via a fredx181 utility it calls up) and has the advantage of just being a simple gtkdialog bash script, so tiny to include, but with the caveat that it needs a reasonably modern ffmpeg, so on Tahr it may well not perform well. However, mikewalsh did indeed create a portable version long time back that included all the bits and pieces needed for wex including a better ffmpeg than older systems came with by default. Wex is included by default in KLV-Airedale at the moment at least, and maybe some DebianDogs, because they already contain modern ffmpeg so wex (and Precord) inclusion costs next to nothing in terms of space needed to include (under 100 KB for the whole lot). Overall though - I'm sold on kazam for my own current needs.

[mikeslr]

T'other Mike's mention that recordmydesktop had been available for older Puppys inspired me to search for it. You'll find a couple of pets we've squirreled away at
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... ges-lucid/
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... es-slacko/. But don't scroll down to the 'R's. Their names begin with the preface 'gtk'.

I don't have a tarhpup set up to test either. To run under tahrpup either may need libraries and symbolic links. Starting via terminal and/or examining their respective binary with ListDD, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 260#p32260 should identify any.

Remember what T'other Mike wrote about tahrpup's use of avconv rather than ffmpeg. recordmydesktop may have the same problem; and respond to the same fix.

While you're fleshing things out, if tahrpup doesn't provide an ffconvert application (or similar) you might also want to hunt for one to convert vids you've created in ogg format to something else. You'll definitely want one if you're using xvidcap which only records to mpeg. You'll find fconvert-1.4.3.pet here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 548#p30548. IIRC, it also will need the ffmpeg to avconv symlink.

[gychang]

@gychang :-

Me, personally, if I had to choose it would probably be recordMyDesktop:-

Mike.

My preference also is recordmydesktop since I have used it successfully in tinycore. I tried both on from PPM but does not work. I prefer non gtk version but no go for me.

sceen.png (46.33 KiB) Viewed 2004 times

[mikeslr]

"No go" doesn't tell us anything useful.
Where did you get the package? tahrpup32's PPM points to the tahrpup repo on ibiblio which doesn't have gtk-recordmydesktop; and to the now closed/archived repos for Ubuntu Trusty Tahr.

What happens if you try to start gtk-recordmy desktop via a terminal command "gtk-recordMyDesktop" or whatever argument follows /usr/share/applications/gtk-recordmydesktop.desktop's Exec= argument?
What, if anything did ListDD report was missing?

And note my comment above that tahrpup may require the avconv to ffmpeg fix MikeWalsh mentioned.

[mikewalsh]

@gychang :-

There's another 'tweak' recordMyDesktop may need.....but it's a more general one, and not Tahrpup-specific.

In /usr/lib, locate the python2.7 directory. This wee trick always fixes it for me.

Click to enter the python2.7 directory. You'll find a directory named "dist-packages". Now whether Puppy is peculiar in this respect, I don't know, but we need to add another directory here.

Create an empty directory, and call it "site-packages". Click to open, and leave this window as it is.

Now open "dist-packages". You want to sym-link everything in "dist-packages" across to "site-packages". Highlight the lot, drag across to "site-packages" and drop the lot. (Just creating the entire directory as a symlink to "dist-packages" doesn't seem to work. Sym-linking the contents, however, does.)

After you've done that, fire it up by typing

Code: Select all

gtk-recordmydesktop

....in a terminal, and hitting 'Enter'. What happens?

If not yet successful, copy'n'paste the output back here, and we'll see what's what. This IS Python, after all; with the entire thing being basically a giant bunch of scripts, you can't trouble-shoot in the normal way. We may need another step yet.

Mike.

[MochiMoppel]

SSR starts fine and I see the red dot icon, BUT cannot save the file and stop the SSR.

Cannot replicate that.
I tested with a pristine Tahr 6.0.5 and 6.0.6, using default settings, and recording works without problems. Did you make any changes to the settings? SSR interface is a bit awkward: has a "Start" button, but no "Stop" button, only "Pause". But that works to stop the recording. Don't know what "Save" is supposed to do as ouput is already saved to the output file that has to be designated in the setup window, so yes, at times "Save" seems to do nothing as there is nothing to save.

Right clicking on the icon or even clicking on save the recording does nothing.

If right clicking on the icon does nothing (no context menu at all?), then where do you click on "save"? Does the grayed-out icon show a context menu?
Check the log file in /root/.ssr/logs directory. It's pretty detailed and should give you a clue what goes wrong in your case.

@mikewalsh SSR does not rely on ffmpeg or avconv, It still works fine even when none of these two are installed. SSR seems to directly access the conversion libraries, e.g. libx264

[wiak]

@mikewalsh SSR does not rely on ffmpeg or avconv, It still works fine even when none of these two are installed. SSR seems to directly access the conversion libraries, e.g. libx264

yes, it is compiled with these libs included. That's how it can 'pause' videos, whereas bash scripted video capture using ffmpeg cannot as far as I know anyway. I do hope someone can show me proof that I am wrong about that since that would be useful information, but an example commandline video capture using ffmpeg, and pause method, is required as a demonstration...

[gychang]

SSR interface is a bit awkward: has a "Start" button, but no "Stop" button, only "Pause". But that works to stop the recording. Don't know what "Save" is supposed to do as ouput is already saved to the output file that has to be designated in the setup window, so yes, at times "Save" seems to do nothing as there is nothing to save.

Right clicking on the icon or even clicking on save the recording does nothing.

If right clicking on the icon does nothing (no context menu at all?), then where do you click on "save"? Does the grayed-out icon show a context menu?
Check the log file in /root/.ssr/logs directory. It's pretty detailed and should give you a clue what goes wrong in your case.

SSR starts fine, with a red icon on the task bar, when I click on pause on the main SSR window, icon on the task bar remains red. There is a file saved on the /root/test-date..., but the file does not play on mpv or vlc. Clicking on Save on the main window does nothing when I click after the pause. Attached /root/.ssr/logs/

Code: Select all

==================== SSR started ====================
SimpleScreenRecorder 0.3.3
Compiled with GCC 4.8.2
Qt: header 4.8.6, lib 4.8.6
libavformat: header 54.20.4, lib 54.20.4
libavcodec: header 54.35.0, lib 54.35.0
libavutil: header 52.3.0, lib 52.3.0
libswscale: header 2.1.1, lib 2.1.1
[CPUFeatures::Detect] CPU features: mmx sse sse2
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Generating source list ...
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found card: [hw:0] HDA Intel
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found device: [hw:0,0] HDA Intel: STAC9200 Analog
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found card: [hw:1] Hi-Res Audio
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found card: [hw:2] pcsp
[PulseAudioInput::GetSourceList] Generating source list ...
[1;31m[PulseAudioConnect] Error: Could not connect! Reason: Connection refused
It is possible that your system doesn't use PulseAudio. Try using the ALSA backend instead.[0m
[PageRecord::StartPage] Starting page ...
[PageRecord::StartPage] Started page.
[PageRecord::StartOutput] Starting output ...
[Muxer::Init] Using format matroska (Matroska).
[Muxer::AddStream] Using codec libx264 (libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10).
[VideoEncoder::PrepareStream] Using pixel format yuv420.
[libx264 @ 0x9b74a40] using SAR=1/1
[libx264 @ 0x9b74a40] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE Cache64
[libx264 @ 0x9b74a40] profile High, level 3.2
[libx264 @ 0x9b74a40] 264 - core 142 r2389 956c8d8 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2014 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=1 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x3 me=dia subme=1 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=1 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=1 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc=crf mbtree=0 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.25 pb_ratio=1.25 aq=1:1.00
[Muxer::AddStream] Using codec libvorbis (libvorbis Vorbis).
[AudioEncoder::PrepareStream] Using sample format f32p.
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread started.
[PageRecord::StartOutput] Started output.
[PageRecord::StartInput] Starting input ...
[X11Input::Init] Using X11 shared memory.
[Synchronizer::SynchronizerThread] Synchronizer thread started.
[Muxer::MuxerThread] Muxer thread started.
[X11Input::InputThread] Input thread started.
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread started.
[1;33m[ALSAInput::Init] Warning: Period size 1024 is not supported, using 940 instead. This is not a problem.[0m
[1;33m[ALSAInput::Init] Warning: Buffer size 8192 is not supported, using 7526 instead. This is not a problem.[0m
[PageRecord::StartInput] Started input.
[ALSAInput::InputThread] Input thread started.
[PageRecord::StopOutput] Stopping output ...
[Synchronizer::~Synchronizer] Stopping synchronizer thread ...
[Synchronizer::SynchronizerThread] Synchronizer thread stopped.
[Muxer::Finish] Finishing encoders ...
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Flushing encoder ...
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread stopped.
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Flushing encoder ...
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread stopped.
[Muxer::MuxerThread] Muxer thread stopped.
[Muxer::~Muxer] Stopping encoders ...
[Muxer::~Muxer] Waiting for muxer thread to stop ...
[BaseEncoder::~BaseEncoder] Stopping encoder thread ...
[BaseEncoder::~BaseEncoder] Stopping encoder thread ...
[PageRecord::StopOutput] Stopped output.
[PageRecord::StopInput] Stopping input ...
[X11Input::~X11Input] Stopping input thread ...
[X11Input::InputThread] Input thread stopped.
[ALSAInput::~ALSAInput] Stopping input thread ...

thanks for all the help from everyone.

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh SSR does not rely on ffmpeg or avconv, It still works fine even when none of these two are installed. SSR seems to directly access the conversion libraries, e.g. libx264

Ah. That's why it can do some of the stuff it does, then. I DID wonder.

Thanks for the info.

Mike.

[gychang]

MochiMoppel: I also tried on my pristine copy of TP32 (before the first save folder is created). SSR does not work, although a test file is created on the /root. Main window pause does not change the icon red color. Here is the ssr logfile.

Code: Select all

==================== SSR started ====================
SimpleScreenRecorder 0.3.3
Compiled with GCC 4.8.2
Qt: header 4.8.6, lib 4.8.6
libavformat: header 54.20.4, lib 54.20.4
libavcodec: header 54.35.0, lib 54.35.0
libavutil: header 52.3.0, lib 52.3.0
libswscale: header 2.1.1, lib 2.1.1
[CPUFeatures::Detect] CPU features: mmx sse sse2
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Generating source list ...
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found card: [hw:0] HDA Intel
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found device: [hw:0,0] HDA Intel: STAC9200 Analog
[ALSAInput::GetSourceList] Found card: [hw:1] pcsp
[PulseAudioInput::GetSourceList] Generating source list ...
[1;31m[PulseAudioConnect] Error: Could not connect! Reason: Connection refused
It is possible that your system doesn't use PulseAudio. Try using the ALSA backend instead.[0m
[PageRecord::StartPage] Starting page ...
[PageRecord::StartPage] Started page.
[PageRecord::StartOutput] Starting output ...
[Muxer::Init] Using format matroska (Matroska).
[Muxer::AddStream] Using codec libx264 (libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10).
[VideoEncoder::PrepareStream] Using pixel format yuv420.
[libx264 @ 0x8ab51c0] using SAR=1/1
[libx264 @ 0x8ab51c0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE Cache64
[libx264 @ 0x8ab51c0] profile High, level 3.2
[libx264 @ 0x8ab51c0] 264 - core 142 r2389 956c8d8 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2014 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=1 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x3 me=dia subme=1 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=1 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=1 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc=crf mbtree=0 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.25 pb_ratio=1.25 aq=1:1.00
[Muxer::AddStream] Using codec libvorbis (libvorbis Vorbis).
[AudioEncoder::PrepareStream] Using sample format f32p.
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread started.
[PageRecord::StartOutput] Started output.
[PageRecord::StartInput] Starting input ...
[X11Input::Init] Using X11 shared memory.
[Synchronizer::SynchronizerThread] Synchronizer thread started.
[X11Input::InputThread] Input thread started.
[Muxer::MuxerThread] Muxer thread started.
[BaseEncoder::EncoderThread] Encoder thread started.
[1;33m[ALSAInput::Init] Warning: Period size 1024 is not supported, using 940 instead. This is not a problem.[0m
[1;33m[ALSAInput::Init] Warning: Buffer size 8192 is not supported, using 7526 instead. This is not a problem.[0m
[PageRecord::StartInput] Started input.
[ALSAInput::InputThread] Input thread started.
[PageRecord::StopOutput] Stopping output ...
[PageRecord::StopOutput] Stopped output.
[PageRecord::StopInput] Stopping input ...
[X11Input::~X11Input] Stopping input thread ...
[X11Input::InputThread] Input thread stopped.
[ALSAInput::~ALSAInput] Stopping input thread ...

[MochiMoppel]

There is a file saved on the /root/test-date..., but the file does not play on mpv or vlc.

Using avprobe in a console window should give some clues. This is what I get for my test.mkv:

Code: Select all

root# avprobe /root/test.mkv 
avprobe version 9.18-6:9.18-0ubuntu0.14.04.1, Copyright (c) 2007-2014 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 16 2015 13:20:58 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
[matroska,webm @ 0x81c10c0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, matroska,webm, from '/root/test.mkv':
  Metadata:
    ENCODER         : Lavf54.20.4
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 1200x1600 [PAR 1:1 DAR 3:4], 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1k tbn, 60 tbc (default)
    Stream #0.1: Audio: vorbis, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)
# avprobe output

At one point I noticed that the button was red though I didn't start a recording and it also happened that the grayed-out button had no context menu (apparently because a little "You haven't yet saved.."dialog window interfered with the button), Things are easier to understand and control when choosing the "Separate file per segment" option. Using the default Ctrl+R keyboard shortcut works well to start and stop a recording but overrides a Ctrl+R shortcut in a currently active application...can be confusing and of course can result in an unintended recording.

Your logfile looks pretty much like mine, so I have no clue why your SSR does what it does. The least I can say is that here the video file plays in VLC and closing the main window or using "Quit" closes SSR.

[BarryK]

There have been GUIs developed for the CLI recordmydesktop (rmd) going right back to 2009 in the old Puppy forum.
gposil created dpuprec in 2009, and Argolance created EasyCast in 2015.

I did some work on EasyCast and created a PET for EasyOS. Blog post with photos:

https://bkhome.org/news/202203/easycast ... rding.html

PET:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/noarc ... st-2.0.pet

...that PET might have some EasyOS-specific things in it, might need some mods for other pups.

It needs ffmpeg and rmd. rmd PET:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64 ... fell64.pet

...compiled with glibc 2.33, so might not work on older pups.

[gychang]

I found how to get SSR working in Tahrpup32. On fresh install SSR is installed but does not work after starting the app. Specifically it locks up when u want to stop or save the recording. FIx for me was rather simple, just install the SSR from the PPM again. It does let you install without any error/warning. After installing it does work properly!