Black screen captured

[phillie08]

Hello again,
while being at it I might as well report something that happened yesterday to me.
While writing walkthroughs for certain games I have to take some screenshots and never had any problem with any game whatsoever.
Until yesterday that is.
Only today I noticed that every (and I mean every, as in 100%) screenshot has just the right size but no content. Instead they are completely black.
This occurred taking shots while playing in full screen mode. I tried windowed mode and here at least it worked just as usual.
Now I am aware of the fact that this one probably is to blame on the developers of that specific game. But anyhow: Has anybody ever experienced something like that?
And possibly even an idea how to fix it?

I probably will have to settle with windowed mode this time which I hate since the borders and title bar are included.
Or does anybody know how to take shots only of the content of the active window?

Thank you again.

[Gunpower]

I just wanted to open a new Thread on Exactly this issue.

You are right, DirectX driven games result in a black, white, blank screen during capture in real Fullscreen mode. This also happens when you close ScreenshotCaptor and use the printScreen button on you keyboard and paste the screenshot in paint. Playing in windowed mode will result in a normal screenshot, i experienced the same.

Here are my solutions:
- Use the Steam build in Screen capture tool (F12). I think you can run every game in steam mode by using the "add non-steam game" option
- Use the game build in screen capture. Some games bring their own tools for capturing.
- Use "Borderless Window" or "fake Fullscreen" mode to run your games. This mode is like fullscreen but without the window borders an controls. In this mode you can tab out of the game in no time and if you accidentally hit the windows key it will not crash your game and you can very quickly go back to your game. Since i know this mode exist i only use this. For a multi monitor setup its the only option to play your game on another screen than the main screen.

For games that are not supporting this option for borderless window, i recommend 2 programs Fullscreenizer and shift window (for multi monitor setup). For these tools you must set in the game option "windowed" game. After the game has been started you can fullscreen it with the tools i mentioned.
Borderlands can only be fullscreened when you are in the main menu of the game.

[dlroggow]

My issue is not with games, but I installed version 4.8 on my system and each time I try to grab a screen shot, the screen goes all white. I reinstalled 4.7.2 which works fine, then uninstalled 4.7.2, reinstall 4.8 checking the box to remove all elements of any prior installation, and I'm back to a white screen.
I'm running Win 8.1 Pro 64 on an HP Envy Intel box that uses Intel graphics hardware.
For now, I'm back to 4.7.2, which works fine for me.

[mouser]

drroggow,

If it is capturing all blank/white, instead of the screen, it's almost certainly a security program blocking screen capturing.

You just need to have your security program allow Screenshot Captor to capture the screen.

More info:

• http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16024.0
• http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=20962.0
• http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35475.0

I really wish these security programs would stop this asinine default behavior.

[dlroggow]

I checked Webroot and it had SSC 4.8 classified as 'Monitor'. I set it to 'Allow', rebooted and SSC 4.8 captured an image of my desktop. I launched Firefox (26.0) and went to grab a screen shot of the WebRoot window to include in this response and - no joy. The capture was all white. I minimized Firefox and got the same thing. I closed Firefox and opened a bunch of different apps and SSC 4.8 worked with all of them. I fired up IE (11) and got the white screen.
Is there something else I need to change on my system configuration?

Update: In one of your posted links, I saw the browsers mentioned and went into Firefox and disabled the Webroot Add-on. Rebooted, still got the white screen when trying to grab a region (or print screen) when the browser is running.

[cmpm]

Update: In one of your posted links, I saw the browsers mentioned and went into Firefox and disabled the Webroot Add-on. Rebooted, still got the white screen when trying to grab a region (or print screen) when the browser is running.

A good bet would be that whatever that webroot add-on did, it did not reverse changes to the browser by disabling it.
Could try removing the add-on, or telling the main program to leave Firefox alone. And IE too I suppose... I wonder what these security programs do that blocks a screenshot in a browser...

[dlroggow]

Yes, it seems odd (to me) that browser-specific settings for both FF & IE choose to target screen-capture utilities, but I'm sure they (security tool companies) have their reasons.
What I find interesting is that SSC 4.7.2 works just fine with either browser running. I will do some deeper digging and uninstall Webroot and see if that fixes it. Then I'll at least know if that's causing the problem.
Thanks!

[ConstanceJill]

Hey there .o/

Which game(s) are you having problems with?
I know of some where you can't take a screenshot using Windows' clipboard or most third party tools (or if you do they look just weird at best), yet they usually have their own screenshot saving feature.
For example Diablo 1 automatically saves them as screenxy.pcx in the game's folder, while Thief: the Dark Project (without unofficial patches such as DDfix or NewDark) required you to use F10 (or perhaps another configurable key) for it to automatically save pictures as dumpxyz.pcx (again, in the game's folder).

BTW, you may want to give a try to Fraps. Even though it's not free, it is pretty good, to capture both screenshots and videos.

[dlroggow]

It appears I may have used this thread in error. I apologize if that's the case.

I have resolved the issue with capturing a blank screen and it was the Webroot security software. I  uninstalled the Webroot and that made SSC 4.8 work with both browsers.
Reinstalled Webroot and SSC 4.8 continued to work.
Rebooting the machine returned SSC to capturing blank screens.
Prowling around in the low levels of Webroot I found a configuration screen that allowed me to bring SSC in from the cold.
All is now well.
My thought about installing SSC 4.7.2 and having it work is Webroot had not run a scan and so SSC was left alone. If I would run a Webroot scan after installing SSC 4.7.2, I'm mostly sure it would have blocked SSC.

Thanks for pointing me down the right path!

[mouser]

Thank you so much for sticking with it and not giving up on SC and posting your discoveries.

Webroot is really behaving abysmally -- I can only imagine how many people experienced what you did and just gave up.

Really bad show, Webroot 

[mouser]

Prowling around in the low levels of Webroot I found a configuration screen that allowed me to bring SSC in from the cold.

dlroggow, i just had someone email me with same problem you had, in trying to capture from browser.

can you explain what setting you found in webroot that solved the problem for you?

[dlroggow]

When Webroot Secure Anywhere first detects the presence of Screenshot Captor, it will add an entry for it in the 'Active Process' list and another entry in the 'Application Protection' list. Webroot correctly identifies Screenshot Captor as a screen grabbing application and as its default behavior, denies Screenshot Captor access to the screen data, thus resulting in an empty capture frame.

There are at least two ways to set Webroot so that Screenshot Captor operates correctly that I know of. Both methods are located in the Identity Protection section, accessible from the WebRoot main dialog box.


The first method disables the Webroot Identity Shield. This disables all of the protective measures Webroot deploys to try and keep the various nefarious entities from snitching an on-line identity. To use this method, click the 'On' switch next to the Identity Shield label.


It changes to 'Off' and the dialog box color scheme changes from a greenish to a brownish appearance to warn of the reduced protection state.


The second method preserves the full protection of the Identity Shield function, but isolates Screenshot Captor and allows it to operate correctly. To use this method, first, click the settings icon (Gear) next to the Identity Protection label.


[Note: This dialog box provides a second opportunity to disable Identity Shield.]

Click on the Application Protection tab.


In the Application Protection dialog box, Screenshot Captor should now be visible and the protection setting should be Deny.


I'm not smart enough to know the difference between the Protect and Allow options, but I do know that selecting either one of them will enable Screenshot Captor to grab screen data.

There are two other places in Webroot that haven't caused me any problem, but they both have the ability to block Screenshot Captor. The first method is located in the Active Processes dialog box. Access this from the WebRoot main dialog box under Utilities and then System Control.


Under Control Active Processes, click the Start button.


The list of active processes is now displayed and Screenshot Captor should be in this list. Take note of the three states available for Webroot protection to the right of the application name.


Here again, I'm not smart enough to know the difference between Allow and Monitor, but I do know that selecting either one will allow Screenshot Captor to operate correctly. I'm also too dumb to understand the difference between Monitor in this dialog box and Protect in the Application Protection dialog box.

The next place Webroot can affect Screenshot Captor is from the Block/Allow Files dialog box. From the main dialog box, click the settings Gear next to the PC Security label.


Then click the Block/Allow Files tab.


Here, Screenshot Captor should be seen, although I don't recall if Webroot put it here or I added it. So, if it's not here, be happy.


Notice that this dialog box uses the same three protection states as the Control Active Processes. They are in fact, ganged together. If the protection setting is changed here, it will also be changed in Control Active Processes and vice versa.

One last observation regarding the three protection options - If an application is set to Block on the Control Active Processes dialog box, that application is removed form that display. It won't be seen there, so it can't be un-blocked from that dialog box. To un-block a previously blocked application, the Block/Allow Files dialog box must be used.

Are we tired, yet, of all the ways Webroot is "helping" to protect us from Screenshot Captor?.

Not having posted with images, hopefully, the images will be visible.

Feel free to contact me if there any points of clarification I must make.

[mouser]

Awesome, thanks so much!