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Gh0str1d3r
Guru
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 411
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 Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:28 pm Post subject: kde screenshot tool that does not crash my computer |
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Hi all,
I believe that spectacle is the native kde5 tool for taking screenshots. Unfortunately, this program is incredibly unstable. I have a Dell XPS 9350 with a native 4k resolution and in addition another 4k external monitor attached. I guess this configuration is just not supported.
Initially, spectacle worked just fine. But about half a year ago, the rectangular region snapshot stopped working when I used the external screen (it would distort the image in moment when I clicked on "capture" and there was no way to capture the undistorted screen).
With every update it became worse. Now plasma crashes when I just launch spectacle (the task bar disappears as well as the top area of each window where you can close/minimize the window). When I try to take a screenshot in this setting then my entire computer crashes and I can only reboot.
Is there a different and more robust snapshot tool? Alternatively, is there any way I can even trace the bug? I haven't seen any messages in dmesg and in any of the logs in /var/log related to the crash.
Thanks for any tips. |
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asturm
Developer
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 8935
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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I've never seen such issues.
Try with a new user to rule out a local config issue. |
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Gh0str1d3r
Guru
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 411
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks for the quick reply. The same problem exists with a new user. Actually, now the problem appeared when I selected "active window" while "rectangular region" was fine, at least with a single screen (I can't test with the external monitor right now). |
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Fitzcarraldo
Advocate
Joined: 30 Aug 2008
Posts: 2034
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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Have you tried one of the various other screen capture applications, such as Scrot, to see if the problem is unique to Spectacle? You could set up a shortcut to the PrtScr key to capture a full screen, to Alt+PrtScr to capture the active window, and so on.
| Code: | SYNOPSIS
scrot [options] [file]
DESCRIPTION
scrot is a screen capture utility using the imlib2 library to acquire and save images. scrot has a few options,
detailed below. Specify [file] as the filename to save the screenshot to. If [file] is not specified, a date-
stamped file will be dropped in the current directory.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
display help output and exit.
-v, --version
output version information and exit.
-b, --border
When selecting a window, grab wm border too
-c, --count
Display a countdown when used with delay.
-d, --delay NUM
Wait NUM seconds before taking a shot.
-e, --exec APP
Exec APP on the saved image.
-q, --quality NUM
Image quality (1-100) high value means high size, low compression. Default: 75. (Effect differs depending on
file format chosen).
-m, --multidisp
For multiple heads, grab shot from each and join them together.
-s, --select
Interactively select a window or rectangle with the mouse.
-u, --focused
Use the currently focused window.
-t, --thumb NUM
generate thumbnail too. NUM is the percentage of the original size for the thumbnail to be.
-z, --silent
prevent beeping.
SPECIAL STRINGS
Both the --exec and filename parameters can take format specifiers that are expanded by scrot when encountered.
There are two types of format specifier. Characters preceded by a '%' are interpreted by strftime(2). See man strf‐
time for examples. These options may be used to refer to the current date and time. The second kind are internal
to scrot and are prefixed by '$' The following specifiers are recognised:
$f image path/filename (ignored when used in the filename)
$n image name (ignored when used in the filename)
$s image size (bytes) (ignored when used in the filename)
$p image pixel size
$w image width
$h image height
$t image format
$$ prints a literal '$'
\n prints a newline (ignored when used in the filename)
EXAMPLE
scrot '%Y-%m-%d_$wx$h.png' -e 'mv $f ~/shots/'
This would create a file called something like 2000-10-30_2560x1024.png and move it to your shots directory. |
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Clevo W230SS: amd64, VIDEO_CARDS="intel modesetting nvidia".
Compal NBLB2: ~amd64, xf86-video-ati. Dual boot Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
OpenRC udev elogind & KDE on both.
Fitzcarraldo's blog |
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Gh0str1d3r
Guru
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 411
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks, this is a great tip. Scrot is slightly less convenient (e.g., you can't adjust the region after drawing it) but at least it's fast and does not crash.
I'm still curious if there is any way to find out what causes spectacle to crash. I tried to run it in a terminal like | Code: | | spectacle > spectacle.log |
to preserve the output even when I have to reboot the computer. However, the file is empty. |
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Fitzcarraldo
Advocate
Joined: 30 Aug 2008
Posts: 2034
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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Have you looked in the KDE Bug List? There are several recent bug reports for Spectacle, including one relating to 4K displays. Perhaps your problem is one manifestation of one (or more) of those bugs.
_________________
Clevo W230SS: amd64, VIDEO_CARDS="intel modesetting nvidia".
Compal NBLB2: ~amd64, xf86-video-ati. Dual boot Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
OpenRC udev elogind & KDE on both.
Fitzcarraldo's blog |
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Gh0str1d3r
Guru
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 411
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| It's probably related to 385885 or 374009 but I find it hard to confirm without any error messages. That's why I did not file a bug report yet. |
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Hu
Moderator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 21602
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:40 am Post subject: |
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| As an aside, if you are actually getting a computer crash, Spectacle cannot be the root cause of your problem. Spectacle is a user program. No user program, no matter how ill-behaved, can crash the machine without assistance from kernel bugs. Therefore, avoiding Spectacle may provide some relief, but there's no guarantee that other programs will not provoke the same bugs and cause the same system crash. |
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Gh0str1d3r
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Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 411
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| Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:54 am Post subject: |
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| Hu wrote: | | As an aside, if you are actually getting a computer crash, Spectacle cannot be the root cause of your problem. Spectacle is a user program. No user program, no matter how ill-behaved, can crash the machine without assistance from kernel bugs. Therefore, avoiding Spectacle may provide some relief, but there's no guarantee that other programs will not provoke the same bugs and cause the same system crash. |
You are right, but I have been a bit sloppy in my wording. The kernel is still running and I can still ctrl+alt+1 to a primitive terminal. I can also move the mouse pointer. But I can't switch between windows anymore and this makes the computer unusable for any of my work. That's why I reboot (I could also just restart x). |
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