Bug 507486

Summary:	"Failed to export video: Temporary file URL must be an existing local file" is a bad error message
Product:	[Applications] Spectacle	Reporter:	pawel.veselov
Component:	General	Assignee:	Noah Davis <noahadvs>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	info, kde, kdedev, nate, postix
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version First Reported In:	6.4.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485733
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description pawel.veselov 2025-07-25 16:21:19 UTC

SUMMARY

The error "Failed to export video: Temporary file URL must be an existing local file" is rather misleading or at least not helpful. It's probably always just a consequence of failing to initialize decoder, leaving no file produced. Displaying cause messages, or displaying all of relevant errors would be more helpful. At least, saying something like ".... this typically means that the code failed to initialize, see system logs" would be appreciated.


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Have some code problems
2. Try to capture vide
3. See error message

In my particular case, the errors are:

Jul 25 18:06:15 druid spectacle[833773]: Failed to export video: Temporary file URL must be an existing local file
Jul 25 18:06:04 druid spectacle[833773]: kpipewire_record_logging: No encoder could be created
Jul 25 18:06:04 druid spectacle[833773]: kpipewire_record_logging: Could not open codec Invalid argument

Then it goes on about libvpx-vp9 codec initialization errors (that are also unhelpful, but that's beside the point).


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.16.0
Qt Version: 6.8.3
Kernel Version: 6.15.6-100.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 TraceyC 2025-07-30 16:41:23 UTC

This error message could stand to provide more accurate information that lets the user know what action to take to resolve the problem.

Changing from bug to feature request, since this is the current behavior as designed

Comment 2 TraceyC 2025-07-30 16:41:34 UTC

Comment 3 Filip 2025-08-14 13:40:14 UTC

*** Bug 508212 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4 postix 2025-08-16 15:43:11 UTC

This was supposed to be fixed in 6.2.3, apparently it has regressed again!

Comment 5 postix 2025-08-16 15:44:15 UTC

Is this report only about the error message? or about the error? I'd rather like to see the root source fixed. :)

Comment 6 skierpage 2025-08-17 20:34:22 UTC

(In reply to postix from comment #5)
> Is this report only about the error message? or about the error? I'd rather
> like to see the root source fixed. :)

IMO it's only about the confusing error message. There is no one root source. People have reported problems saving in MP4 and now WebM format, problems with KPipeWire/PipeWire, problems with libavcodec, problems saving videos with odd-sized dimensions, etc. First see whether any video formats and capture types work in Spectacle; run spectacle from the command line to see if it prints a relevant error message; also try converting a working video using FFmpeg which Spectacle seems to use on Linux. Then create a new detailed bug report. (In my case, I can't save as .webm in Spectacle or FFmpeg, which suggests an encoder problem "below" Spectacle.)