Bug 478184 - Spectacle not storing recording in mp4 format
Summary: Spectacle not storing recording in mp4 format
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 485733
Alias: None
Product: Spectacle
Classification: Applications
Component: General (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 23.08.3
Platform: openSUSE Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Noah Davis
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2023-12-06 21:59 UTC by tneo
Modified: 2025-03-07 14:57 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

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Description tneo 2023-12-06 21:59:57 UTC
SUMMARY
Screen recording is only saved when selecting .webm and it is not clear what the requirements for mp4 are to save a file in .mp4 format.


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open spectacle recording tab
2. Set recording to be saved in .mp4
3. Make a screencast and save the file

OBSERVED RESULT
Recording is stopped, banner is shown that screencast is saved and can be opened

EXPECTED RESULT
- The link to the file does not open
- The file does not exist in the save directory as set and not in home


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20231204
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.9
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.112.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11
Kernel Version: 6.6.3-1-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Comment 1 Noah Davis 2023-12-08 10:59:07 UTC
I can't reproduce this in the unreleased 24.02 version. Are you sure you have ffmpeg and libx264 installed? Your distro should have handled that for you. I can't remember how 23.08 behaved, but the upcoming release shouldn't show formats that aren't available.
Comment 2 tneo 2023-12-09 15:11:13 UTC
It is an odd one. Yesterday after your comment I gave it another shot. It recorded and stored the recording in mp4. And today I gave it another shot and again it is not storing the file. I do have the libraries required installed. 

Are there any requirements to length for the recording?
Comment 3 Noah Davis 2023-12-09 19:58:55 UTC
(In reply to tneo from comment #2)
> Are there any requirements to length for the recording?

There are no limits to length besides what your computer can handle.
Comment 4 tneo 2023-12-10 03:12:54 UTC
I just tried it again and it is very weird:
1) Record screen with mp4, no file is being created.
2) Record screen with webm, file is created, all good.
3) Try again with mp4, and now it is recording in mp4 format.
Comment 5 Noah Davis 2023-12-14 14:21:57 UTC
(In reply to tneo from comment #4)
> I just tried it again and it is very weird:
> 1) Record screen with mp4, no file is being created.
> 2) Record screen with webm, file is created, all good.
> 3) Try again with mp4, and now it is recording in mp4 format.

Does this only happen when recording screens and not windows or regions?
Comment 6 tneo 2023-12-14 14:41:42 UTC
I'm closing this. Today it all works as expected and the mp4 is always created. Perhaps something upstream in the openSuse branch was finicky.
Comment 7 Anthony Vital 2024-03-22 13:31:12 UTC
I just ran into this issue and I can consistently reproduce it by recording an area with dimensions not divisible by 2.
Then libx264 throws an error and Spectacle segfaults.
I can get around this problem in CLI ffmpeg by passing -vf "pad=ceil(iw/2)*2:ceil(ih/2)*2" as an argument, maybe it's possible to do so within Spectacle.
Comment 8 tneo 2024-03-22 23:08:17 UTC
Interesting. I have to do some testing as currently I just gave up on MP4 and convert the webm file.
Comment 9 Nate Graham 2025-03-07 14:57:46 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 485733 ***