Video recording not working if killing process or closing window

[mattia-lecci]

• I have read the FAQ.
• I have searched in existing issues.

Environment

• OS: Windows 10
• scrcpy version: 2.0, 2.1
• installation method: windows release
• device model: OnePlus 9
• Android version: 11

Describe the bug

• Running scrcpy -r test.mp4 --verbosity=debug (using v2.1)

C:\Users\User\Downloads>scrcpy -r test.mp4 --verbosity=debug
scrcpy 2.1 <https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy>
DEBUG: ADB device found:
DEBUG:     -->   (usb)              215af537            device  LE2113
DEBUG: Device serial: 215af537
DEBUG: Using server (portable): C:\Program Files\scrcpy\scrcpy-server
C:\Program Files\scrcpy\scrcpy-server: 1 file pushed, 0 skipped. 78.2 MB/s (56955 bytes in 0.001s)
[server] INFO: Device: [OnePlus] OnePlus LE2113 (Android 11)
DEBUG: Server connected
DEBUG: Starting controller thread
INFO: Recording started to mp4 file: test.mp4
DEBUG: Starting receiver thread
[server] DEBUG: Using audio encoder: 'c2.android.opus.encoder'
[server] DEBUG: Using video encoder: 'c2.qti.avc.encoder'
INFO: Renderer: direct3d
DEBUG: Trilinear filtering disabled (not an OpenGL renderer
DEBUG: Using icon (portable): C:\Program Files\scrcpy\icon.png
DEBUG: Demuxer 'video': starting thread
DEBUG: Demuxer 'audio': starting thread
INFO: Texture: 1080x2400
WARN: [FFmpeg] track 1: codec frame size is not set

• If pressing Ctrl+C (Windows), scrcpy terminates correctly and the recorded video works as expected

DEBUG: User requested to quit
DEBUG: quit...
DEBUG: Server disconnected
DEBUG: Server terminated
DEBUG: Demuxer 'audio': end of frames
DEBUG: Receiver stopped
INFO: Recording complete to mp4 file: test.mp4
DEBUG: Recorder thread ended
DEBUG: Demuxer 'video': end of frames

• If killing the process (e.g., taskkill /IM scrcpy.exe /F or closing the cmd window), the video does not work properly. DIfferent behaviors
  • v2.0: the output video is 0 KB. Opening it with VLC yields an error: Your input can't be opened
  • v2.1: the output videos is >0 KB. Opening it with VLC yields no error, but the video has no duration (--:--) and does not play.

[server] DEBUG: Controller stopped
[server] DEBUG: Device message sender stopped
[server] DEBUG: Audio encoder stopped
[server] DEBUG: Screen streaming stopped

Having a graceful stop would be great!
I have no experience in C programming, but maybe there's a way of capturing the sigkill signal and treat it as a user input ctrl+c?

[rom1v]

I have no experience in C programming, but maybe there's a way of capturing the sigkill signal and treat it as a user input ctrl+c?

You can't catch SIGKILL. If you kill, there is no way to stop gracefully (and write the file footer).
Only with other signals like SIGINT (signaled on Ctrl+c).

Do not kill scrcpy violently…

[mattia-lecci]

That makes sense, thank you for the explanation!

I might have found a work-around for those who need this on a Windows system:

• Get the scrcpy process PID
  • To get the PID manually, use tasklist and look for scrcpy.exe. You can also filter the results as follows: tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq scrcpy.exe"
  • To get the PID programmatically you can use the Powershell command Get-Process. You can also filter the results using Get-Process scrcpy and get directly the PID using (Get-Process scrcpy).id
• Using windows-kill, send a SIGINT signal to the desired PID as follows:
  • windows-kill -SIGINT PID
  • Automatically from the Powershell: windows-kill.exe -SIGINT (Get-Process scrcpy).id

I think it could be even easier in linux, where the kill command natively supports which type of signal you want to send to the process, e.g., kill -SIGINT PID, although i have not tested this.

[cktgh]

Thanks for the solution with windows-kill, it worked well 👍

Is there anyway to do the same without using an external executable (windows-kill)?

[cktgh]

In my case I'm launching scrcpy with powershell's Start-Job, that way recording is done in the background without blocking the terminal.

I have yet to find a way of stopping the recording job without corrupting the recording file;
windows-kill actually worked, but it is an extra dependency which I would like to avoid.

I would really appreciate anything, any clues would help, much thanks!

[rom1v]

Note that if you want to record for a fixed amount of time and stop automatically, there is a --time-limit parameter. #4052 #3752

[cktgh]

Thanks for the swift response!
Timer is surely is a nice feature for some cases, but I am attempting to create some kind of "non-blocking handler" in powershell, like:

$handle = scrcpy --async-record    # example non-blocking command
adb shell input tap x y    # send some device control
$recordResult = $handle.stop() 
Write-Host $recordResult.filePath    # etc...

For now I am using wrapper classes to implement something similar to the above

[cktgh]

I found a replacement for windows-kill.exe
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39486647/sending-keys-to-an-open-windows-in-powershell