Poor screen capture frame-rate

[adixy94]

Describe the bug The screen recording by proctoring through the SEB browser has an extremely poor frame rate compared to other browsers.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Start the proctored exam inside SEB
2. Pass the equipment check
3. Answer the questions
4. Submit the exam
5. The screen recording in the proctoring report captured one frame every 5-10 seconds.
6. The webcam and screen recording are missing for the final minute of the exam.
7. When you try the same exam in another browser, everything is captured properly, and the screen recording has a standard frame rate.

Expected behavior The final minute of the screen and webcam recording is stored properly, and the screen recording has a normal frame rate.

Screenshots Compare the recordings below: SEB: https://proctor-test1.youtestme.com/api/report/66a08053-0db0-490a-9755-1aec53959653_10188 Other Browsers: https://proctor-test1.youtestme.com/api/report/098ec041-73fb-4f5c-80cd-90521f112f7a_10182 You can try the exam on the following link; it does not require a login: https://dev2-manager.youtestme.com/qagc142/guest/takeQuiz?sessionId=14467

Version Information Please complete the following information:

• OS: macOs Sequoia 15.4.1
• SEB 3.5, 3.4.1

Additional Context The issue was noticed for many exams conducted on macOS in the last month. Previously, everything worked perfectly. We suspect that something has changed on the macOS side regarding the screen and camera capturing.

SEB Log - org.safeexambrowser.SafeExamBrowser 2025-05-06--13-12-57-277.log

SEB configuration used - YTM_SEB_Settings.zip

[danschlet]

Were the previous tests performed with an earlier SEB version or an earlier macOS version?

Before we can jump to any conclusions we need to know that.

SEB doesn't perform the screen capture, that's WebKit embedded in macOS. So I suspect something changed in the latest macOS version(s).

[danschlet]

I see a lag in both your videos, I don't see any significant difference.

In the log (which is not from a full session, you need to attach all log files from the session, usually they will have the same date and similar time) you can see that SEB is terminating a Chrome process all the time. Try to quit Chrome before starting SEB or add Chrome as prohibited process, so SEB terminates the full browser. Maybe repeatedly terminating that process slows your Mac down.

[adixy94]

Thank you for the response.

Here is the remaining SEB log: org.safeexambrowser.SafeExamBrowser 2025-05-06--13-08-26-010.log

I suspect the issue came with the latest macOS version 15.4+ (released on 31st March). First reports of the issue are from April. It is hard to determine which macOS students used exactly because it is hard to get the SEB logs from them. The SEB user-agent always shows the MacOs 10.15.7.

If you focus on the exam timer in both recordings, you will see that for the exam taken in the SEB, the exam timer updates every ~6 seconds, and with Chrome, you can see the timer update each second.

I will add Chrome to the prohibited process list and retry.

[adixy94]

I tried to prohibit the Google Chrome Helper process, but again, the SEB constantly terminates that process.

The following configuration is included:

 <dict>
        <key>active</key>
        <true />
        <key>currentUser</key>
        <true />
        <key>strongKill</key>
        <false />
        <key>os</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>executable</key>
        <string>Google Chrome Helper</string>
        <key>originalName</key>
        <string />
        <key>description</key>
        <string />
        <key>identifier</key>
        <string />
        <key>user</key>
        <string />
 </dict>
<dict>
        <key>active</key>
        <true />
        <key>allowedExecutables</key>
        <string />
        <key>currentUser</key>
        <false />
        <key>description</key>
        <string>This stops video conferencing and screen sharing, without having to quit the browser.</string>
        <key>executable</key>
        <string>Chromium Helper</string>
        <key>identifier</key>
        <string />
        <key>ignoreInAAC</key>
        <true />
        <key>originalName</key>
        <string />
        <key>os</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>strongKill</key>
        <true />
        <key>user</key>
        <string />
        <key>windowHandlingProcess</key>
        <string />
   </dict>

SEB Config file: ChromeBlocked.zip

[danschlet]

You have to set the active key to false.